Showing posts with label IIPM Ranking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IIPM Ranking. Show all posts

Friday, October 05, 2012

A Case Against Cloud Computing!

Cloud Computing has been Hyped Ever since its Evolution by Amazon. But Inherent Contradictions in the Concept Threaten its Potential as the next big thing in The IT Services Space.

The sky has been overcast in the global technology world for quite some time now, as cloud computing has been persistently hailed by technology analysts as the next big thing to hit the global IT space, almost like the new normal. The scalability and elasticity of the concept is expected to drive massive adoption. Pioneered by Amazon with modernized data centres during the dot com bubble in the US, cloud computing was quickly sensed as an opportunity as it reduced tremendous cost; and ergo, Amazon came up with the Amazon Web Service (AWS) in 2006 with a utility computing base. Cloud computing in generic terms is based on the Internet, whereby software, services and information is provided on demand and pay per use basis. In general, the user does not own the physical infrastructure and rents it from a third party.

In early 2008, Eucalyptus became the first open source AWS API compatible platform for deploying private clouds. Technology research firm Gartner expects global cloud services revenues to touch $68.3 billion in 2010, a growth of 16.6% yoy. Steve Ballmer of Microsoft has gone on record to say cloud is the future for Microsoft. Similar expectations are being raised even from the folks in India. The Indian IT industry – cloud computing supporters tells us – is aggressively looking to tap into the trend and unleashing plans for fast paced growth. All major players are apparently modelling their service deliveries on the cloud. The current local market is estimated to be worth $110 million and the industry is quite optimistic to reach the levels $1.08 billion by 2015, with SAAS (Software as a Service) contributing $650 million, PAAS (Platform as a Service) and IAAS (Infrastructure as a Service) cumulatively contributing $434 million.
On the surface, it seems that cloud computing is all set to steamroll the data centre industry and make legacy systems obsolete. Scratch the surface, and the hype comes off immediately. The cloud, apparently, has some unresolved holes and the challenges seem to be much bigger than perceived expectations in India. The biggest hurdle for the cloud market to develop is the low bandwidth in India (infrastructure, here too!). Cloud requires a regular high speed internet connection and the average internet speed in India is 772 kbps compared to a global average speed of 1.5 mbps; India, for records, is ranked at the 115th position in the world in the 2009 Akami Technology’s report. The ongoing 3G auction would have been seen as a ray of hope, but the players would still require at least 10 years to be able to make a pan India presence.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Monday, September 10, 2012

“Our strategy is to achieve sustainable high quality growth”

In a tête-à-tête with B&E’s Mona Mehta, P. R. Somasundaram, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) speaks about the growing importance of retail banking in the Country and the bank’s expansion plans to exploit the opportunities coming its way.

B&E: Lakshmi Vilas Bank outperformed all other South Indian banks in financial year 2009-10 by posting 52.71% growth in operating profit. What are your expectations from the current fiscal?
P. R. Somasundaram (PRS): In FY2010-11, LVB is planning to increase its total business (deposits and advances) by over 30%. And the bank is moving ahead strongly to achieve the objective. It has posted a strong 66% growth to increase its operating profit to Rs.537.30 million. In fact, we expect the current financial year to be significantly better than the last one (in terms of multiple parameters) as we are now leveraging the macro environmental opportunities available through internal transformational steps.

B&E: You just said that the bank is eyeing for a 30% growth in overall business this year. How are you planning to achieve the same?
PRS: Last year, while our deposits grew by 23.28%, advances increased by 19.88%. For us, the key is to achieve an absolute growth, and establish a sustainable trend, which will lay a platform for accelerated growth in future. Growth driven by process changes rather than purely opportunistic steps will determine our strategy.

