IPL’s Business Model

In the IPL’s business model there are four parties involved: franchisee, IPL body, players and media. The franchisees in the business model own different teams playing in the tournament. The IPL body sold the rights of the franchisee of eight teams in the year 2008 to right different bidders through bidding process. According to the business model the bidding parties own their franchisees for next ten years by buying it on the price of their bid from IPL. This is the major earning point for the IPL body. In the year 2010, two more franchisees are added to previous lot of eight teams.

The franchisee owners are given cities or states where they can conduct their matches as home ground. The franchisee owners have all the rights of sales revenue coming the marketing, promotion, ticket sales etc. Also, they have their share of revenue from broadcasting rights for their home matches. The other source of revenues for the franchisee are advertising for home matches, team licensing deals, sponsorship deals advertising on tickets etc. All the players playing for a particular team are considered as employee for the franchisee.

The bidding of players was conducted and different franchisee bid for the players they wanted and after winning the bid for a player, the franchisee has to give the bidding amount to the player on the yearly basis for next three years. The players selected for a franchisee now represents the franchisee and the franchisee owns all the right of players. The major source of revenue of IPL comes from broadcasting of matches. The media rights of broadcasting on Indian television have been given Sony Entertainment Television and Singapore -based World Sport Group secured the global broadcasting rights of the IPL. Also in the year 2010, internet rights of broadcasting of the matches were given to YouTube. The detail of the cost and revenue sources is given below:

ü  Franchisee:

o   Cost

§  Cost of bidding the franchisee

§  Cost of bidding the players

o   Revenue

§  Gate money of the stadium for home matches

§  Broadcasting revenue share of the home matches

§  The prize money that the team wins on the basis of its position in the tournament

§  Advertising revenues from the space in the stadia for home matches

§  Team sponsorship

§  Licensing products for their team like T-shirts

ü  IPL body:

o   Cost

§  IPL matches cost

§  Government body cost

o   Sources of Revenue

§  The amount bid by the franchisee owners

§  Revenue share from the franchisee

§  Broadcasting revenue share for all matches

ü  Players:

o   Sources of Revenue

§  Annual fee contracted with the franchisee

§  Bonuses from the team owners

§  The prize money that the team wins on the basis of its position in the tournament

ü  Media

o   Cost

§  Broadcasting rights buying cost for the duration ten years

§  Tournament promotion

o   Revenue

§  Broadcasting revenues

§  Selling some part of broadcasting rights to different companies in different countries

Lalit Modi was an excellent manager for the IPL for the last three years. He has created a brand out of it and in terms of brand management he has been spot on with his strategies. Also, as a functional manager he has done justice to the brand name of the IPL. The fact that the tournament was shifted from India to South Africa within a month after central government raised security issues was exceptional showing for a functional manager and that action speaks a volume for the great manger he has been for the IPL for the past three years. Talking about ethical point of the management, it can be said that the cricket took backseat in front the revenues and all the hoopla surrounding the tournament. For example, the introduction of advertisement in the middle of an over was an innovation if you look at the prospective of revenue generation, but as a fan it was annoying and highly unethical.

Paradoxes in Indian Political System

There are lots of paradoxes present in the Indian political environment. For example, Indian government initially wanted to have Hindi as the only official language of India. However, the politicians and people from south India were against such moves and under general consensus English became the common official language across all states. Now, the command over the English language is one of the biggest strength of India in the current globalization and outsourcing world. Take another example of Maoists. Maoists are communists who say that they are fighting for the poor people and still it is killing these people only in various parts of India. In Mumbai, the development was brought up over the years, with the help of people who were not originally from Mumbai and now same mumbaikars want its door closed for any new entrants. When L.K. Advani spoke about Jinnah it created quite a storm in the political circle. The same leader who was allegedly involved in Babri demolition, an act against Indian Muslim community, is now referring to Jinnah as secular leader who actually was instrumental in dividing this country on the basis of cast. Lalu Prasad Yadav, who has always been seen as corrupt face Indian politics, has brought a major turnaround in the Indian Railways operations which no one actually ever thought of.

