I think business model is important.

Twitter is the magic word. I have seen all social media enthusiasts talking about Twitter. I asked one of my friends what is Twitter’s business model. He had no answer; probably it does not have any business model.

I think business model is important.

A closure review of the product made me feel that while a business model is important, Twitter is a company that can afford to take its time in finding the one and even if it fails to discover one it will survive. It will survive because other businesses are building on top of the micro-messaging service and using it for their own services.

Some businesses have discovered that Twitter is an effective way of communicating with consumers. Dell made US$ 1 million using Twitter. People who sign up to follow Dell on Twitter receive messages when discounted products are available the company’s Home Outlet Store. They can click over to purchase the product or forward the information to others. When Dell can make money why not others? The corporate success story can motivate Twitter to creating corporate accounts.

I realize Twitter has created such a valuable platform which is beyond the debate of business model.

farzaap.com

The Raj Television Network Plans a Print Foray

The south Indian state Tamil Nadu has around 30 regional language newspapers, including heavyweights such as Dinakaran, Dinamalar and the Daily Thanthi. Dinakaran, owned by the Sun TV group, is the market leader, with a total daily circulation of around one million copies during January-June, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. In such a cluttered market the Raj Television Network is planning a print foray – Sun TV groups are you listening.

The Raj Television Network was started in 1994 to provide wholesome entertainment for the entire family. The group has programmes targeted at young and old, male and female alike. The Network with unique set of programs has positioned itself as The People’s Channel. The Raj Television Network, like other Indian media companies is looking forward to expand their portfolio and emerge as the complete media house. The Raj Television Network once has a print presence would help in terms of selling advertisements across television and newspapers.

Raj Television Network Ltd plans to enter the print media and is open to acquiring a Tamil newspaper. The company is evaluating options on its print entry as certain players operating in the regional space have approached it to sell their business. Moreover, the company plans to raise INR 50 to 100 crore from private equity firms to build a studio, office complex for its film production business.

Special Economy Zone in India – Lessons from China

In the late 1970s, the Indian and Chinese economies were comparable. The Chinese economy in the 1980s and 1990s cruised ahead of India, and today it finds itself at the top in all sectors against India except in software and knowledge-based products. Special Economy Zone is one of the backbones of the growth of the Chinese economy.

The journey of the Special Economy Zone in India started in year 2000 when Maran, then Commerce Minister, made a tour to the southern provinces of China and realized the importance of SEZ. On returning from the visit, he incorporated the SEZ into the Exim Policy of India and after five year, Special Economic Zones Act 2005 was introduced and in 2006 SEZ Rules was formulated. The formation of the Special Economic Zones Act was not the first initiative of its kind by Indian government. India was one of the first in Asia to recognize the effectiveness of the Export Processing Zone model in promoting exports, with Asia’s first EPZ set up in Kandla in 1965. The experiment with the Export Processing Zone did not do wonder with the Indian economy.

The government, economists, and entrepreneurs jointly studied the Chinese SEZ model. After through analysis of the Chinese SEZ model, they decided to start the SEZs in strategic locations close to port cities and economic centers.

Lessons from China’s SEZs
In 1979, China started four SEZs and after ten long years the fifth one was set up in 1988. The Chinese government analyse the trends of the first four SEZs and based on that they started the fifth SEZ.

The SEZs in China are located on the coastline near Hong Kong and Taiwan which are major economic centers in the region. A large chunk of the FDI was contributed by the non-resident Chinese from Hong Kong and Taiwan, who invested in labor intensive industries. The size of the SEZs has been an important factor in the success of China’s reforms process. Government of China has gone a step forward and declared the entire region or province as a SEZ. In china, cities along the sea coast, including Shanghai, were opened up for foreign investments and given a status comparable to SEZs. Moreover, the hire and fire policy has attracted foreign investors to invest in China’s SEZs. The flexible labor policy of China was the biggest attraction for the foreign investors.

India Go Forward
In current market scenario when the global manufacturing bases are shifting from the developed countries to the developing countries. The countries like India and China hold good future, primarily due to cheap factor prices and proximity to new markets. In the emerged scenario, the Indian SEZ can easily attract FDI in manufacturing provided they offer hassle-free environment for the investors and all necessary fiscal incentives. Indian SEZ can do wonders the way china had done in past. The Indian SEZ have to remember that the Chinese SEZ were large in size, attracted FDI from the nonresident Chinese, government offered attractive incentives. The Chinese government promoted SEZ with flexible labor laws, liberal customs procedures and decentralization of power to the local authorities.