B&E: You currently enjoy a high net interest margin (NIM) of 3.66%. But with deposit rates heading north under inflationary pressure, how are you planning to maintain the same?
PRS: This is a common challenge for all the banks. But our relationships are strong in the key markets allowing us to pass on the higher cost. Besides, our recent success in CASA (Current Account, Savings Account) build up has helped us to protect our margins. We are also looking forward to widen our funding sources by targeting new markets with shorter response times, and providing personalised services.

B&E: At 3.31% of net advances, Non Performing Assets (NPAs) are weighing high on LVB’s balance sheet. How are you planning to deal with the menace?
PRS: We have been working on it constantly. If you go through our Q1 results, as on June 30, LVB has managed to reduce both its gross and net NPAs to 4.27% and 3.31% respectively from 5.12% and 4.11% as on March 31, 2010. Our target is to bring down the net NPA level to below 1% within the next 18 months and we are on the right track. We are working on process changes and credit monitoring to improve our credit quality. Also, our credit monitoring and recovery efforts had been very reactive in the past, but we are now keen to make it highly pro-active.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Saturday, September 08, 2012

Aniruddha Bahal’s The Emissary is a rocking chariot ride

Whether narrating the exhilarating chariot races in Olympia or vividly describing Alexander’s encounter with the Persian army on the banks of the Granicus, the story has the intrigue and action going thanks to Bahal’s keen eye and breezy pace.

And finally, the Indian connection in the book – Alexander’s famed marched into the country – would be sure to have the Indian reader hooked. Bahal’s take is interesting as he highlights how Alexander did not exactly fail in his mission in India. The Emissary is a great mosaic of all the basic human emotions seen through the epic lens of Greek history. His research and background (acquired after that remark from Sir Naipaul) make the read light for the reader but that doesn’t mean writing the novel was an easy task.

When asked if writing a contemporary or a historical novel is harder, Bahal says, “Well, it ultimately depends on what the context and period is. The Emissary took a lot of research about that period that finally resulted in the writing of the book. A contemporary novel like Bunker13 on the other hand perhaps comes easier as the writer would be familiar with some of the milieu at least. He might even draw some of the characters from personal experience. For a novel set in a different era you don’t have those advantages.” But despite all of that, Bahal’s latest work is commendable, if only because of him being an Indian writer to have a go at this genre of writing with such gusto. In fact, a sequel is in the works. And if you acquire the taste for the historical after finishing The Emissary, you’d probably keenly wait for it.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Dynamics of this business

All lost some, some lost all. Everybody evolved (Hopefully). Change in the air now, with new strategies being adopted by retailers to enable them to better manage the dynamics of this business. But can this misery-inspired ingenuity help organised indian retail produce the numbers that have eluded it so far

According to FICCI, there are approximately 200 malls in Delhi and NCR region and out of that, only 20 are profitable. So what makes the other 90% of the malls struggle to make profits? Retailers Association of India (RAI) claims the four major problems are poor site selection, vertical expansion, commercialization issues and lack of professional advice. Vertical expansion relates to vacant malls with multiple floors and a certain recipe for disaster is to have a shopping centre in a poor site (very few stores and not many footfalls) with a large number of floors. When Bharti-Wal-Mart decided to open its first cash-and-carry joint venture store last year in Amritsar, it avoided opening in a time-honoured malls with multiple floors.

The impact of poor commercialization can be understood from the fact that apparel retailing, which forms the second largest (food being the first) in terms of value in the retail industry, has been growing at 14% till August 2010; whereas it was estimated to grow at 19% if there was no slowdown (a Confederation of Indian Textile Industry study). Poor commercialization in terms of over-spending on ad-budgets is blamed as the reason for such poor growth. Comparatively, food retailers played it safe and brands like Bhart-Wal-Mart managed commercialization issues very well. Rajneesh Bhasin, present MD of Borges India Private Ltd., who was spearheading the setting up of the Bharti-Walmart store, elaborates to B&E, “The store was opened when slowdown was at its helm and we knew that we have to commercialize it. For instance, to keep costs down, 80% of goods were sourced locally.”