Consider the fact the one of the main parties of our democratic country always has its head from one single family. In fact talks have started in the political circle that next PM of this country is going to be Rahul Gandhi, the current generation of Gandhi family and we call our system democratic. When Sonia Gandhi accepted the position of Congress Chairman, the first person to break away from Congress and formed his own party was Sharad Pawar on the basis of her foreign nationality (however people say that his main agenda was to become PM). Now Sharad Pawar is holding a key alliance and ministerial berth in the cabinet with the same party without even raising any voices against Sonia Gandhi. In fact some people believe that had he been in the congress party, he could have realized his dream of becoming PM of this country in place of Manmohan Singh. All these politicians of Indian political environment can be consider as a great thinkers as they have been running this country for such a long time and all of them have faced many paradoxes during their political career.

ITC’s CSR – Social Development Blended with Marketing Strategy

ITC is an Indian conglomerate, which was started mainly as cigarette manufacturing company in the year 1910. However, it has now diversified presence in many other industries such as Hotels, Packaging, Agri-Business, Packaged Foods & Confectionery, Information Technology, Branded Apparel etc. ITC is the first Indian company and tenth in the world to come up with its sustainability report on yearly basis in compliance (at the highest A+ level) with the G3 guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The various initiatives taken by the organization are as follows:

E-Choupal

ITC’s Agri Business Division, one of India’s largest exporters of agricultural commodities, has conceived E-Choupal as a more efficient supply chain aimed at delivering value to its customers around the world on a sustainable basis. The E-Choupal initiative also helped farmers to break the shackles of low investment, weak market orientation and low risk taking ability. E-Choupal serves as a place of social gathering and place of exchange of information for farmers. A computer linked with internet serves to almost 600 farmers at one time to access daily prices of local markets and price trends of global markets or find information about new farming technologies. The E-Choupal is used to order seed, fertilizer, and other products such as consumer goods from ITC or its partners, at prices lower than those available from village traders. At harvest time, ITC offers to buy the crop directly from the farmers at previous day’s closing price.

Social and Farm Forestry

This unique initiative by ITC benefitted around 19000 poor households in approximately 500 villages and helped to bring 16,400 hectares of wasteland for some use. This way the owners of these wasteland, who are generally out of work for good period of a year, have gained new way to earn by using their wasteland for pulpwood plantation. ITC also provides them with all the necessary training related to silviculture, land development and plantation maintenance.

Integrated Watershed Development

ITC has observed over the years that many communities with whom it is having some association in villages have struggling with erratic rainfall patterns leading to large scale crop failures. This has been the main reason for farmers leaving their villages. ITC’s watershed initiatives have led to an improvement of irrigation facility and thus improving the water tables. This development program indirectly also helps ITC since it enables farmers to extend the cultivation cycle and return to multiple cropping. Till date, ITC has assisted farming communities in 22 districts across 7 states

Women’s Empowerment

ITC’s has shown firm commitment towards women empowerment in rural society by forming women credit groups. The empowerment of women has a catalytic effect in rural society, strengthening their voice in the community, forcing attention on human development issues of child rearing, education, health and gender parity. ITC’s focus is on Micro-credit that plays a foundational role in their economic empowerment and helps women into micro-credit self-help groups. Groups of 10-20 women form common funds through individual monthly contributions where they can also borrow money from their group funds to start income generation projects. It also provides training in bank and accounting operations to help them get the access of bank loans and government development programmes.

Primary Education

“School going becomes an empowering process for the child and the community. The awareness of entitlements like education and health grows, along with a sense of the community’s responsibility.”  ITC in its rural endeavour wants to provide primary education in order to address the problem of economic weakness rural families. “ITC’s initiatives are aimed at (i) improving infrastructure in Government schools, (ii) providing supplementary education to support children with school learning and exam preparation and (iii) building community and parental involvement with school education so that more children go to school and finish school.” It also provides infrastructure facilities to primary schools such as drinking water tanks, toilets, lights and fans, desks etc. It also has a network of 353 libraries, resource centers, Roaming Laptops program and mobile library services covering 310 schools.

