Global Friends of Mine

 Of course, my classmates from school and college and MBA (IIMB), plenty of them are abroad- Kamalesh, Adithya, Seshu, Jayan, Lurdumar, Srinivas, Avadhanulu, Banny, Kishore, Ramu, Vicky and so on..

Childhood friend Kiran Kenjale, and a few others in various places around the world.

Alumni - Nidhi (from Indore originally), Tanya, Anchal, Anuj, Meghana (Joshi), Tanaya Kar, Pooja Daniel, Anu Bhoopathy, Vidya TC, Swapna, Smita (named after Smita Patil by her Dad), Sanjeev Undri, and lots more, I am sure- 

Relatives starting from my cousins, brother, Nieces and nephews large in number.

Also, friends I made in conferences - like Samudrika from Sri Lanka, Yapin from China, Natalija from Lithuania, Tim Lee from Korea, and so on..

Of course, there are NRI friends like Anil and Suresh who were flat-mates in USA, and 

Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas

 Pals from various places. An attempt at a comprehensive classification of my pals, geographically.

Australia- Pooja Daniel, Sanjeev Undri

Dubai- Smita Mohan

China- Yapin

Sri Lanka- Samudrika

USA- Nidhi Kanungo, Annie, Samren, Leslie, Ron and family, Dr. Soni, and Athena, Kamalesh Nayudu, Avadhanulu, Seshu, Nandakumar (Junior), Jockey, Zoom, 

New Zealand- Chasha and Ruab, Gurvinder Singh

Canada- Vaseem, Tanya Shrivastava, Radhax, 

Finland- Anusha, Bhawana Moondra

UK- Senior (Nandakumar), Shuchi Bhatnagar

Hyderabad- Jogi, Venu, Nagarjuna, Nagu, Ramesh, Basudev and lots more, Pratima of Satara fame. HPS classmates galore, including Dattu, Krishna, Praveen (part-time resident).. Aditi Gupta ( lived in South Carolina too)

Lithuania- Natalija

Delhi- Shruti, Aditya, Nikita, Shweta, Sunil Kataria, Harish Chaudhry, Himanshu, Harish Arora, Pradeep Acharya, Kanika Mhendiratta, Padmapriya

Jaipur- Achint, Garima Shah

Bhubaneswar- Ramana, Banikanta Mishra, 

Lucknow- Bhuvneet, Anam, BK Mohanty

Mumbai- Bhagyalakshmi, Sheetal Garg, Abha, Meghana Joshi, Meghna Sinha, Pallavi Sharma

(Originally from) M.P. -Tosha Dubey, Anusha Soni, Pooja Shukla, Manuja Seth, lots in IIM Indore

Bangalore- Bharath, Nagendra, Shailaja Gupta, Anushka Mishra, Savitha, lots of IIMB classmates- Prabhakar, Himanshu, Ramesh, Lingu, Sid-Shubha,.. SP Kumar, Manasa, Sowmyashree, Rajiv Krishnan, Ram Seshu, Muthu

Chennai- Vijayakumar, Lady Daga (Bhawana)

 

Successful Branding

 Branding involves Product + Image in case of physical products. Or, Service Experience + Image in case of service brands. The intangible part is mostly in the image, creating which usually takes a long time, and involves word-of-mouth plus imagery created through associations, communication etc. The tangible part can often be copied.

Some Indian brands that have done very well over the years include-

Amul

Asian Paints

Fevicol

D Mart

Flipkart

Coffee Day

Good Knight, Ujala, Krack, Moov

International Brands or Global Brands (people) include- 

Parasuraman of Services Marketing fame, CK Prahalad of BoP (Bottom of the Pyramid) fame, Raghuram Rajan of Chicago, Indra Nooyi of Pepsi, etc. 

Professors can brand themselves by publishing, consulting or writing books, apart from teaching well or uniquely. I can remember some from IIMB and Clemson (Cantrell, McNichols, Stahl) who were unique, after many years.

Students can excel in class, or in extra-curriculars. My suggestion is that you also do something unique, or much better than anyone, like blog, take photos, make films, play online games or create some, write cases or research papers.