To combat poor conversion ratio of investment to revenues, it’s necessary to hedge the increasing working capital requirement and this can be done by managing not only rental costs, but also by sourcing goods from local vendors and saving cost of logistics. It’s no wonder that retailers are today even opening stores on a revenue sharing basis with property owners, which lowers down rental expenses. However, going a step ahead, Pantaloon from Kishore Biyani’s stable has adopted a deft-strategy in post slowdown era. The group has saved costs by not filling the gap created by attrition on the front end. On the other hand, for all the private label brands, the group has created a common sourcing level for Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar and Pantaloon. “We are also leveraging a common platform for advertising all our ventures and this has been able to save our costs by 20% during the last quarter,” adds Vineet Jain, GM – Sales & Merchandising (North Zone), Future Value Retail. Future Group is now focusing more on private labels for their higher margins and increasing appeal for customers.

In all probabilities, private labels or in-house brands with their economical pricing attract consumers more and all food & grocery retailers, who were earlier cashing in on established brands, are apparently going gung ho on creating private labels post-recession. But if private labels can emerge as a remedy to the horrible growth during slowdown then why didn’t it save retailers in Europe who have been thriving on private labels? According to Planet Retail (London-based research consulting firm), the share of private labels is the highest in Europe, where private label penetration has reached 53% in Switzerland, but retailers in these countries were also affected by recession. “Retailers in European countries failed during the slowdown because of their failure to manage local logistics and increasing cost of sourcing,” comments Gibson G Vedamani, Founder & MD, Retailers Association of India. One reason why, post the economic meltdown, just moving on to ‘private labels’ is not the end of the strategy win game. Retailers across the world are also focussing on cost optimization in sourcing such private labels.

So does that mean that in the next five years, we won’t see a luxury retail growth or even normal retail expansion in metros (where the markets, apparently, are saturated)? Jeremy Hackett – the creator of British premium brand Hackett, which recently ventured in India, gives us a shocker, “I think India has a market for luxury but it’s in a very nascent stage so it’s not safe to bet big here initially.” But that is also akin to seeing the glass half empty instead of half full. That is, if the organized retail penetration, which is currently at 5%, will only reach only around 10.4% in India (as per the critical KPMG forecasts), one has to realise that seen in the Indian context, 10.4% is quite significant. If by the same critical forecast, sales grew by a mere 8% in 2009 till July 2010 (compared to 34% in 2007), one has to again realise that compared to global averages of negative retail growth, 8% is godly. In other words, while luxury retail clearly is out of context in the coming years, normal retail expansion in metros might be there, but the growth will be two-folds in tier II and tier III cities and even rural areas. Those are the regions that will contribute significantly to make India the most attractive emerging market for retail investment – with the AT Kearney eighth annual Global Retail Development Index being a benchmark India would one day hope to top. The key words, if you missed them, are ‘one day’... and that is surely not today!

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Monday, September 03, 2012

HOUSES IN ASIA...BUT NOT THE BIGGEST YET!

UTV IS NOW ONE OF THE LARGEST PRODUCTION HOUSES IN ASIA...BUT NOT THE BIGGEST YET! CAN RONNIE SCREWVALA AND HIS TEAM MAKE UTV THE FACE OF INDIA TO THE MEDIA WORLD? B&E’S SHEPHALI BHATT PROVIDES A DEEP INVESTIGATION FROM RIGHT INSIDE UTV WITH EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS FROM UTV’S TOP MANAGEMENT