Pranesh Misra to launch Brandscapes Worldwide

Pranesh Misra, is in the process of setting up a knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) venture to be titled Brandscapes, which has been registered as a private limited entity in India and is getting registered as Brandscapes Worldwide in USA, UK and Singapore. The KPO venture would focus on the marketing data analytics and insight mining area, servicing Fortune 500 clients in the developed countries.

Pranesh Misra, an IIM product, has over thirty years of experience in communication, marketing, marketing research, brand planning and international client management. Pranesh Misra is Chairman & Managing Director at Brandscapes Worldwide. Pranesh before starting Brandscapes Worldwide served Lintas at the capacity of President & COO at Lowe Lintas India, and International Client Director at Lintas Jakarta. He also headed Pathfinders, the marketing research and consultancy division of Lowe; initiated VALS research and Ad Tracking into India in the mid 1980s. As Lowe’s international client director (Asia) on Unilever, he was responsible for leading eight regional advertising centres across Asia.

No to Women Boss – ASSOCHAM

Its official now, we prefer male boss over a female boss. ASSOCHAM (The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India) recently concluded survey – “Preference of Bosses in Emerging Corporate Culture” which declares that more than 68% men and women prefer male bosses at their work.The survey result which was based on the 2,500 executives feedback suggest that about 68 percent showed preference for male bosses saying male bosses give more operational freedom at work and are faster in decision-making, while the remaining 32 percent did not have any preference. More interestingly, of the 68 percent executives who voted for male bosses, two-thirds were female. The respondents argued that women approach work with more emotion than men. Also, motherhood and family responsibilities keep them from accomplishing assigned work leading to discontentment among the juniors.The study also shows that women in the workplace do not just prefer male bosses over female bosses; they also feel more comfortable with male co-workers. Men choices were more evenly split, with 17 percent choosing male co-workers and 16 percent choosing female co-workers.The survey, which comprised 67 per cent women and 33 per cent men, also found out :Women have to work twice as hard to prove themselves.Women picked a male boss rather than a female boss,More men would rather work for men than women; 50 percent of men chose a male boss and 12 percent picked a female bossMost women, 77 percent, agree that it is still difficult for women to get ahead in the workplace; only 43 percent of men feels that way.A majority of women, 56 percent, feel that at one time or another they have been disadvantaged in the workplace because of their gender, while 25 percent of men feel the same way.The better the bosses, the longer the stability factor is yet another key findings of the survey. On working with strict bosses, majority of the executives said they would opt for an early exist as today there are immense opportunities available

Reference: http://www.assocham.org, Male Bosses in Preference, Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Reliance Money forays into Saudi Arabia

Reliance Money provides customers with access to equities, equity and commodities futures, mutual funds, life and general insurance products and off-shore investment. The company has aggressive plans to venture into the Africa, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong. The company has already forayed into the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong, and plans to expand its operations in over 15 countries spread across Europe, North Africa, the West Asia and South East Asia by next year.

As part of its plan to expand its global footprint, Reliance Money, the brokering arm of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, has launched a joint venture in Saudi Arabia with Bahrain-based advisory firm Riyada Consulting.

The new entity Riyada Reliance Money is the new joint venture company. The Riyada Reliance Money plans to raise $53.34 million (Rs.2.3 billion) in the first phase through sale of a stake to Gulf institutional investors. Reliance Money chief executive and director Sudip Bandyopadhyay said, “We plan to have a significant footprint in the region. We will be seeking regulatory approvals and also be looking at strategic dilution of equity to institutional investors in the Gulf region.”

The venture will seek regulatory approvals for launching services, including brokering, corporate finance, investment banking and asset management.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com and http://www.reuters.com

Reliance Money ties up with Lagos firm to enter Nigeria

Reliance Money provides customers with access to equities, equity and commodities futures, mutual funds, life and general insurance products and off-shore investment. The company has aggressive plans to venture into the Africa, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong. The company has already forayed into the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong, and plans to expand its operations in over 15 countries spread across Europe, North Africa, the West Asia and South East Asia by next year.