Critical Analysis

ITC’s is doing lot of CSR activities in rural region of India. Although it seems that most of these activities are done to develop positive image of ITC (it has negative sentiment going against it for many years, as their main business has been cigarette manufacturing) and help achieve its marketing objectives, all the initiatives taken by ITC are unique and sincere in nature. Apart from the marketing gain, some of the initiatives also help it to achieve financial and operational objectives since these activities are related to its functioning as company. For example, the success of E-chaupal and social and farm forestry is crucial for its operation in certain industries. When Classmate notebooks were launched, it came up with the initiative of contributing 1 rupee towards the education of poor children, from every single notebook it sold. On the environmental front, ITC has achieved 'Carbon Positive' - five years in a row; 'Water Positive’ for eight consecutive years (creating three times more rainwater harvesting potential than ITC's net consumption); Waste Recycling Positive for the last three years. Also, it utilizes renewable sources of energy which is 31% of total energy consumed. Its environment, health and safety management systems conform to international standards.

Telecommunication Industry India - Complexity

Competition in the telecommunications industry has become very intense and this is forcing some drastic changes in the landscape of the industry worldwide. There are lots of mergers and acquisitions happening around since at the current market situation that is the most suitable way of entering into the market and also to consolidate its position for existing companies. This has made the industry as a truly globalised industry with a high degree of competition level between companies. Thus it can be said that the telecommunications industry is continuously evolving on both technological and economic level. This has made the whole industry more complex. The technological changes occurring in the industry are happening at a very fast rate and the companies have to accept these changes and constantly evolve.

Also, due to so many companies entering the market the economics of every company has become more challenging. This fast evolving technological advancement and economic challenges are actually making the current business situation very complex for the telecommunications industry. Initially the telecommunication industry was only about telephone communications techniques and that to wired one. Afterwards, the focus shifted to mobile telephone communications and now there are various business sectors that are covered by the telecommunication industry such as local and long-distance telephone services, internet facilities, and cable TV systems. The traditional voice communication methods have now taken the backseat and consumers are demanding more of the Internet and wireless services in fact now cable companies are now entering this market and are providing local telephone and Internet services through cable TV systems.

Nowadays mobile phone companies are facilitating Internet services to its customer in order to retain its telephonic customers by providing them something extra. Also they are offering cable TV systems such as IP TV etc in order to combat attrition of its phone customers dropping their landlines connection. Telecommunications service providers are also selling TV via Internet protocol services, competing directly against cable companies. These kind of coupling of inter-sector services are making the relationships between different companies (which were previously not related) more and more complex and in turn it is making the telecommunications business more and more complex to operate.

BHEL- Bringing Success with Culture

Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), established in 1953, is one of the oldest and largest state owned engineering and manufacturing enterprise in India. It has been working mainly in the various fields of energy and infrastructure such as power, railways, telecom, transmission and distribution, and oil and gas. If we just consider its contribution to the power sector, BHEL manufactured equipments are used in the production and generation of 73% of total power in India and is 12th largest power equipment manufacturer in the world. It has been earning profits since 1971-1972 and has been rightly awarded with Navratnas status in the year 1997.

BHEL, as a company, has adopted a number of values in its operation, which helped it in the development and success. These values are:

•      Zeal to excel and Zest for change: it promotes excellence at work and openness to the changing environment and form of work.

•      Integrity and fairness in all matters: Integrity and fairness has been given utmost importance by BHEL, especially in the current scenario where it is competing with MNCs of all over the world.

•      Respect for dignity and potential of individuals: BHEL understands that every employee is an individual and it should take care of them, try to find out their true potential and helped them achieve it with dignity.

•      Strict adherence to commitments: Since BHEL is now facing stiff competition from other companies (especially foreign companies who have entered the market recently), it has inculcated meeting all the deadlines and prior commitments as one of its key value.

•      Ensure speed of response: BHEL believes in responding to any kind of complaints and queries in a speedy manner so that it doesn’t lose out on customer satisfaction

•      Faster learning, creativity and teamwork: BHEL follows the rule that to grow and be successful, it is very important to promote learning and creativity in the company.