While Ronnie was in the media business purely due to his passion for working in the industry, Chandra had a completely different agenda; he was a thorough-cut businessman looking for profits (“I wanted to see a business opportunity ahead of its time and back it up passionately,” Chandra shared with B&E). So while Chandra followed up each and every innovative business idea with investments into a wide array of businesses to form a behemoth group (that today has interests in the realm of media, technology, entertainment, infrastructure, education, cricket and precious metals; Essel is even the world’s largest packaging company today), Ronnie was trying to convince others (like Chandra’s competitor Murdoch and Warberg Pincus) to invest into UTV – Star TV’s investment in UTV became the first ever foreign investment in media in India’s corporate history. Over time, Ronnie bought Vijay TV, sold it off again to Murdoch, then started Hungama, sold even that to Disney, and somewhere along the line, crossed over from being a ‘media professional’ to being a passionate businessman – just like Chandra. Ergo, today, though their business histories have inevitably diverged, comparisons have as inevitably come together. Subhash Chandra started it all, attempting to make India the face of Asia to the global media world. Ronnie seems to have taken up the initiative from a parallel end. But can Ronnie go the whole hog and finish what Subhash Chandra started? That’s the cutting edge question facing the media world today.

While Chandra’s ascent was largely credited to satellite TV, Screwvala’s most unputdownable claim to media glory is obviously movie production, marketing and distribution, wherein his company now is remarkably the largest production studio in South Asia, having produced widely acclaimed movies like Jodha Akbar, Rang De Basanti, Rajneeti, DevD, A Wednesday, Wake Up Sid and Kameeney. UTV has gone a step further to become the first Indian production house to co-produce a Hollywood movie with 20th Century Fox – M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening (which grossed $170 million at the global box office). It co-produced two Hollywood movies with Fox Searchlight in 2007 – The Namesake directed by Mira Nair and I Think I Love My Wife directed by Chris Rock. The company also managed notable co-production agreements with Sony Pictures Entertainment and actor Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment. In addition to that, Walt Disney has been an integral investor in UTV and holds more than 50% of its shares.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri's Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year
IIPM's Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM B-School Facebook Page
IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
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Saturday, September 01, 2012

Why isn’t India banning National Geographic?

In Jan 2010, NatGeo was warned by the I&B ministry for deliberately exhibiting wrong maps of India and was threatened with stringent action if non-compliance was continued. Let off then, NatGeo continues its misrepresentation! What does the government plan to do now?

If the government is so serious about ensuring that the national viewpoint of Indian geography does not get distorted, then the government should immediately enforce the maximal allowable punishment on the entities that continue to knowingly publicise clearly illegal maps and images representing flawed Indian boundaries. The NatGeo example is just one part of the story; CNN, BBC, Lonely Planet, CIA, US State Department and Wikipedia make up the other ignominious bunch that have no qualms about distorting Indian boundaries in maps that are freely available in India.

If the government is really serious about putting an end to this long continuing issue, we say ban the perpetrators and take the maximum allowable action for such clear and deliberate misrepresentation. The Indian government doesn’t need to look far to understand which Indian act these agencies are violating. Well, that’s India’s Independence Act, passed on July 1, 1947, that defined the sovereign and indisputable boundaries of India!

Yes, India has had wars with Pakistan and China. And yes, we have won some and lost some, in the matter of speaking. Irrespective of that, India has never forsaken its sovereign – and one should mention perfectly legitimate – rights over territories that are illegally occupied by Pakistan and China. Ironically, the Pakistani Constitution even today doesn’t recognize the PoK as part of Pakistan while India symbolically has 25 assembly seats reserved in the J&K assembly representing PoK legislators. Expectably, these 25 seats have remained vacant for a long time. And with respect to our border dispute with China, even in 1954 when the then Indian Prime Minister Nehru clarified the distinct Indian border to China, the then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai had emphatically stated that China had no claims over Indian controlled territory (although official Chinese maps even at that time showed 120,000 square kilometres of Indian territory as Chinese; later China claimed even the Aksai Chin range post the 1962 Sino-Indo war).

In other words, as per law, no map representing India should show the Indian boundaries any different from what is represented by the official Indian government map through the Survey of India (which shows the complete north-east areas and the state of J&K as parts of India, resulting in India even sharing a border with Afghanistan, at least on paper).

