IIPM-Infrastructure

Saturday, November 10, 2012

BARCLAYS: ACQUISITION

Barclays must tread carefully

Expobank has assets of $1.24 billions with 32 branches in western Russia, and one of the largest networks of ATMs in Moscow. Moreover, Russia’s economic growth at 8.1% last year is much more promising than UK, with a meagre 2.9% growth, not to mention the collapse of the market for credit-related securities.

But the haunting ghost of 1998 may return, when Barclays had to withdraw functioning from Russia, licking huge losses of over $325 million following a national debt default crisis. “The move is rightly timed with global scenario being favorable, but Barclays has to be careful in operational implementations to prevent such mis-happenings again,” comments a renowned international financial analyst, not wishing to be quoted. Add to that HSBC’s plans to partake of the Russian salad, which signals that achieving a medley of success will not be so easy, even on Russian soil.

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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.

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
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
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Time to (re)reorganise

Unilever continues to restructure its operations, but to truly revive, it must focus on market shares

It has some of the world’s best managers and some of the most prolific brand portfolios. Yet, Unilever seems to be way past its prime, the days when the mere mention of its name commanded tremendous respect and admiration. Thanks to inability to cope with market trends, the company is desperately seeking a route back to good ol’ days.

Although 2007 has been a better year, there still remains a lot to achieve. While announcing results for the nine months ending September (turnover increased by 4% to €30.3 billion & net profit by 20% to €3.3 billion), CEO Patrick Cescau had enthusiastically commented, “Focus on our growth priorities, together with stronger innovation, improved speed to market & better in-market execution, is delivering consistent & sustainable organic growth.” 2007 results, to be announced as this magazine goes to print, are expected to be in line with company expectations of 3-5% organic growth.

Yet, as always, there are some devils in the details. As per Credit Suisse analyst Charlie Mills, a large part of the increase is due to rise in prices, i.e. value growth (around 2.5% in price growth estimated in Q4, 2007). The company underperforms peers like Reckitt Benckiser, Nestle & Cadbury in organic growth for 2007. Market shares are lower in 2007 compared to 2006 in most categories across Europe & US; deodorants being the only clear saving grace. Morgan Stanley analyst Michel Steib also maintains an underweight rating. He adds, “Unilever’s headwind from commodity costs will double from around 200 bps in 2007 to over 400 bps in 2008 estimate for the full year.”

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

IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

Left, Right step on Chawla’s toes

The EC’s proximity to Congress is too close for their comfort

Both the Bhartiya Janata Party and the Left are one in opposing the Congress-led UPA Government’s move to bring the three Election Commissioners at par. This is only possible through a constitutional amendment. Peeved UPA ally, the CPI, opposes the move that it describes as Congress’s “reaction” to the BJP’s hounding of EC Navin Chawla.

“What the BJP is doing is not right, but it is also clear that the move is to save some one person. The constitution is not changed every other day,” argues CPI General Secretary A. B. Bardhan. The BJP wants Chawla, who is close to the Congress, to be sacked. In its petition to the CEC, N. Gopalaswami, the BJP-led NDA “extensively documented Chawla’s role during the Emergency.” The “document” included Justice Shah Commission findings and info on prime postings during Congress regimes and grant of MPLAD funds to his private trusts.

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
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Ferociously ambitious!

Blair aims for EU presidency

He is a warmonger; an American poodle and last but not the least a money spinner, busy converting his international political capital into lucre. These are some of the criticism the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing in his run-up for the European Union Presidency. In addition to Blair, currently, there are two more candidates – Taoiseach Bertie Ahern of Northern Island and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean Claude. While Nicholas Sarkozy is all for Tony, the former French president Giscard d’Estaing has expressed his apprehension, “Tony Blair cannot be President of Europe because the new President of Europe must come from a country, which respects all its European commitments.”

“Presently, EU does not have any legal provision for a President. The post will probably come up for grabs after the Constitution of the European Union comes into force by 2009. It will be a two-and-a-half year term for the president, who will be elected through a long process extending up to one year, but one cannot say that the process will be democratic because it will not involve the European population directly in electing their president,” says Naseer Ahmed editor Atlantic Affairs, a UK-based website while speaking to B&E.

Tony Blair’s aspirations to be the first President of EU are bound to raise controversies, especially in view of his closeness to Bush and his Iraq war policies. However, if he is able to turn things around in the Middle-East and usher in a new era of lasting peace in the region, his acceptability may improve in the coming days.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

Monday, November 5, 2012

Unravelling the first family of sarod…

The inimitable impressions of the Bangash family on Hindustani classical music…

Melodious notes have wafted through the corridors of their homes and wide-eyed cherubs have soaked them in, learning to recognise the notes of the Sargam long before comprehending the ABCs of the spoken language. Since ages, just as family values and traditions are handed down to the next generation, the passion and understanding of music has also been sown into their souls. The Bangash family’s affair with the sarod began in mid-17th century, when Mohammed Hashmi Khan Bangash – an Afghan horse trader with a penchant for the rebab (a plucked lute) – settled in India. As he developed an interest in Indian classical music, he egged his son, Ghulam Bandegi Khan Bangash, to modify the rebab so as to allow the best of both the cultures to fuse together. Thus the sarod was born and the next Bangash – Ghulam Ali Bangash – further tuned the instrument to perfection and also the techniques of playing the ragas on the same.