A word about image of some politicians- 

Putin, Xi, Kim of North Korea, and the first Prime Minister of Singapore- Lee Kuan Yew. What's the word that comes to your mind when you think about each one? That's called Association, and can be a good test in reverse, as in "What's the brand that comes to mind first when given a word, say a 'crunchy treat?' "

And a word about Brand Value. There are many ways to estimate this, and for listed companies, one formula is Market Cap-Book Value. This measures the contribution of perceptions about the intangible value that can be attributed to the "Brand" that the corporation represents.

Marketing research can show you the health of a brand through Tracking studies done regularly. Unaided recall, Aided recall, loyalty, and perceptions against competing brands are some of the brand-related research studies done by many brands.

Bonus- Adding some Social Media Use Pointers (for better branding) from various sources- Guy Kawasaki is one.

1. Do more rather than less. Many reasons- it's an ocean, you are likely to get lost in it. Of course, this assumes you are sharing sense and not nonsense (from your followers' point of view, before you ask).

2. Be bold, and take positions. This establishes your credibility (assuming you want it).

3. Choose a good picture of yours for the Media, and stick to it for a while. If you don't have a good picture, God help you. Also, be visual, in general.

4. Don't use bad words. Bad words are bad on any medium. Learn to do without them, unless you are a teen trying to be cool. (Everything is pardoned THEN)

5. It's impossible to generate loads of new content regularly. Use curated stuff mixed with original content. Cite the source, where applicable.

6. Provide information, analysis, help or entertainment. They work better than other content, particularly if you are trying to build a large or regular following. How to Videos on Youtube are one example.

Adventures of a Couple

 I am one half of that couple, and we have been at it for 33 years now. Well, adventurous life has meant travel, living in two continents, six states in India, and of course, raising two kids in this roundabout tour of Bharat. The best part is, it's not over yet, so we don't know how many more adventures are in store-at least till we are immobilised by old age. Till then, we are like a combo of Sindbad the Sailor and Baron Von Munchausen with a bit of our own masti thrown in. Maybe a bit of Don Quixote too, since my wife has visited his hometown-must have rubbed off.

Along the way, we made lots of friends. These number in the thousands, since both of us have taught a few hundred kids at different times and of different age groups. Some are globally spread out, and we will attend a Zoom wedding of one such in a couple of days-they are marrying in Finland.

A pictorial representation of some good moments from this journey.

Ha Long Bay, above. Grand Tetons near Yellowstone, below, with my Dad.

Arizona, and NY, my cousin's house.

Kondajji, Harihar, above and Nagpur, below.

Maheshwar on the Narmada, above, and Khandagiri, Orissa, below.

NY, and Las Vegas.

Negombo, Sri Lanka above, and Jaisalmer, below.

Padukone (town), above and Coral Island, Pattaya, below.. the kid has grown up.

At the start- 1988. My parents and hers.

The cake we had on the occasion...ok, two cakes we had. 

AHTMM 2018 Conference Pics

Conferences are wonderful networking opportunities with global audiences. Proved yet again. I presented a paper co-authored with Aradhya Vats, my student, on Positioning of Travel Brands.. some pics of the Conference in Bangkok, last week. The organiser is from the U.S.

A part of the gathering at the welcome dinner (above). Below, another session in progress.

I introduced myself with this pic from IIM Indore with some champions of the last batch (above).. and below, with a Nigerian (US Based), and a global Indian (Australia-based).

One pic of the presenters of a traditional Thai dance.and another of a fan of Amir Khan films from Turkey..

Trending- Bad Behaviour

Why is it that bad behaviour is so rampant? The video of a passenger being manhandled (still not sure why, as reports are incomplete as usual)  by airline staff in Delhi are disturbing. Usually such treatment is reserved for potential hijackers inside an aircraft (or drunk brawlers in a pub). Or is it an attempt to catch up with global benchmarks? -United staff physically dragged a passenger out of an overbooked flight recently.

Is excessive competition to be blamed? Or policies of the employer as implemented by some line managers that create stress? Or just individuals acting out of line on their own? Luckily, we still don't have gunmen shooting and killing at random, but if we had lax gun laws like the U.S., I am sure we would cross their benchmarks in this arena too.

Do humans need to be taught to respect fellow human beings? Is this what they call Kaliyug? No idea at all, but something is seriously wrong somewhere. On a bigger scale, War being threatened by a superpower over trivial things is the new normal, it looks like.