Apparently those rules don’t apply to NatGeo, even post the strictest of warnings by the Indian government. In January 2010, after NatGeo had aired a wrong Indian map in a programme covering population density of rhinos, the I&B Ministry passed an official covenant mentioning, “National Geographic Channel has violated Rule 6 (1)(h) of the Programme Code. Strict compliance to this direction has to be ensured by the National Geographic Channel. Any further violation may entail stringent action.” The July 2010 issue of National Geographic, in a story titled Pakistan’s Heartland Under Threat carries a map of India that clearly misrepresents Indian boundaries. The August 2010 National Geographic issue repeats the mistake, this time in a story called Grassland Kingdom, covering the Kaziranga National Park (see maps, previous page). Both these issues are being freely sold within Indian boundaries.


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Friday, August 31, 2012

“Becoming a Fortune 500 company will take time”

He joined the company in 2001 when it was poised for the typical big leap. Today, PVR Cinemas is one of the largest cinema chains in India, yet not the largest. Nitin Sood, CFO, PVR Cinemas tells B&E, what it took to reach here and what it would be like ten years later by Amir Moin

When it started in 1997 as a joint venture between the Bijli brothers’ Priya Exhibitors Private Ltd and Wachowski brothers’ Village Roadshow Limited, the intent was clearly to be one of India’s largest cinema chains. Though achievements have come a dozen, so have the hits, literally speaking. After incurring a net loss of `12.62 crores an year ago, the giant is back on track with net profits of `5.56 crores for the quarter ending June 30, 2010. Nitin Sood, the financial whiz behind PVR Cinemas, shares his future agenda in this exclusive interaction with B&E :

B&E: Your performance this quarter has been quite well as compared to the same quarter last year. What are your projections for the next quarter?
Nitin Sood (NS): I wouldn’t be able to talk specific numbers but I think from our exhibition business, we should be able to do a topline of `400 crores. As we add on more screens, the numbers would probably increase. Hopefully, we’ll stabilise between 18-20% operating margins, which again would be a very good recovery from where we ended up last year.

B&E: According to Ajay Bijli, PVR’s PAT will go up to 10-12% from the current 5-5.5%. How do you think this is going to happen?
NS: Right now, our business model is such that we incur a lot of cost on the infrastructure. Again, the real cost is also due to the screens that we are periodically adding. These costs are driving down our bottom lines. Some of the new screens that are opening take anywhere between 6, 8 or even 12 months to stabilise in operations, depending upon the location. As the cost gets fractionalised over a larger number of properties, the operating margins would start looking much better. Secondly, we are also considering the sale and lease-back of the real estate that we own because honestly, we are not in the business of owning real estate. So that will further improve the margins.

B&E: What is the concept of PVR film cities?
NS: The concept of entertainment city is that we’ll be doing an integrated retail entertainment format. We are trying to partner with mall developers and where they give a portion of the mall to us and we come up with a full fledged entertainment complex. We are planning to come up with a bowling alley, ice skating ring, food court and a large multiplex.

B&E: Don’t you think that in these ‘entertainment cities’, there already is and would further be a lot of saturation? So what are your expectations in terms of ROI?
NS: I think it’s quiet the opposite because the number of visitations will increase by more than two times as the amount of footfalls that you attract to such a place would be more than the crowd that you would attract when you are running a stand alone multiplex. If we take the example of Ambience mall in Gurgaon, we have our own food court, multiplex and bowling alley. Our learning from our Ambience mall experience is that if you give consumers a bouquet of offerings, then the number of consumers who come to that place is much more than what would normally turn up at a standalone recreational outlet. In fact, a majority of the people coming there don’t just watch a movie but also go for bowling and lunch. Right now, we are coming up with only one entertainment city in Noida in association with Logix Park. But in the future, we definitely have plans to come up with more such entertainment cities. 