“In the family of khaandaani musicians (who belong to a long lineage), it is difficult to pin-point the time, age or date of entering into the world of music. There is no way to actively decide, I just absorbed everything happening around me. I just realised one day and felt honoured to be the humble representative of the Senia Bangash gharana,” says the 6th generation scion of the Bangash family, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan. His father Ustad Haafiz Ali Khan, learnt the fundamentals of the Senia gharana from Ustad Pyar Khan and Ustad Jafar Khan, who, incidentally, traced their lineage to one of the greatest music composers of all time – Tansen. In his career, he received patronage from the courts of Gwaliar and was the recipient of many awards including the Padma Bhushan in 1960.

Ustad Amjad Ali Khan was not one to merely loll on his forefather’s fame and he would go on to become noted for his style of playing the sarod. He also brought about new changes to the sarod and is today among the most respected musicians of our country. Holding audiences across the continents captive with his mesmerising performances, Amjad Ali Khan is a sparkling gem in the current Indian music milieu and has been honoured with a host of awards and recognitions such as the Padma Vibhushan. Reminiscing the years of his struggle, the doyen of Indian classical music says, “Nothing is easy, especially in the world of classical music. There was struggle, there is struggle and there always will be struggle in the future. There is no shortcut in this field. The expectations of the world are very high and there has to be quality music.”

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012. An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

Sunday, November 4, 2012

He Likes to Rethink Afresh

Rather than letting policy tangles halt its growth progress, RIL ‘quit India’ and eyed the world as the market for its refinery products, writes NARESH MINOCHA

This is the case of a conglomerate that was initially not allowed to sell some of its products directly in the domestic market. This is also the case of India’s most influential business house that was later allowed to sell its products without receiving any subsidies from the government, but had to compete with government-subsidised products that were sold by the state-owned units. In normal circumstances, what would a promoter in such circumstances have done? Close down the particular manufacturing base, or register it as a sick company with Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction.

Most entrepreneurs would have opted for either of these solutions, both in the global and domestic arena. But then, one can’t expect the Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries to behave like any other company. After all, it has influenced policy-making in this country for decades. Faced with such hostile policies and regulatory environment, RIL decided to ‘secede from India’ and look at the world as its market. It decided to export the products manufactured at its 33 million tonnes per year refinery at Jamnagar, Gujarat. After over six years of lobbying, RIL did the unthinkable in April 2007. It transformed its refinery & the adjacent petrochemicals plants into an export oriented unit (EOU). Although EOU policy allows companies to sell half their produce in the domestic market, RIL exported 60% of its refinery products valued at $6.99 billion in the first half of 2007-08. The changeover to an EOU, along with its export focus through SEZs, constitute an interesting study of an entrepreneur, who turned policy discrimination at home into a global business opportunity.

For years, both policy makers and experts contended that an EOU refinery was not viable as it was impossible to do the 20% value-addition to imported inputs as was mandatory under the rules. In fact, the government had rejected applications in the 1990s on the grounds that these projects lacked capability to attain the minimum value addition. But it approved eight EOU refineries that showed the capabilities to do so. Till today, none of them have seen the light of the day, or are seriously talked about.

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
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Homing pigeon

P.C’s move could get ‘em truants

Sample these: In spite of the West Bengal state government’s circular asking all employees to be punctual and to follow the 10 am to 5 pm official working hours, there was hardly any change in the ‘late work culture’ at Kolkata Writers’ Building (the West Bengal Secretariat and Assembly). This state circular also had a clause that made sure that the employees who failed to maintain the schedule would face penal action. According to various reports, most employees still arrive amicably between 11.15 am to 11.30 am and then leave at around 5 pm. Recent reports now also show the obvious, that even our MPs do not attend Parliament sessions regularly (if at all), what to talk about public appearances where they keep masses waiting for hours, if they appear that is.

Chidambaram, despite all the acrimony that he seems to scrape on to his personality, might have hit the truants with the hammer right where it hurts – the finger. In order to counter the problem of late attendances, the Home Minister has introduced bio-metric scanners at the offices of the Home Ministry. Chidambaram announced a few months back that a ten-minute delay three times a month will count as one day of leave. In the first stage of the scheme, 5000 home ministry employees – regardless of rank – will have their index fingers scanned to enable them to be tracked with respect to their attendance time and leaves. On week post the system, the Ministry claimed that 90% of their ‘subordinate staff’ and 70% of ‘junior officers’ were in office by 9.05 am (comparative pre-system figures were not provided; but one assumes it’s an uppish curve). Endgame? Not so fast Wodehouse. One, the system only checks fingers and not whether the person stays in office post ‘fingering’ in his attendance! Two, it won’t be long before an employee takes the equipment to court claiming it malfunctions.

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