Domination September 2011

8/4/2019 Domination September 2011

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A Monthly Newsletter from the Students of

Department of Management Studies,

IIT Roorkee

Volume - II Issue09 September 2011

In this issue

Cover story - The challengecalled Unique IdentificationNumber

You Innovate, I Copy andPaste ! ! !

Private Investment in Edu-cation Sector in India

Social Media Marketing Putting handsets inside con-

sumers pocket

CHLOROPHYLL- Cause This, This Is A Poem


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Dear Readers,

Its the month of September. The month remembered for the fearsome terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. The

constant news of financial instability in the Euro Zone further adds to the bleakness of this month. Falling markets, de-

clining growth rates, growing unemployment; all point to a very uncertain future with economists predicting another re-

cession on its way unless proper measures are taken. In the end it may all turn out to be a big false alarm but for now the

global economy stands in an atmosphere of uncertainty and doubt. To take your mind off all this and to give you a fresh

perspective of the world around we are here with another invigorating issue of domination with new articles and fresh

new creativity.

Starting on the home front; India or rather Nandan Nilekani envisaged almost the impossible when they dreamt of a

unique Id for every Indian. The project Aadhar currently undergoing all across the country tries to bring that dream into

reality. To generate a unique id for a population of this size is no ordinary task and the project is one of the most ambi-

tious projects ever planned in the country. The cover story The Challenge called Unique Identification Number pro-vides an in depth coverage of the project and elucidates the obstacles that stand in its completion.

Next we have an article interestingly named You Innovate, I Copy Paste. As suggested by the name, the article re-

searches on plagiarism in the field of business innovations and strategies and how companies imitate each other to gain

competitive advantage.

The article Private investment in the education sector in India covers the investment scenario in education sector and

weighs the pros and cons of increasing investments in the education domain

Social Networks have been used all over the world for recreation and online socialization. It has taken the world by

storm .But what happens when the companies decide to use Social Media as a marketing Tool. Social Media Marketing

covers the benefits and risks associated with integrating social network media into your marketing plans.

Putting Handsets inside consumers pockets covers the ever increasing, continually diversifying, highly dynamic mar-

ket of the mobile handsets and provides a glimpse of the various strategies employed by the mobile makers to put their

mobile into your pocket.

As a regular feature, DoMS-da-Evince covers a distinguished alumni from the batch of 2002 , Smitha Beohar.

Regardez IEconomie provides a snapshot of the Indian economy and covers the latest developments in the economic

world.

And to wrap it all we have an aptly titled poem Cause This, This is a poem and Qutopia for those who love quizzing.

Its the tradition of the world that old gives way to new. A similar transformation marks the September issue as new

blood joins Team Domination and bring along with them new ideas and stimulating new creativity. The September issue

marks the first contributions from the new batch at DoMS and surely helps in re invigorating the magazine. Hoping this

invigorating spirit catches you too and provides a fresh new perspective from this bleak atmosphere, its Team Domination

wishing everyone happy Reading !

-Regards

Team Domination

Editors Desk


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The challenge called Uniqueidentification Number

Shruti Goel

Putting handsets in side con-sumers pocket

You innovate, I copy paste...Udit Gupta

Cause This, This Is A Poem

Interaction withSmita Beohar

DoMS-da-Evince

SayantanPawan Upadhyay

Private investment in educa-tion sector in India

Divye Garg

Cover Story

Manav Kaushik

Prateek Tomar

Social Media MarketingAditi Joshi

Shibi Singh Qutopia - 20

Regardez I'economie


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Page 4Cover Story

AnkajiBhai Gangar, a 49-year-old subsis-

tence farmer, stood in line in this remote

village until, for the first time in his life, he

squinted into the soft glow of a computer

screen. His name, year of birth and address

were recorded. A worker guided Mr. Gan-gars rough fingers to the glowing green

surface of a scanner to record his finger-

prints. He peered into an iris scanner

shaped like binoculars that captured the

unique patterns of his eyes.

With that, Mr. Gangar would be

assigned a 12-digit number, thefirst official proof that he exists.

He can use the number, along

with a thumbprint, to identify

himself anywhere in the country. It will al-

low him to gain access to welfare benefits,

open a bank account or get a cell phone far

from his home village, something that is

still impossible for many people in India.

Maybe we will get some help, Mr. Gangar

said. reported the New York Times.

Yes, this is the hope offered by the Indias

UID Project to the nations poor, what is

called as Financial Inclusion. It is one of

the most ambitious projects of the UPA

government, to- be the worlds largest bio-

metric database, a mind-bogglingly com-

plex collection of 1.2 billion identities. The

agenda to set up the UID Authority of India

(UIDAI), under the parameters of the Plan-

ning Commission, is targeted at providing a

unique identity to most of the populationof the flagship schemes to ensure that the

benefits reach them. The unique identifica-

tion number, a 12-digit ID is an ingenious

solution to a bedevilling problem of lacunae

in these schemes. Most of Indias poorest

citizens are trapped in a system

of village-based identity proof

that has had the perverse effect

of making migration, which is

essential to any growing econ-

omy, much harder.

Named as aadhaar, meaning foundation or

subsistence, it would be used to verify the

identity of any Indian anywhere in the

country within eight seconds, using inex-

pensive hand-held devices linked to the

wireless networks provided by mobile op-

erators.What we are creating is as impor-

tant as a road, said Nandan M. Nilekani,

the chairman of UIDAI. It is a road that in

some sense connects every individual to the

state.

4

The challenge called Unique Identification Number


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Page 5Cover Story

This project has the potential to reduce the

kind of corruption India is facing, for which

in recent weeks, Anna Hazare went on a hun-

ger strike and the Indian streets were deco-

rated by the placards displaying India

Against Corruption. By allowing electronic

transmission and verification of many gov-

ernment services, the identity system would

make it much harder for corrupt bureaucrats

to steal citizens benefits.