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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Is this India’s growth story?

Despite the obvious rationale going against it, steel and cement players in India have had a markedly subdued first quarter. Virat Bahri of B&E analyses the dynamics behind the numbers

India’s much-touted infrastructure surge makes it a market extremely hard to miss for steel and cement players. Yet, the Q1 results for both these sectors would make one wonder if this potential is actually what it is made out to be. B&E analyses the results closely for a more objective view.

In fact, steel majors have had a spectacular run since January 2009 till the end of the last fiscal. But Q1 has been an anomaly. SAIL posted net profit of `11.76 billion, a drop of 11.56% y-o-y. Consolidated net profit of Jindal Steel & Power Ltd. (JSPL) was down by 3% y-o-y for the quarter while sales of steel products were down by 4%. Bhushan Steel saw a decline of volumes by 14.4% to 309,333 tonnes. JSW Steel managed to improve its turnover and net sales by 21% and 19% respectively due to improved sales mix, but semis were down by 66%. Tata Steel, however, was an exception as it posted profits of `18.25 billion over a loss of `22.09 billion for Q1, FY 2009-10. In Tata’s case, revival in European operations was a key contributor and domestic sales remained flat on a y-o-y basis.

SAIL Chairman C.S. Verma said: “Greater availability of steel worldwide coupled with pressure on demand made the market conditions quite testing.” The reasons, actually, emanate from neighbouring China that accounts for around 50% of global steel production and consumption. Monetary and fiscal tightening by China to prevent overheating of its real estate market has created oversupply situation and these products are finding their way into markets like India. Moody’s projects that prices of Chinese Hot Rolled Coils (HRC) are down by around 11% y-o-y, while rebars are down by 8% y-o-y since April.

Talking to B&E, Vinod Garg, ED, Commercial, Ispat Industries, said: “Since import prices are low, lot of material is being dumped. Excessive supply is affecting margins of all players.” Figures indicate that Chinese imports have risen to over 60% of the total. In the week ending March 12, HRC (CR-Grade) price dropped by 5% m-o-m to `32,700 per tonne. Steel imports increased by 116% y-o-y to 973 thousand tonnes in April 2010. The government, however, placed anti-dumping duty on certain stainless steel products from target countries including China in early 2010. Cyclical impact of monsoons also leads to slowdown in industrial activity and buyers tend to postpone purchases. Further, a Motilal Oswal report expects more margin contraction, as it states, “Realisation will fall sharply in 2Q FY11 due to sharp price cut in June, while costs of coking coal will go up further.” Iron ore prices are also up by 90% y-o-y for Q1 at $117/tonne, and are likely to continue that trajectory.

The cement sector also saw pressure on both toplines and bottomlines due to oversupply. Aditya Birla Group-owned Ultratech Cement saw net sales drop by 8.3% y-o-y for Q1 to `17.93 billion and net profits falling more steeply by 41.83% to `2.43 billion. For ACC, net sales stayed flat at `21.67 billion but net profits again showed a sharp drop by 26% y-o-y to `3.49 billion. The results for India Cements were also much below expectations, with net sales falling by 7.8% y-o-y to `8.6 billion and EBITDA down by 65% y-o-y to `1 billion.

Read more....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri's Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year
IIPM's Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM B-School Facebook Page
IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Mankind Pharma founder Ramesh C. Juneja speaks with B&E's Steven Philip Warner & Jayant Mundhra

B&E: What is the current outlook at Mankind Pharma?
RCJ: In a highly competitive industry like pharmaceuticals it is necessary that you have a highly motivated sales force. For that we ensure that our medical representatives get variable incentives that are best in the industry. What really drives us is that our sales force visits doctors on a regular basis. They are trained not just to sell the product but to establish a relationship built on trust. In today's competitive market you need to give incentives to the retailers to promote your product and to make your product available because of the competition being throat cutting and massive. My people even visits the doctor's to maintain a good relation with them as well as it works one or the other way. We already have eight plants and as part of our expansion plans we have a ninth plant coming up which is under construction. It would probably be ready by 2011. A total of Rs.100 crore has been invested in this plant. We are also coming up with an R&D center in Manesar, Gurgaon which would be functional by January 2011.

