Wake Up and Smell STARBUCKS!

     Starbucks Corporation, doing business as Starbucks Coffee, is an American global coffee company and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. It is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 23,187 stores in 64 countries. Their products are: roasted and handcrafted high-quality, premium priced coffees, tea, fresh food items and other beverages. They also sell coffee and tea products and license their trademarks through channels such as licensed stores, groceries etc.

     Starbucks primarily operates and competes in the retail coffee and snacks store industry. The core competence of Starbucks has been its ability to effectively leverage its cornerstone product differentiation strategies by offering a premium product mix of high quality beverages and snacks. Their brand equity is built on selling the finest quality coffee and related products, and by giving each customer a unique “Starbucks Experience”, which is supreme customer service, clean and well-maintained stores, thus building a high degree of customer loyalty.

     Its other core competence is its human resource management's values-based approach for building very strong internal and external relationships with suppliers, which drives the successful deployment of its business strategy of expansion into international markets, horizontal integration through smart acquisitions and alliances that maintains their long-term strategic objective being the most recognized and respected brands in the world.

     Starbucks, with its size and scale, has the power to take advantage of its suppliers but under its coffee and farmer equity program, it gives its suppliers a fair partnership status, which gives them moderately, low power. The suppliers in the industry also pose a low threat of competing against Starbucks by forward vertical integration, which lowers their power. Starbucks also forms a highly important part of the suppliers business, due its size and scope, which make the power of the suppliers lower. Thus, suppliers pose a moderately low bargaining power.

Starbucks Founder Howard Schultz

     Starbucks has a significant geographical presence across the globe, maintains a 36.7% market share in the United States and operates in over 60 countries. It is the most recognized brand in the coffeehouse segment and is ranked 91st in the best global brands of 2013. Starbucks effectively leverages its rich brand equity by merchandizing products, licensing its brand logo. Such strong market position and brand recognition allows the company to gain significant competitive advantage in further expanding into international markets and also register higher growth in both domestic and international markets.

     They give the highest importance to the quality of their products and avoid standardization even for higher production output. Starbucks has stores in some of the most prime and strategic locations across the globe. They target premium, high-traffic and high-visibility locations which has earned them a significant competence and advantage to be able to penetrate prime markets. Their stores are visually appealing, being designed to reflect the unique character of the neighbourhood they serve in and environmentally friendly. They provide free Wi-Fi, great music, great service, warm atmosphere and an environment of community meeting, which forms a wider part of the ‘Starbucks Experience’. The main aim here is to make their stores a ‘third place’ besides home and work.

     Starbucks is known for its employees. They are the main assets of the company and they are provided with great benefits like stock option, retirement accounts and a healthy culture. Thus, the effective management of its human resources translates into great customer service. Their stores are community friendly, by recycling and reducing waste, thereby building goodwill among communities where they operate.

     Just as Apple did with iTunes, Starbucks efficiently leverages technology with its mobile application ‘Starbucks App’ in both iOS and Android. They make significant investments in technology to support their growth every year. It has a cult following status among consumers and they have also implemented loyalty-based programs to drive loyalty with the Starbucks Rewards programs and Starbucks Card. The Starbucks Card is a value card program that provides convenience, support gifting, and increases the frequency of store visits by cardholders and integrated with their mobile application.

     The increasing saturation and of the US market makes its international strategy even more important. Starbucks has made an entry into many countries, with India recently joining the list with a joint venture. Starbucks sees a great growth potential in further expanding into emerging and developing markets. They leverage their size, experience, financial prowess and efficiencies. Starbucks recently started to expand their product mix by venturing into the Tea and fresh juice product offerings with a smart acquisition strategy.

 

     One of the key strategies that Starbucks followed since its inception is that of product differentiation with its premium product mix, locations, reputation in coffee beverages and supreme customer service that translated to building a premium valued brand that is costly to imitate for competitors. Starbucks also followed a shrewd strategy of strategic alliance and making smart acquisitions. Starbucks didn’t follow the franchising model and operated company oriented stores and joint ventures in international markets.

     Another crucial strategy for Starbucks’ growth has been expansion into key developed and emerging markets for geographical diversification, and it has been highly successful with operations spanning 64 countries. All these strategies have derived considerable competitive advantage for Starbucks over its competitors.

     Thus, Starbucks is an excellent example of spotting opportunities and making effective utilisation of the same. Their culture is thus that it can adapt to any environment which has helped them grow in so many markets. Efficient management of their human capital and their suppliers, their foray into technology and their supreme customer relationship management have ensured that Starbucks is here to play a long innings in the coffeehouse segment.