Doubts prevailing on the success of

this project

International Experience :-

Globally, there are very few countries that

have provided national ID cards or numbers

to their citizens. The

most important rea-

son has been the un-

settled debate on the

protection of privacy

and civil liberties of people. It has been ar-

gued that the data that is collected in this

process can be misused for a variety of pur-

poses. For instance, it can be used to profile

citizens in a country and initiate a process of

racial or ethnic cleansing, as during the geno-

cide of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1995. Legisla-

tions on privacy cannot be satisfactory guar-

antees against the possibilities of misuse of

ID cards or numbers.

Australia was one of the first countries to try

the implementation of a national ID card

scheme. In 1986, the Australian government

introduced a Bill in the Parliament to legalise

the issue of national ID cards, which were to

be called as Australia Cards. The declared

intention of the government cited in the Bill

was to check tax evasion as well as reduce il-

legal immigration. However, citizens groups

launched a major agitation against the Bill

citing concerns of violation of privacy and

civil liberties and the Government had to fi-

nally withdraw the Bill in 1987. Despite the

failure to introduce the ID card scheme in

Australia, other countries like Canada, New

Zealand and Philippines initiated steps in the

early-1990s to introduce national ID cardsbut had to withdraw after strong public back-

lash.

In the early 2000s, China also tried

to introduce national ID cards

along with biometric information.

However, as per researchers, biometric tech-

nology was liable to major failures when

5

The challenge called Unique IdentificationNumber


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Page 6Cover Story

applied to large populations ;in 2006 the

Chinese government withdrew the clause to

have biometric data stored in such cards.

The countries where this issue is debated

most are US and UK.

In US, as the government tried to expand

the use of social security numbers, it had to

be kept aside due to huge public protests

related to the privacy and confidentiality of

data. In UK, during the regime of Tony

Blair, the Identity Cards Bill was formed in

2004. But public protests forced the gov-

ernment to shelve the policy till date. Thedebate in UK has mainly centred on the re-

port prepared by a group at London School

of Economics.

It stated The identity systems may create a

range of new and unforeseen problems.

These include the failure of systems, un-

foreseen financial costs, increased securitythreats and unacceptable imposition on citi-

zens. The success of a national identity sys-

tem depends on a sensitive, cautious and

cooperative approach involving all key

stakeholder groups including an independ-

ent and rolling risk assessment and a regu-

lar review of management practices. We are

not confident that these conditions have

been satisfied in the development of the

Identity Cards Bill. The risk of failure in the

current proposals is therefore magnified to

the point where the scheme should be re-

garded as a potential danger to the public

interest and to the legal rights of individu-

als.

Issues of Privacy-

Though getting a UID number is not com-

pulsory in India, it is debated that the wide

benefits it caters to,

will make it com-

pulsory indirectly.

But the most dis-

turbing point is that

the concerns of privacy or civil liberties are

not discussed in any of the documents of

the government or the UIDAI in any sub-

stantive form. If the project is extended to a

spectrum of social services then there arepossibilities of serious misuse of personal

information as most of these services are

increasingly being privatized in India. At

present, the government has only affirmed

a commitment to protection of privacy; no

substantial information is yet available on

how the database of citizens would be pro-

tected from misuse in the future.

6



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Page 7Cover Story

Technological Determinism-

A lot of questions

remain unanswered

about whether the

technological infra-

structure of the project can carry the bur-den of data storage, networking, live shar-

ing and verification of more than a billion

of people. If so, what are the associated

costs of the project? What are the prob-

abilities of system failures of different de-

grees? What are the probabilities of errors?

What are the social costs of these errors?

At present, there are no clear answers avail-

able for these important ques-

tions.

The most critical aspect of In-

dias UID project is the use of

biometric information for verifying the

identity of a particular person. But the bio-

metric scientists and legal experts doubt it,

as no accurate information exists on

whether the errors of matching fingerprints

are negligible or non-existent. It is ac-

knowledged that a small percentage of us-

ers would always be either falsely matched

or not matched at all against the data base.

Moreover processes like gummy fingers

and latent finger printing could allow

some to bypass the verification.

A fundamental is not dismissed away, is the

possibility of fingerprints of individuals

changing over time, particularly among

manual labourers. The fingerprints of man-ual labourers are highly likely to be broken

or get eroded, inviting frequent negative

responses during validation at the sites of

wage payments. Apart from that, patterns

of iris change with age, disease and health

as well.

The report of the UIDAIs internal Biomet-rics Standards Committee actually accepts

these concerns as real. It says,

Two factors however, raise un-

certainty about the accuracy that

can be achieved through finger-

prints. First, retaining efficacy while scaling

the database size from fifty million to a bil-

lion has not been adequately analyzed. Sec-

ond, fingerprint quality, the most impor-

tant variable for determining de-

duplication accuracy, has not been studied

in depth in the Indian context.

The Unknown Costs-

At present, the UID project is facing oppo-sition from two unexpected fronts the

7



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Page 8Cover Story

8


Planning Commission, over almost tripling

of costs due to iris scan and the Parliamen-

tary standing committee on finance, over

ownership of the project. In order to include

iris scan, as a biometric

tool for verification, and

expand the enrolment

drive to 1.12 billion, it is

estimated that the budget

has increased from Rs

6,600 crore to Rs 17,900

crore. Along with this, the

fund needs of the Regis-

trar General of India (RGI) or the Census

office to complete the creation of the Na-

tional Population Register, too has more

than doubled from Rs 3,254 crore to Rs

7,732.85 crore. The NPR is also collecting

biometric data of all residents and NPR

cards will include UID numbers. Further,

the strongest resistance to Aadhar is comingfrom two eminent members of the National

Advisory Council, Jean Dreze and Aruna

Roy.

The standing committee on finance too is

raising concerns over the costs and also the

National Identification Authority of India

Bill, 2010, that seeks to provide legal back-ing to the project.