B&E: What plans do you have in the export domain?
RCJ: Our export targets have been very minute. In fact we have just forayed into the export domain. With respect to exports we are only present in Sri Lanka, Philippines and Vietnam. India is a huge country and we believe that there is a lot that is left to be done on our home soil. Once we achieve our Indian aspirations, we would target SAARC and CIS Countries.

B&E: You have projected a revenue of `3000 crore for the year 2015 and given your growth story till now, it looks easily achievable. When do you plan to become the number 1 pharmaceutical company in India?
RCJ: We are trying our level best and focusing on becoming the number 1 company in India. We basically like to move forward with the market trend. Throughout the world, global pharma companies are finding it difficult to sustain their growth as patents are expiring. To make things even worse their pipelines have almost dried up and the cost of coming up with a new molecule is exorbitantly high. In such a scenario they are looking up to India to acquire companies here. We believe that by working hard, we can definitely achieve the number 1 position.

B&E: What kind of opportunities does Mankind Pharma see in India?
RCJ: India is a huge country and the per capita consumption is only `400 per annum per person. From all the metro cities we are expecting sales of around `45000 crores this year. If we were to categorise, then 25% of the medicines are being consumed by big towns while 72% of the medicines are consumed by 1/3rd of India's population and the rest 28% by 2/3rd of the population. As per our calculations, 72% of the pharma medicines are consumed by the 67% of the population whereas the rest only consume near about 28%. Pharmaceutical industry is one of the fastest growing markets in India and this is precisely the reason why global pharma companies are willing to pay a premium to acquire Indian companies. Amidst all this, we believe that we can perform better because we have what it takes to succeed.



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Wednesday, August 22, 2012

INDIA: WATER SCARCITY

India’s water problem will continue to grow to mammoth and daunting proportions unless an integrated approach is taken. PPP is a great model, provided profiteering is curbed successively.

Though 60% of the population in urban areas depends on the surface water sources, availability and quality are unpredictable. Moreover, population growth is leading to drastic decline in the per capita availability of fresh water. It has gone down to around 2,200m3 in 2000 from 5,150m3 of 1947, and is expected to go down by 2017 to 1600m3 .

In states like Gujarat, the water table is dropping by as high as 6 metres per year. Four decades ago, the water table was at around 30 metres; now it has increased to around 152 meters. The scenario is pretty much the same in Agra. In 1996, groundwater level was 34 metres. Ten years down the line, that dropped to 42 metres. The total cost of environmental damage in India amounts to $9.7 billion annually, as per the World Bank estimate in 1995; of which 59% results from health impacts of water pollution. Also the poor often end up paying 5-10 times more per litre than wealthy people in the same city.

Tackling the situation requires an integrated approach to multiple facets of the water problem. They include tackling the menace of water pollution, ensuring recycling of water through techniques like rainwater harvesting, engaging with the affected population to ensure that their specific needs are well understood, discouraging excesses in terms of water usage and even tackling the class divide that marginalises certain members of the community from access to this invaluable resource. Public private partnerships are the best way out. But a strong regulatory mechanism must also be instituted to ensure greater transparency and discourage profiteering.


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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

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?!


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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Jennifer Green

Looks Jennifer Aniston needs to be reminded about the age-old adage ‘grass is always greener on the other side’. Rachael Green of Friends, Jen wants a career like Drew Barrymore or Demi Moore’s, as they have been experimenting with their work. She wants a quiet relaxed life away from the paparazzi, but then also wants to live a life in the limelight like Johnny Depp! A case of chronic dissatisfaction?


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