As part of its plan to expand its global footprint, Reliance Money on Sunday announced its debut in Nigeria, in a tie-up with Lagos-based industrial house Chellarams Plc. The announcement was made by Sudip Bandyopadhyay, director & CEO of Reliance Money, and Suresh Chellaram, managing director of Chellarams Plc,. The presence of Reliance Money in Nigeria will definitely complement their efforts to have a larger role in this region. Reliance Money also plans to take membership of the Lagos Stock Exchange in future.

Nigeria is one of the largest financial markets in Africa, also having the largest population in the region. As per the company’s claims, it is the first Indian company to have received an in-principal approval for setting up a branch and offering investment advice in the Sultanate of Oman.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com and http://www.dnaindia.com

Reliance Big Entertainment and Amitabh Bachchan

The $1 billion deal between Reliance Big Entertainment and the production firms of Hollywood
stars Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt and film-makers Chris Columbus and Jay Roach to make films was the beginning of the Anil Ambani’s journey towards transforming his company into global filmmaker. It seems the hunger of Anil Ambani is getting bigger by the day.

Reliance Big Entertainment, just after negotiation with Hollywood bigwig Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks where Anil has planned to infuse about $600 million he also convinced the legendary Amitabh Bachchan.

The deal could be worth $200m-$300m (final figure is not yet known) and would include film production, television series, reality shows, internet and mobile content besides live shows. Reliance Big Entertainment will look after managing marketing and the distribution of projects, and the Bachchans – Amitabh, Jaya, Abhishek and Aishwarya would come up with the creative inputs and would be handling the entertainment aspect of the project.

The joint venture will use brand Bachchans in films, production, TV series, internet, reality shows and mobile content. The other directors who have been signed up to direct films for the joint venture are Balakrishnan, Sujoy Ghosh, Rohan Sippy and Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi. No wonder the deal is in line with Reliance Big Entertainment strategy to tie up with the leading Indian and international creative talent, to build a new-age, future-ready global media and Entertainment Company.

The creative genius – Bachchans and the business genius – Anil will create magic and take entertainment to a different level. The joint venture and our strategy to tie up with Indian and international creative talent will help the company build a new-age global entertainment conglomerate.

Reliance BIG Pictures ties up with Puja Films.

The deal hungry Anil Ambani has signed yet another deal. This time the BIG Pictures, a division of Reliance Entertainment, and Vashu Bhagnani owned Puja films have inked a deal to co-produce five Hindi feature films over the next two years. These films will be financed, marketed and distributed worldwide by Reliance BIG Entertainment.

The first two of the five films which will get release in 2009 are ‘Do Knot Disturb’ and ‘Kal Kissney Dekha’. Vashu Bhagnani on signing the deal says “We are extremely happy to partner with Reliance Big Entertainment. This deal will bring about a synergy of the creative and production expertise of my company with the vast business knowledge of Reliance,”. The joint venture have already started work on the strategic marketing and distribution plan for these films.

This is one of the many deals signed by the Reliance BIG Entertainment, the flagship Media and Entertainment Company of Reliance – Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group. The Reliance BIG Entertainment is investing over $1 billion in its Filmed Entertainment business.

Saregama to produce films

The film industry is growing and undoubtedly is the sunrise industry of India. The corporates are venturing into the film industry in various verticals viz. multiplex, film production, film distributions and those who already have presence is expanding their horizon like PVR are venturing into film production, film distribution a migration from film exhibition Reliance Big Entertainment is consolidating its position not only in Bollywood but also in Hollywood.

Latest in the offering is the music distribution company Saregama venturing again into film production. Saregama India Ltd, the entertainment arm of the Rs 13500 crore RPG Group, would invest up to Rs.150 crore in film production and other businesses over the next two years in producing seven movies. RPG has plans to pick up a minority stake in one of the event management companies in India. The event management vertical will help Saregama popularize its movies and the characters in the movies post release.

Saregama India for its film production venture has tied up with Rituparno Ghosh to direct Bengali movies. Apart from theatrical releases the company will also bring out CDs and DVDs of the movies.

Hoping that this is yet another new beginning of the Indian corporates venturing into film industry. The other corporate houses evaluating the option of either venturing or expanding the horizon in industry are Reliance Industries, A V Birla Group, and Tata’s.