Besides, with the inclusion of iris data, the

estimated data size per resident has gone up

multi-fold from 150 kilobytes to 5 mega-

bytes. In addition, it is unclear whether re-

curring costs for maintain-

ing a networked system

necessary for UID to func-

tion effectively have been

accounted for by the gov-

ernment.

Currently, on average,

150,000 enrolments are

done each day. The number of enrolments

is expected to reach six million per day by

October. The task, therefore, is daunting,

since the latest data places the country's

population at 1.21 billion. A mammoth pro-

ject that would lead to millions flowing out

of the exchequer definitely needs to be de-

bated at the national level. It is a pity that

though we are striving on to move towards e

-governance, we are missing on e-

consultation.

Does India need a Unique ID num-

ber?

According to experts, there is an immediate

need for a unique identity so as to tackle the

issue of multiple proofs, security breach and

fraudulent disbursement of government


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Page 9Cover Story

benefits. For example there are ration cards

that pertain to ghost citizens, numerous

illegal immigrations and constantly increas-

ing terrorist attacks.

As there are numerous documents serving

as identity proofs, with scattered details andinconsistent information, the need of hour

is a repository that stores the information

pertaining to all the citizens of a nation in a

centralized location-a one point source of

information hub.

India has failed to bring its poor along the

path to prosperity and the expensive publicwelfare systems are so inefficient that ware-

houses overflow with rotting grain despite

high malnutrition rates; hence it needs a

project of this magnitude to sort out the

poverty issues that hamper its economical

image. The government builds sturdy class-

rooms but fails to punish well-paid teachers

who do not show up for work. There are so

many examples of Governmental policies

that fail to connect citizens most basic

needs. Many believe that the technology

could solve these problems because it would

provide people with a way to interact with

the state without depending on local offi-

cials who are now the main gatekeepers of

government services.

9


The various documents recognized as identity proofs in India are given below-


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Page 10Cover Story

The key challenge: Security

So far in India about 15

different types of ID

work, but the UID is

projected to have the

entire database of in-

formation of Indians. As per a newspaper

headlines, the main threat to UID number is

its misuse. Cyber-security experts say," The

facility is ambitious and is sure to make

functioning easy from the governance per-

spective. There is some kind of certification

or guarantee needed from companies that

are pooling the database or will be handling

it. The immediate threat may not be realised

now. But in a span of next five years, whenthe cards will be rolled out completely, we

10

Voter Id Passport PAN Card Ration Card

Issuing Au-thority

Election Com-mission

Ministry of Ex-ternal Affairs

Income Tax De-partment

Civil SuppliesDepartment

No. of cardsIssued

600 Million 40 Million 70 Million 220 Million

PopulationCoverage

52.5% 3.5% 6% 19%

InternationalAcceptance

No Yes No No

Disadvantages Duplication ofdata when vot-ers migrate.

Does not coverpopulationwhich has lesserfinancial capac-ity.

No physical veri-fication prior toissuing cardsand inefficientrecord updatingin case of ad-dress change ordemise of IDholder.

Absence of cen-tralized database of infor-mation.

Advantages

Electoral list isobserved to be90-95% accu-rate. 70-80% ofIds had photosby 2009 generalelection.

Widely ac-cepted ID proof both in Indiaand outside

Currently IThardware ofPAN system canhandle entirepopulation ofthe country. Theno. of reissuesowing to errorsis less than 0.1%.

Key source ofID for BPL andfinanciallymarginal citi-zens.



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Page 11Cover Story

may also witness cases of cyber mischief.

Though the UID guarantees uniqueness

and a universal identity through a central-

ised online identity verifica-

tion process, experts point outthat biometric information

such as iris scan and finger-

printing lead to a misuse of an

individual's personal informa-

tion. It can also be used by

anti-socials such as terrorists,

since they can get it issued through fake

identities during large-scale enrolments.

The real fear is access to such a data would

give the government a free hand to profil-

ing, segmenting and targeting a sect, group

or religion. This could lead to dangerous

consequences. This data, if slipped into the

hands of corporate, could be used to serve

various purposes.

The government has shown sheer urgency

in going for the UID project.

If the project fails to confrontthe various questions and

doubts being raised, it would

hurt democracy. This is a

dark joke making its rounds

in the political corridors with

the idea of investing an iden-

tity in every citizen. It is prudent at this

stage for the government to have a frank

debate on the matter and to put in public

the entire structure before it goes into in-

vesting this enormous amount of money

which could otherwise be used to lift mil-

lions out of poverty.

11

- Shruti Goel

DoMS, IIT Roorkee

[email protected]

The challenge called Unique Identification


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Page 12You Innovate, I Copy and Paste ! ! !

12

One of the most important things that is in themind of every businessmen in todays busi-

ness environment is whether to

develop a product, technology, busi-

ness model etc by doing research and

development (innovation) or

acquire it buy merging with some other

company or taking over some other

firm or clone, imitate or adapt it ( copy

and paste).

This article focuses on the rea-

sons behind the success of copy

pasting business strategy by

looking at some of the examples.

Lets start with everyones favor-

ite search engine Google. You all

know that among any other

website in the world Google

makes the most money, the reason why

Google is the best search engine in the world

and you also know the mechanism behind

how Google generates revenue. But do you

know that the business model behind the

search engines success was copied. The com-

pany from which the business model is copied

is Overture. Ever heard of it? Its a paid

search specialist company based in South

California which is now owned by Yahoo Inc.

The mechanism which combined the searchengine, relevant text ads, and their placement

on the web page was pioneered by Overtureand they even had a patent on it. The patent

6,269,361 also known as the 361 patent was

issued to Overture by US Patent Office in July

2001. Overture sued Google for violating its

patent and Google paid Overture to settle the

lawsuit. This interesting revelation have been

made in the book Getting to Plan B:

Breaking Through To a Better Business

Model written by John Mummins and

Randy Komisar. So using analogs is good, but

watch out for patents! Ever

heard of www.facebook.com?

Oh why am I joking with you

all? You all have heard of it.