The Snapdeal Way: the story of identifying right business opportunities

With the evolution of e-commerce in India, the most talked about website has always been the market leader Flipkart. But doing equally well in terms of business and growing at a much faster rate is its competitor Snapdeal. A venture started by two twenty-four year old school friends, has indeed been a magnificently successful brand. They have played a major role in shaping the buying habits of today’s generation. They identified opportunities at every step, tweaked their line of business, diversified where they sensed high growth, made the best use of the funding they got from their investors and succeeded to be one of the biggest players of the Indian e-commerce industry.

Kunal Bahl, then 24 years of age, a management student from Wharton School of Business, decided to start a business with his school friend Rohit Bansal after a stint at Microsoft. Rohit, an IIT engineer was then working with CapitalOne. With a total work experience of 18 months between both of them, they quit their corporate lifestyle and decided to follow their childhood dreams. Life was easy and sorted for them; they had the best degrees and the best jobs with substantial packages. But they chose to go the hard way. That was the first time they spotted an opportunity. Indians are generally misers and they love to save money. They love to shop during monsoon sale, eat at restaurants that give discounts and prefer to buy the most cost-efficient car. So, basically Indians love discounts. This insight paved a path for the idea of a couponing and discounting business.

Snapdeal Co-founders: Kunal Bahl & Rohit Bansal

They launched MoneySaver, an offline couponing business in 2007. They were struggling at establishing this new idea and realized they had to seek investments. They started cold calling investors through their websites, as they weren’t sure who would be interested in investing in this kind of a business. IndoUS Venture Partners were their first investors in September 2009.

While their business was still juvenile, a couple of merchants working with them suggested that Kunal and Rohit could venture into the online market to carry their couponing business. This casual suggestion kept them thinking. Internet was still in its nascent stage in India. Online group buying deals were newly started by Groupon in the United States. It wasn’t a tested business and as the golden law persists, it is not necessary that a successful business at every corner of the world would be successful in India as well. So, there was a risk, but a bigger opportunity and the optimistic minds could not ignore it. They knew that they would get the first mover advantage to be pioneers in the online couponing and group buying deals segment. They brainstormed on how to go about it in January 2010. Soon after that, they registered a domain and that was all that the Engineer-MBA duo knew back then about an online business. On February 4, 2010 they took the brave plunge and launched Snapdeal.com under the company named ‘Jasper Infotech’. The site failed initially, and they made a lot of mistakes. But however, they were extremely agile, they obsessively tracked the customer preferences, and continued to rapidly revise and improve the platform. They evolved and learned from their mistakes and kept moving forward by taking intelligent risks and eventually things started working out well.

Snapdeal.com was started in February 2010 as a daily deals platform. They gave discounted deals on restaurants, beauty salons, spas, amusement parks and many other entertainment services. Various budding business happily collaborated with Snapdeal since the deals attracted customers and got them recognition. Soon, Snapdeal became a sensational success in the country. But they realized that the growth in the daily deals platform was slow and would get stagnant after a point. Ecommerce was a budding industry in India. It had already become popular in the developed countries. Websites like Ebay and Amazon had proved their mettle. In India, Flipkart had then just ventured into the ecommerce world and had got a decent response. The number of internet users in India was less, but the fact remained that the growth rate of internet in India was the highest.

This was spotted to be great opportunity by Kunal and Rohit. E-commerce was a risky industry since it was not easy to change Indian buying habits. But as it is said, big risk brings big money. Finally in September 2011, Snapdeal tweaked their line of business and became an e-commerce company via a marketplace model. The marketplace model is one in which the company does not own the inventory. It engages different retailers to sell their products. It had successfully been implemented by Ebay in the US. Flipkart on the other hand followed the Inventory-holding model of ecommerce, where in the company itself owned the entire inventory and sold it to its buyers. No other private retailers were involved. The move was fraught with risks at a time when most e-retailers in India were inventory-led, but going the marketplace way really jump-started Jasper Infotech, which runs Snapdeal.com, into the big league.

Today, Snapdeal locks horns with e-commerce biggie Flipkart and is nearing a billion dollars in sales. With 20 million registered users, Snapdeal is one of the first and largest online marketplaces in India offering an assortment of over 4 million products across diverse categories from over 20,000 sellers, shipping to 4,000 towns and cities in India. It has shown a phenomenal growth rate of 600% in the last one year.

From an offline couponing business to an e-commerce company nearing a billion dollar sales, the Snapdeal story narrates how young entrepreneurs can create new business opportunities and build a legacy.

Illusory Universe

What is the size of the universe? Where does it begin? Where does it end? What exists after the universe’s end?

What if this universe was the brain of God? And our sun was one of the many billion nuclei in it? They say our earth was formed after the collision of two stars. What if there was a collision between two atoms in the brain of God and earth revolves around the sun like an electron around the nucleus? If this is so, we will never be able to see the face of God because we are right inside that extra-terrestrial being called God.  Universe is full of possibilities and very mysterious. It’s nearly impossible to guess how huge the universe is. And considering its size, we humans are a negligible ‘nobody’.  We are not even a small fraction of a particle of the universe. The realization of being so tiny and minute only makes us feel ‘invisible’. Or are we just a part of someone’s imagination or visualization? After all, don’t we say, ‘’It’s all in the head”?