•      Loyalty and pride in the company: BHEL understands the importance of loyalty and pride among its employee. If employees are not proud of being part of BHEL, then they are not going to give their hundred percent at work and are not going to be loyal to the company.

The work culture followed and promoted at BHEL is based on the values discussed above which the company believes in. Thus, the BHEL culture includes employees participation at all levels, encouragement to participate in various non-operational activities such as cultural, sports and educational, dedication to excel and safety habits and lifestyle for employees. Despite being a state owned unit, BHEL is comparatively decentralized, flexible and independent without having any bureaucratic structure.

In a nutshell, the work culture at BHEL is such that employees feel proud of being part of the company and always work towards achieving excellence which in turn facilitates overall development and growth of the company.

Canada Dry: Brand Failure

India never had any premium soft drink brand if we do not consider a brief period of 1995 to 1999. During this period Cadbury Schweppes launched and tried to successfully sell a unique product (in Indian context) known as Canada Dry. It is highly popular brand in international market and since it was launched by FMCG giant Cadbury, a lot was expected from it. But nothing happened the it was planned.

Cadbury Schweppes launched Canada Dry and Orange Crush in the Indian market with much fanfare. Canada Dry was a Champagne Softdrink. The brand has positioned itself as a champagne and the taste was different and refreshing.

The brand was also promoted heavily in various media. The ad featuring the snow and tiger brings back the nostalgia about this brand. The brand gained immediate acceptance because of its association with Cadbury. The brand had the potential to become a premium softdrink brand in India.

But in the year 1999, Coca Cola once again using its giant status took over the business of Cadbury Schweppes soft dring segment and like other Indian brands it acquired (Limca and Gold Spot) and killed the brand.

It is sad to see such brands being killed for no reason connected with customers. The only reason for Coke to kill these brands was to make way for Coke's original brands. In the case of Canada Dry, the brand only had a negligible presence in the Indian market. But still Coca cola has not been able to launch any premium segment brand in India and both Coca Cola and Pepsi are happy with their current segments and does not see the premium segment as very attractive. May be in future, when Indian market reaches maturity stage (especially in Urban areas), we can see much needed premium segment soft drinks.

Key competencies for a management student

There are few key competencies which are required for being a good management student. The most important one is ability and desire to learn new things. During a management degree, a lot of knowledge is passed on to the students which are very important to be successful in their careers after completing the management study. A good management student should have the desire to know and learn new things and should be able to actually understand the knowledge passed on to them so that he/she can apply it during his/her career. Another key competency required in a management student is logical style of thinking. During the study period in a management school, one has to apply logical thinking to solve questions and case studies and understand the basic requirements for being a good manager. Clarity of thoughts regarding career is also going to be important for any management student. He/she should be clear in mind what is his/her final objective of doing the management and he/she should never lose focus with regards to that. Also, good communication skills can be considered as key competency required from a management student. He/she should be able to communicate and discuss their doubts, questions, explanations and results in an effective manner in both speaking and writing.

Being a good manager requires many key qualities since for a manager the role can be as diverse as it can be with various responsibilities and challenges. One of the key qualities he/she needs to have is clarity about final outcome required. He/she needs have clear focus on delivering the required results in the best possible manner. This helps in adhering to timeline and guidelines and reduces the scope for any mistakes. Next key quality required is planning. A manager is always occupied with various works at a time and he/she needs to plan his/her work in such a manner none of his/her work suffer. Therefore a good manager should be able to plan his works in an efficient manner so that each of his/her work gives best of the outcome. Another quality that he/she should have is being open to any change. The change could be about anything related to process, people and service etc. that could improve the thing in question. Obviously while bringing any change one would have to overcome few obstacles and a good manager should always be ready for that. Team development can also be considered as one of the key qualities required for a management student. Manager always works in a team where his team does the work for him/her. Therefore it’s important for a good manager to look for team development that would satisfy his/her team members and drive them achieve excellence. A good manager is also a good communicator. He/she must be effective speaker who can put their points in a clear manner. Also, he/she are also effective communicator in writing and listening.