Still for knowledge, Facebook

is a social networking service

having more than 600 million

active users. And most of you

must have seen the movie The Social Net-

work, a drama film about the history and

foundation of Facebook and the resulting law-

suits. Dont be surprised, Facebooks founders

Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin

Moskovitz and Chris Hughes were sued by

their three Harvard seniors, Cameron

Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Nar-

endra for using their idea of social network

called HarvardConnection.com and building a

competing product. The lawsuit was subse-quently settled.
http://www.facebook.com/http://www.facebook.com/http://www.facebook.com/


13/34


13

These two examples clearly show that imitat-

ing or copy pasting others ideas is a preva-

lent and successful business strategy.

Peter Drucker, who was a writer, manage-

ment consultant and self-described social

ecologist, has referred IBM as the worlds

foremost creative imitator. In the book

Copycats How Smart Companies

Use Imitation to Gain a Strategic

Edge written by Oded Shenkar, it is men-

tioned that IBM created the first commer-

cially viable product a per-

sonal computer, by taking the

best of the Apple and Commo-

dore machines, among others,

which was subsequently cloned

by Compaq and Dell.

Ever heard of White Castle?

No. White Castle is the first

fast-food hamburger chain, first to sell a bil-

lion hamburgers and the first to sell frozen

fast food. Walter Anderson, the founder of

White Castle, was the person who first came

up with the concept of a fast food chain, that

too in 1921. But a lot of copy-pasters copied

everything from the store design to his oper-

ating processes.

Do you know who issued the first credit

card? The answer is neither Visa nor Master

Card which are the most popular one now. It

was issued by Diners Club.

The reason behind launching the low-end

detergent, Wheel by Hindustan Unilever

Ltd in the early 80s was to compete with

Nirma who was giving a tough time to it,

instead of diluting the positioning of Surf.

Eventually Wheel became a bigger brand

than Nirma.

The vision to start a low-cost airline

Air Deccan was seen and first imple-

mented in India byCaptain G. R. Gopi-

nath which was soon copied and improved

upon by other airlines like

GoAir and Indigo.

South Korean company Sam-

sung was recently sued byAp-

ple for copying the look and

feel of its iPad tablet and

iPhone smartphone.

Enough with the examples,

now let us try to understand the reasons behind

this entire copy pasting and why imitators are

so successful. One main reason is that the costs

borne by the imitators are lot lower than that of

innovators. Bessen J and Maskin E. have given

an estimate in their research paper, The Imita-

tion and Diffusion of Industrial Innova-

tions that overall costs in case of imitators are

around 60 to 75 per cent of the costs borne by

the innovator.


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Since the innovator and pioneer have paved

the way and they have also paid for it, the imi-

tator just enjoys a free ride. The imitator is

able to save not only time, money, effort etc

on research and development but also on

marketing because the customers are already

aware of the novel product or service and its

uses. So the chances of reaching a dead end

for imitator reduce to a great extent.

So the moral of the story is it all depends

upon each and every individual businessman

whether they want to go down in the history

as innovators or imitators. Instead of blindly

copying ideas, one should try to add some-

thing meaningful to it, so that it becomes

more successful than the original one. But be

cautious of patent violations, they can cost

you a great deal of fortune. So if you are plan-

ning to start a business but not having any in-

novative idea, just look around and you might

find something.

14

- Udit Gupta

DoMS, IIT Roorkee

[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


15/34

Page 15Private Investment in Education Sector in India

Education sector is one of

the largest service sectors

in India. It is by far one of

the largest capitalized

spaces in India with gov-

ernment spending of about $30bn which is

about 3.7% of the GDP of our country. In In-

dia, we have approximately 1 million schools

and 18,000 colleges and universities but still

they are insufficient and inefficient to cater

to the demands of our countrys population

and as a result, Indi-

ans spend about

$50bn on private edu-

cation.

Education sector in

India can be catego-

rized into formal and

informal sector. For-

mal sector is a $40bn

market and comprises

of K12 education andhigher education whereas informal sector

($10bn market) comprises of preschools (1.5-

3 years), coaching, vocational training, multi-

media/IT to schools & colleges and books

market.

In formal education sector, investment op-

portunities are immense but the not for

profit regulation in the sector has deterred

the investors in this sector.

K12 (Kindergarten to 12th standard) school

must be affiliated to an education board like

CBSE, ICSE or any other state board. Some

states like Haryana and Maharashtra do al-low institutes to be set up as for profit but

they do not get approval of education boards.

Similarly in higher educational institutes

(colleges and universities) must be not for

profit (trust/ society)

in nature and must be

recognized by regula-

tory bodies like UGC,

AICTE etc. Other is-

sues like bureaucratic

control, corruption,

little clarity on FDI

policy and high land

prices makes it even

more difficult for the

new players to enter and existing players to

expand in this space.In non formal education sector, there is no

not for profit regulation but the market is

highly fragmented and scalability is a prob-

lem for the players in this sector.

15


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Scalability is the ability of a company to con-

tinuously increase its profits and sales figures

year after year. Pre-school, a $300m segment

is gathering some corporate attention due to

low entry barriers and 11 major chains and

about 10 smaller players are active in this

space.

Pre-school, a $300m segment is gathering

some corporate at-

tention due to low

entry barriers, just

11 major chains and

about 10 smaller

players in the space.

While the scale-up

has so far been on

the franchisee plat-

form, corporate are

increasingly forming

JVs with builders/ partners and moving up

the value chain by upgrading to K12 schools.

Coaching class is a $6.4bn market led by

scarcity of educational institutes and cut

throat competition for entry into professional

colleges in India. 80% of the market is pri-

vate tutoring and is highly dependent on

good quality teachers. Stability and scalabil-

ity is very low in this segment due to inherent

regionalism and person centric nature of this

segment.

Remaining 20% of the coaching class market

is test preparation and has lower dependence

on people and a larger focus on national level

content, making it relatively easier for play-

ers to attain scale.