IIM Indore-NASMEI Marketing Conference 2017

One of the most successful conferences we organised when I was with IMT was  the Case conference at Goa's International Centre. Looks like the IIM Indore Marketing Conference on July 28th and 29th with NASMEI and UT Austin is all set to surpass that one. We have 300 plus papers on a variety of marketing topics, and top academicians from leading management institutes are participating either as presenters or invited speakers, making it one of the biggest marketing events in India. In addition, we have a few global stalwarts like Raji Srinivasan, Manoj Agarwal, and Phil Zerillo who will grace the occasion. Industry is also well-represented, with people like Shiv Kumar from Pepsi and Rama Bijapurkar, consultant, speaking at the event.

My young colleague Abhishek Mishra and his able conference manager Veenus, aided by a team of FPM students and staff, are the reason for the success.

Next week is going to be a power-packed and interesting one. Looking forward to it.

Books That Need to Be Written

This is inspired by a book review of a book titled "Let's Be Less Stupid" that I chanced upon somewhere. There are lots of books that should be written, and I am not sure they have been. So here's a call to writers if they are inspired by the suggestions-

1. Colonial Powers Say Sorry for Terrorising Half the World
2. Tolerance? What is That? When was it Ever There?
3. A Guide to Ethnic Riots, Worldwide. 2015th edition
4. Awards-A Who's Who and Why's That and What's What
5. If Russia does it, It's Wrong..
6. Bihar - A State Gone Wrong After Nalanda
7. Maharashtra, ditto after the Cows came Home
8. Telangana, ditto, after KCR/NTR/ANR/IT Boom
9.  Bangalore, a history-from Narayanamurthy to Sikka (film rights titled Khotey Sikkey)
10. IIM A, B, C, ..X, Y, Z. Particularly, Y?
11. All the Answers to Malala's Question- If you can spend on Guns, why not on Books?

Global Fashion

A quick sum-up of the fashionable things.

In Syria, it is to migrate to Europe by boat, or bicycle.

In the U.S., it is to shoot at campuses. To find a higher purpose in life, shoot inside places of higher education.

In the Mediterranean, it is to resue the boat people mentioned above.

In Australia, it is changing Prime Ministers.

In India, it is to hold election rallies, build speed-breakers on potholed roads.

In Dubai, it is to boast about and construct tall buildings.

In Japan, it is to bow.

In North Korea, it is to make cutouts of their Leader to upstage Jayalalitha's.

In South Korea, it is to barbeque anything in sight.

Simple Cures for Global Slowdown

My top five cures for the global slowdown.

1. Lock up all economists. Who will then tell you whether there is a slow-down or a fast-up?

2. Ban news on the GDP, economy, exports, budgets etc. from all neswpapers, TV and online media. If individuals (like birds) twitter about anything else, let them.

3. IPL matches should be on 365 days a year. In any case, they are on for two months. What's another ten? This can provide global employment to out-of-work cricketers, and the unemployed audience can spend time watching the matches. Talk about killing many birds with one stone. PETA, please excuse the metaphor.

4. Extend the concept of IPL to other games, for backward nations that don't know how to waste time!

5. Make David Dhawan and Sajid Khan films compulsory viewing in India. This will tremendously boost the GHP or Gross Happiness Index (which, unlike the GDP, will be measured). This will be due to people laughing at intended and unintended jokes.

Hope in Times of Gloom

Indian stock market indices like the Sensex are doing cartwheels of joy, after hearing about the reforms that were announced over the last week. This is actually like an Oktoberfest of our own.

It is without a doubt because of the 1991 reforms that we are a strong country today. But for them, we would have been in the depths of despair, and probably hungry, disintegrated and disoriented. The ability to market these and more would probably see our economy grow at a fair clip in the next two decades.

With gloom pervading the European and American markets, this is our chance to show the world that we can lead it for a change. Let's do it!

IMT's International Ties

It is almost a fashion to tie up with international institutes or universities these days. Amid all the madness, IMT Ghaziabad stands apart for its serious attempt to get on to the global stage.

We have close to 80 MoUs signed with various international business schools, of which many are active and ready to explore initiatives beyond student exchange, important though that is.  Around 80 students  participate in our 2-way exchanges every year. I have met three teams from international universities in the past week alone, who are potential partners. And we are talking joint research and other ways of partnering.

Very interesting indeed, and lots of possibilities, going ahead. We have also applied for accreditation from AACSB, considered the best in the world, and are working  towards a new and revamped curriculum and modes of delivery/pedagogy. We already have a dual country MBA along with IMT Dubai.