The vocational training market accounts for

$1.5bn. Though the market is continuously

evolving with emergence of a host of new

avenues beyond IT

trainings (financials,

retail, aviation, man-

agement certifica-

tions and spoken-

English trainings),

scalability remains

low. Multimedia for

private schools,

though currently a

small market ($70m)

is highly underpenetrated and technology-

driven and offers value creation potential to

the investors. Educomp solutions is a major

player in this segment. The education sector

in India is a promising sector with huge po-

tentials for large investments. However,

regulatory restrictions have prevented a

floodgate of investments in the regulated

education market and with increasing shifts

towards deregulation we can see more invest-

ments in the future coming in this sector.

16


17/34


Key Private Players in Education Sector

17

Formal Informal

K12 Higher Educa-

tion

Pre-School Coaching Vocational

Training

Multime-

dia/IT in

schools

Books Mar-

ket

KidzeeManipal Kidzee

IMS

NIIT EducompNavneet

MilleniumAmity Euro Kids Career

Launcher

APTECH

EveronnMacmillan

IMS IIPM Apple Kids TIMEJetking NIIT

Career

Launcher

ICFAITree House

FIIT JEE

- Divye Garg

DoMS, IIT Roorkee

[email protected]


18/34

Page 18Social Media Marketing

Social Media

seemed to be the

keyword for busi-

nesses in the year

2011. Every individ-

ual, business and expert was talking about

it, the internet was spilling over with blogs

and write ups suggesting tips and strategies

to make use of this newly discovered me-

dium and help all kinds of businesses flour-

ish. Surely, as predicted, social media did

gain a momentum that

threatened to sweep

companies off their feet

lest they pep up for the

new mode of competi-

tion. A lot of talk about

social media, and the

only thing that pops into

my mind instantly is

Facebook. Little do peo-

ple like me realize that the territory of so-

cial media extends far beyond Facebookand other networking sites. To put it

crisply, social media can include all forms

of electronic communication channels:

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and mi-

cro blogs, even cell phones, to share, pro-

mote and interact with the target audience.

An example I would quote later has gone a

step further and created a strong fan base

through social media marketing strategies.

Currently, allow me to limit the discussion

to weighing the pros and cons, as was ob-

served by those foraying into this domain.

Pros:

Wider reach- Social networking has be-

come a rage which allows for the conflu-

ence of a vast pool of potential custom-

ers and assists businesses to always stay

in the eyes of the cus-

tomers.

Inexpensive/ cost ef-

ficient- Traditional mar-

keting is way more ex-

pensive as compared to

online marketing. Social

media offer a very low

cost of entry. Of course,

that leads to an easy en-

try for competitors as well.

Instant feedback- The response of the

customer: good or bad, to the product

can be instantly obtained and acted

upon. This provides for a greater scope

of improvement and customer satisfac-

tion, which is the mainstay of business

today.

18


19/34


Personification of the brand- Social

media helps create an image of the

brand in the minds of customers that

they can relate to and is easily accessi-

ble to them.

Building sustaining relationships- It

eases communication for both the

company and the end user, paving way

for a direct interaction between the

two. This has a 2-way benefit: to help

the company better understand cus-

tomer needs, and for the customer by

enabling a greater degree of involve-

ment.

Cons:

Greater risk of damage- There is al-ways a chance of inflicting damage on

the companys reputation due to over

exposure and negative response from

customers. The backlash can be far

greater than that in case of traditional

marketing tactics.

Pressure to innovate- Since the two

parties involved are constantly in

touch with each other, there is always

the pressure to recreate and innovate

to attract as well as maintain brand

loyalty.

Long term approach- It is important to

understand that social media does not

affect sales overnight. It requires extra

effort and a long period to develop cus-

tomer base and maintain relation-

ships.

It is evident that the advantages of social me-

dia far outweigh its disadvantages. Also, be-

ing part of an ever increasingly competitive

business scenario, it is even more essential

for organizations to invest in social media

marketing. In June 2011, Global Web Index

shared a graphic that outlines social network

penetration by country.

19


20/34


As can be observed from the infographic Phil-

ippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the BRIC

countries are highly active in the social net-

working arena. Hence, the marketers would

be able to reap higher profit margins if they

concentrated more on these countries.

Returning to a few examples that would illus-

trate the potential that can be tapped through

social media, I would like to stress on the fact

that correct use of the medium is extremely

important to make or break a brand.

TATA DOCOMO CASE STUDY (Source :

Interface Business Solutions)

Why Social Media

When Tata DOCOMO was planning to enter

the Indian market as

the 9th GSM operator,

it faced entrenched

incumbents and

strong brand commu-

nication barriers from

other telecom opera-

tors. However Tata

DOCOMO was deter-mined to change the

game and cut through

the clutter through

pure innovation and doing the New.

Social Media became the first opportunity

which had not been picked up by most Indian

brands in June 2009 leave alone the telecom

operators. It was unchartered waters but we

knew that Social Media connects us with the

exact TG that the brand wanted to associate

with. It further had the wow element and was

clearly doing the New. The perfect reason for

Tata DOCOMO to draw up an extensive strat-

egy to harness the power of Social Media and

build the brand with its consumers.

Laying the Social Media Strategy

At the very core of the Social Media strategy

was the idea of humanizing a telecom brand

and make it warm, friendly and conversa-

tional. The strategy was simple yet brilliant.

Reach out to every corner of the web and toevery possible TG not

as a corporate brand

but as a friend willing

to engage the con-

sumer in a one-on-one

dialogue on anything

and everything per-

taining to the brand,

its offers, its deficien-

cies as well as any-

thing to do with tele-

com per se. The desired outcome was clear in

everyone's mind to build the most loyal set

of beta customers who will champion the

brand in their micro-communities at every

moment.

20


21/34


The execution

A dedicated Social Media team at Interface

was built to execute the plan. Twitter, Face-

book, Orkut, Youtube accounts were opened

up and optimized even before the brand

launch took place. The website itself actively

solicited visitors to signup to the Tata

DOCOMO communities months before it be-

came a fad for others. The Social Media team

set about targeting each of the Social Media

platforms differently.

The Outcome

Each media of the social media strategy has

helped Tata DOCOMO build a strong and

loyal fanbase amongst the youth and has un-

mistakably taken ownership of the innovator

platform thus firmly establishing the brand

essence of do the New. The brand values of

honesty, transparency and sincerity have

been well established in the minds of con-

sumers. Tata DOCOMO social presence is

not seen to be a marketing gimmick but a

genuine effort to connect and engage with

every fan and follower with sincerity and with

the authority to solve their problems.

21

-Aditi Joshi

DoMS, IIT Roorkee

[email protected]


22/34

Page 22Putting handsets inside consumers pocket

According to Gartner, worldwide mobile com-

munication device sales have increased by 19

percent in the first quarter of 2011 as com-

pared to 2010. As the industry continues to

grow rapidly, Nokia is losing its market share.

Nokias world market share declined 5.5 per-

centage points year-on-year, and its share has

reached its lowest, since 1997, to 30.6 per-

cent. Nokia's market share in India has

halved in just few quar-

ters. The company con-

trols around 30 percent

of Indian market, accord-

ing to research firm Gart-

ner, compared with

around 60 percent mar-

ket share in the previous

year. While Samsungs

world market share stood

at 18 percent which is the companys strong-

est first quarter ever. We studied how the two

big names and other mobile phone compa-

nies are getting their share of the consumers wallet by doing a survey of multi brand mo-

bile phone retailers in Roorkee. This article is

based on our findings.

With more than ten brands (namely Nokia,

Samsung, Micromax, BlackBerry, LG, GFive,

Karbonn, Spice, Maxx, Sony Ericsson, Mo-

torola and others) competing across differentsegments in India, most mobile phone com-

panies find it quite challenging to put their

handsets into the consumers pocket. There

are so many varieties available in the market;

customers find it difficult to make choice,

said a retailer. Here is an account of the re-

tailers perspective of the mobile phone mar-

ket.

LAUNCHING PRODUCTS AND APPLI-

CATION

When a new product is

launched and is adver-

tised, it must be available

with us within two weeks

so that the initial de-

mand doesnt dry out.

said a retailer. Some

brands supply newly

launched products only

to their own-brand-

outlets for the first few weeks despite the fact

that we can perform better than them said

another retailer. When a new product is

launched, some companies face the problem

of high demand and low availability, so rather

than being biased towards their own outlets

they should take in account all the retailers.

Most companies come up with a variety of

products. But few take care of all of them.

Others just concentrate on a few bestsellers,

said another one. Not only launching new

products, launching new applications are very

22


23/34


much important and contribute to the mobile

business. The Samsung Application Store

gives immense choice to consumers looking

for I applications relevant in Indian context

it offers 150,000 Java and as many as

9,000 Bada and Android applications which

one can download. The company has also cre-

ated a Samsung Fun Club from which smart

-phone users can download games, videos

and music. Samsung

says, it is getting over

1.6 million downloads

every day. Similarly,

Nokia Store offers as

much as 17,000 appli-

cations for download.

The Ovi store from

which one can buy mu-

sic gets over one mil-

lion hits from India alone.

For every new product launched, the com-

pany must make proper arrangements for

servicing the product. A quick response is

very much desired by the customer and al-

most one-third of the customers were un-

happy with the services provided by their

brand and were willing to switch brands as

mentioned by retailers.

PRODUCT VARIETY AND TECHNOL-

OGY

Technology is fast changing and so are con-

sumer demands. These days customers want

android phones said a retailer. When asked

the reason, he added Android supports lot of

applications. Google's Android platform rose

to a dominant position in the smart-phone

market in the first quarter of 2011. We offer

customers Android operating systems, we

also offer them Bada which is our own pro-

prietary system and we

are also looking at

launching some Micro-

soft Window operating

systems. Its a kind of

range which our com-

p e t i t o r s c a n n o t

match, said Ranjit

Yadav, Samsung India

country head of mobile

and IT. According to retailers, Samsungs

dual SIM and android devices are customers

favorites. To help its weakening position in

smart-phone segment, Nokia has made a dealto start the use of Microsoft's Windows Phone

software in its handsets instead of Symbian.

Nokia has also come up with dual SIM prod-

ucts.

Moreover, interesting trends in low-end seg-

ment of mobile phones shows drastic increase

in share of new entrant mobile companieslike Micromax, Lava, Karbonn etc.

23


24/34


This definitely proves the fact that the cus-

tomers in this segment demand value for

money.

RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Retailers help customers to choose a mobile

phone that is beneficial for both of them.

Most often customers buy products that we

endorse, said a retailer. In a market where

products are equally good and prices com-

petitive, retailers are usually biased towards a

brand that offers flexible and better margins

and payout schemes. When asked about

schemes, a retailer replied for example if we

sell a thousand product of a particular brandthey give us bonuses. Flexibility means that

if a scheme is applicable for sales of 100

handsets of a model in a certain segment of a

particular brand, then the scheme is made

valid even if there is somehow a shortage of

very less quantity, say 5, it could be adjusted

in next months payout scheme. Brands which

offer attractive payout schemes become re-

tailers favorite and in-turn find their way

into the consumers pocket.

Another important aspect which motivates

the retailers to favor a certain brand is re-

tailer-distributor relationship. Few retailerscomplained about the poor relationship man-

agement by distributors. In local market, es-

pecially small cities, this relationship is very

important because for a small region or town

there is only one distributor of a brand. Then

his relationship with retailers will certainly

affect the brands sale in that region. A poten-

tial solution to this problem could be dividing

the circle area into smaller regions so that the

retailers could have access to two or more dis-

tributors.

24

- Sayantan and Pawan

DoMS, IIT Roorkee


25/34

Page 25 Cause This, This Is A Poem

I want you to know

Know that its hard living and how hard it pains

Tell me can you feel it,

See its running, running right through my veins

I want you to know

Know that there are some things, which I cant explain

Cause this, this is a poem, a poem that I can never write again

I may cry

Cry my heart out, without a tear dropping down my cheek

I may not say

Say that you have the sweetest voice, & sure it can make me go weak

I may try

Try as hard as I can, and wouldnt hesitate a bit even to cheat

Cause this, this is a poem, a poem that I may never be able to complete

I can see

See those colors and feel the heat

your eyes pierce

Pierce me like darts, and I skip a heartbeat

And I can trade

Trade my soul, if thats whats needed to seal the deal

Cause this, this is a poem, a poem that will tell you how I feel

Somehow I Know

Know that all my efforts, would die in vain

and Ill stay

Stay forever, getting soaked in this pouring rain

But I know

Know, I wont get what I need

Cause this, This is a poem, a poem that you'll never read

25

- Manav Kaushik

DoMS, IIT [email protected]


26/34

Qutopia20

26

Its Exquizite, Kills your Quriosity and adds to your Quizdom. Need we say more?

Qutopia A Utopia of the best Biz Quiz Tidbits to wreck your brains! Rush in your an-

swers [email protected], before 30th September, 2011. The winner will

have their names published in the next issue. Also, person getting the highest score in the

current quarter (July-September 2011) will get a gift voucher. Answers in the next issue of

DoMination.

1. Identify the logo?

2. What does ADR stand for?

3. What was Anna Hazares occupation before becoming a social-activist?

4. Where 2022 FIFA World Cup would be held?

1. Which company is the world leader in marketing communications?

2. Whos the CEO of Procter & Gamble Company?

Section A

(1 Point for each correct answer)

Section B

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


27/34

Qutopia20

27

Section C


3. What is the official publication of Germany, China and Portugal known as?

4. Whos the parent of Oberoi & Trident hotels chain?

* Identify the legendary Indian?

Answers to Qutopia 19

Answer: Section A

1. First postage stamp of Independent India

2. Chicken market is the stock market with no significant movement in the index

3. The Silicon Valley

4. Lakme

5. Year 1969

6. MLaren Formula 1 has the engine from BMW

Answer: Section B:

1. Logo of the United Nations Climate Change Conference held at Copenhagen, commonly known as the Copenhagen Summit

2. Shombit Sengupta, he designed the logo of each of themr

3. Kothari Pioneer in 1993 later merged with Franklin Templeton

4. The Big Mac Index

Winner:

Udit Gupta (Batch 2010-2012)

G.Manoj (Batch 2010-2012)

- Prateek Tomar

DoMS, IIT Roorkee

[email protected]


28/34

Page 28DoMS-da-Evince

1) What are the roles and responsibili-

ties with Reliance Industries Ltd.? How

did it help in your career?

I joined Reliance as a Management Trainee

and have come a long way. When I had joined

Reliance I was supposed to take over the pro-

file of a Field Sales officer and spent the bet-

ter part of a year under training but as the

date of confirmation neared I was in for a

shock. I was told that the job isnt suitable for

a woman and I was adjusted into another

profile which was mainly of an assistant. I

took it as a challenge and am now working in

the head office as Manager in operations. I

handle national sales, industry data, coordi-

nation between field & head office. It has notbeen an easy journey but it surely has been an

interesting one.

2)What characteristics make Sales pro-

file challenging and demanding?

Well, I havent really been in the hard core

sales. My profile is of data churning ,the most

challenging part being accuracy. A numberhere & a number there make a hell lot of a

difference in the final output & trust me I

have learned the hard way. I have always

been a person who does work in a hurry & in

my initial days I paid more emphasis on fin-

ishing on time rather than on accuracy and to

top that I have been blessed with bosses who

are razor sharp in numbers. They just have to

see the nos and they can tell you something is

wrong. I would suggest you to be sure of your

work as it is a cut throat world out there & all

of you wont be blessed with generous bosses

like I have been.

3)How has the government resistance

to allow deregulation of Diesel affected

the petroleum industry specially the

private sector? Do you think that like

petrol diesel should also be freed from

the clutches of subsidy?

This is one topic which is very close to my

heart. When I had joined Reliance petroleum

the company was onto launching some 4000

odd petrol pumps across India. Our motto

was to do something different in a market

where the customer has been short changedforever.

28

This time in DoMS-da-Evince, we bring excerpts from an interview with Ms. Smita

Beohar, who is a dynamic professional with over 7 years of rich experience in Strategic

Planning, Sales & Marketing, Business Development, Channel Management, Key Account

Management and Team Management in the Petroleum Industry. She is currently working

with Reliance Industries Ltd. as Manager Sales Planning.


29/34

Page 29DoMS-da-Evince

Within 3 years we were up & running and

even managed to get a market share of 13%

which was no mean feat. During this time we

even managed to wake up the PSUs and re-

sult is visible to all. The petrol pumps are now

much consumer friendly and there are facili-

ties which go beyond the basic product. But

then came a time when crude prices increased

and the PSU continued selling at less price

and got subsidies from government in the

form of oil bonds but none of the private

companies like RIL, Essar & Shell got that

benefit. The direct result of this was that

these companies started slowing down.

Every year there are talks of deregulation of

Diesel which would allow the companies to

regulate the price but due to political pressure

the deregulation is yet to see the light of the

day. The government had dismantled APM in

2002 to give a level playing field to all compa-

nies. The move resulted in Private players to

join the business but despite the dismantling

government still holds the thread to the busi-

ness which makes or breaks elections. Com-

plete de regulation would give a level playing

field to all players & trust me to some extent

it will also solve the problems that a con-

sumer faces i.e. of adulterated product. Yes de

regulation would also mean little higher

prices but then I feel that it is high time that

we are free of the clutches of subsidy. As it is

these subsidies help rich get richer. A lot

more can be discussed on the same. So in

case you want to discuss the issue with me do

drop in a mail at [email protected]

3)How has DoMS, IIT Roorkee contrib-

ute to your success?

Well, DoMS made me what I am. It laid the

foundation of where I stand today. I believe it

continues to provide a good platform for

building oneself. It is more of a facilitator and

it is up to us, what maximum we extract out

of it !

4)Any Message for the readers, espe-

cially the current batches?

I have been hearing only good things about

the department. you guys have a lovely infra-

structure, a good faculty & an excellent brand

name. Never underestimate it and use the

whole system to its full potential. Try and

make the best possible use of these 2 years.

All the best.

29


30/34

Regardez I'economie

30

In this edition, we delve into the major economic activities of August2011 that had an impact on Indian economy

This August saw

frantic happen-

ings of historical struggles

both in the domestic territory

and on the International

stage struggles that ranged

from the rise of a unique

revolution against corruption

(dubbed as freedom struggle

Part II) to the struggle of

the Western giants in keeping

their head high in the tumul-

tuous waters of a shakingWorld Economy. The tremors

of the present crisis in the

United States and Europe

could be felt all across the

globe. The fear of another re-

cession might be giving

nightmares to many people,

but the current scenario

could also signal a shift in

Global Power. India, in cur-

rent circumstances, is not

only facing the change in dy-

namics of Global Power but

also fighting the evil of Cor-

ruption on war front at home,

so much so that it has para-

lysed the already slow deci-

sion-making in the current

UPA Government as the fo-

cus has totally shifted from

inflation and GDP Growth to

just one bill the Jan Lok-

pal Bill.

God Help America! Can we

seriously count on it for the

upcoming time to tide us to

the safety of shores? Last Oc-

tober, when the rating agen-

c i e s l i k e

Moody, Fitch

and S&P had

warned the US

lawmakers of their balloon-

ing budget deficit, no one

could have imagined of thisunpredictable future. The US

economy stumbled badly in

the first half of 2011, coming

close to contraction in first

quarter. Americas AAA

credit rating has been down-

graded by a notch by Stan-

dard & Poor to AA+ rating

even though the Obama ad-

ministration was able to se-

cure the votes in favour of

increasing the US debt (to

the tune equal to that of US

GDP!) ceiling as that was the

only option which was there

with them to tide over the

crisis of this deficit. There are

various opinions regarding

this downgrading from politi-

cal to economic. Standards &

Poor, during its earlier re-view had given a warning on

downgrading the US Credit

Rating on account of increas-

ing deficit and slowing

growth in the US. The reper-

cussions of the downgrade

have descended upon the

global economy like a bolt

from blue.

Amidst all the promises to

lower down the budget defi-

cits by Obamas administra-

tion, the event has shattered

the hope of investors and

traders across the globe.


31/34

Regardez I'economie

31

Every stock market includ-

ing ours took a huge hit andcrashed like Babel. A feeling

of panic can be sensed not

only from the amateurs of

the market but also the ty-

coons of Wall Street. In the

backdrop of a weakening

dollar against other major

currencies like the Euro, the

Japanese Yen, etc there are

calls from the next genera-

tion super power like China

asking for replacement of

the US dollar as the reserve

currency, even though they

are the biggest lenders to the

US Government and the

holder of a huge pile-up of

US dollars. But then it is

China the Country which

maintains a prudent balance

of everything be it the cur-

rencies, Gold or even the

Crude Reserve for that mat-

ter, which is why in the cur-

rent vicious scenario, the

Economists all across havestarted looking at China

from a very close angle and

speculations are ripe as to

how might China react in

this situation will it act

like an opportunist or will it

act in the larger interest of

the Global Economy. But the

replacement of US dollar as

the Global reserve will not

only impact the US, it will

also have an impact on the

emerging countries which

depend on easy loans and

FII inflow from the dollar

market and India especially,

has got huge dollar reserves

as compared to other cur-

rencies in the kitty of our

Foreign Exchange Reserves.

The European Union, al-

ready suffering from the

burden of PIGS (Portugal,

Italy, Greece, and Spain) will

have another addition to its

investors fears and anxiety

and this could adversely af-

fect the Euro. The panic in

the currency market could

easily be pointed out with

the lump sum increase incommodities like Gold & Sil-

ver. Gold & Silver with other

precious metals like Plati-

num and Palladium are ex-

pected to attract buyers, and

exchange traded funds with

gold as underlying asset as

in the current scenario,

when the Equities market

world-wide are facing a bear

run, the investors are ac-

knowledging Gold as the saf-

est haven for investment.

One of the global impacts

could be softening of Com-

modity prices too, and Mid-

dle East could face the im-

pact in earnings of oil pro-

ducers who will try to hold

on oil prices. Because of the

above consequences, ini-

tially a double dip recession

was forecasted and it further

resulted in a panic environ-

ment among traders and in-

vestors. As we have already

seen the global impact of cri-

sis, but a question still re-

mains how the situation so


32/34


33/34

Regardez I'economie

33

-tary policy, as it might fur-

ther affect our exports. But,

as the EU is still trying to

recover, and a sudden fear of

another recession in the US,

the new power group like the

BRICS have a larger role to

play in Global Economy. So

this might be the blessing in

disguise for our nation, the

time has come for India to

raise itself from the garb of

corruption and to play a sig-

nificant role in the World

stage.

- Shibi Singh

DoMS, IIT Roorkee

[email protected]


34/34

The Team

Shruti Goel

Anuj Mody

Chetna Yadav

Mukesh Rathi

Rajneesh Kumar

Contributors

Aditi joshi

Anurag Agarwal

Manav Kaushik

Pawan

Prateek Tomar

Saumya Verma

Sayantan

Shibi

Anirudh De

Deep Pathak

Harsh Singh

Pallavi

Rohini Sharma

Rishi Arora

Udit Gupta

Sudeep Dakua

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