From the cradle of sadists

  

Drifting into the sea of perversion

This world I know is a place for hypocrites

Purity of the souls fading away

And the conscience is getting tainted

Cruelty showing no remorse

Empathy crushed down to zero

Blood smeared deals being carried out fearlessly

On the pile of dead bodies

This is the voice from the cradle of sadists

Leave humanity behind

Or get ready to be perished

5 things to consider while purchasing your next smartphone.

Almost a decade ago when mobile phones entered the consumer market and gradually emerged to become a mundane accessory, it was not that difficult to select your model. There were very few brands and even fewer features to offer. But now, there are smartphones and they are getting smarter every day..! The question is, are you smart enough to select a phone that suits you best? In today’s world where there is a new smartphone coming up every month and there is so much it offers, what exactly should you be looking for? Here are some tips that should help you while selecting a smartphone.

1. Display

There has been a trend of increasing screen size since the introduction of smartphones. The screen size kept on increasing which led to the introduction of tablets and later on compelled phones to become phablets. But while considering the Display, it’s not just the screen size that matters; rather Resolution plays a much more important role. Some common resolutions are VGA (640x480), WVGA (800x480), HD (1280x720), Full HD (1920x1080) and so on. The number of pixels packed up together per sq. inch defines the pixel density PPI (pixels per inch). This PPI is responsible for the crispness and sharpness of the display. A big screen with lower resolution will lead to lower PPI of around 200; where as a decent screen with high resolution will produce a dense PPI of around 300-400. So you should look for a dense PPI so that the quality of display is good. Phones with lower resolutions may not be able to play HD videos or HD apps.

Why do people own a dog !!

This article is about a dog and how it changes you for good and your perception towards life.

As cliched as it might sound but, this is a fact. Research has proved that dogs can relieve you from your stress twice as quick as music does and it has the ability to sense your mood and comfort you accordingly. Now it may totally depend on how good you treat your dog.

It’s like a basic rule of nature; the dog will love you only if you are willing to care enough for it

Why am I so fussing about it because I've got a dog at my home, and it has really changed the way I see things and the way I see life.

Howard Moskowitz and Spaghetti Sauce

     What is happiness? How is it different from the other feelings we get? Why do different things make different people happy in different situations? As for me, enthralling my readers with my writings makes me happy. For you, may be, your favourite dish served hot in front of you makes you happy. Speaking of food, I’m sure you can recollect twirling those long strands of spaghetti in your fork and savouring them with the zesty sauce that comes with it. So what I am going to talk about today is a little different from what I’ve talked about before - the reinvention of spaghetti sauce. This is credited to the famous American market researcher and psychophysicist – Dr. Howard Moskowitz.

     A doctorate from Harvard University, Dr. Moskowitz had a consulting business in White Plains, New York, and one of his very first clients was Pepsi, back in the early 70s. This was a time, when the sugar substitute – aspartame was getting increasingly popular and Pepsi wanted to use it in their latest offering – Diet Pepsi. They wanted Dr. Moskowitz to figure out how much aspartame should each can of Pepsi contain in order to qualify as the perfect drink. A little too detailed, you might think, but this is what big companies do. They conduct immense research in order to make the perfect product.

Liverpool & the Premier League 2014

(Ocean's Eleven)
Linus: Smash and grab job, huh?
Rusty: Slightly more complicated than that.
Linus: Well, yeah.
Daniel Ocean: Okay, Bad news first. This place houses a security system rivalling most nuclear silos. First, we have to get in the casino cage, which takes more than a smile. Next, through these doors, each one requiring a different code changed every 12 hours. Past those, is the elevator. Here's where it gets tricky. It won't move without authorized fingerprint I.D.
Rusty: Which we can't fake.
Daniel Ocean: And vocal confirmation between the Belagio & the vault.
Rusty: Which we can't get.
Daniel Ocean: Furthermore, the elevator shaft is rigged with sensors. Once we get down the shaft, it's a piece of cake. Just two more guards with Uzi's & most elaborate vault ever conceived by man.

I can quite relate this scene in Ocean's to Liverpool's season this year. They have been that tough. Make no mistake, Liverpool are the best team in the country & stand second in the Premier league at the time of writing & are in a fantastic run of form just at the right moment. Unbeaten in their last 10 games; not many know that they have lost just once at home. 2014 has been a year to recon for Liverpool as they are unbeaten so far in 2014. As the season unfolds Liverpool look more & more settled, energetic & determined than  any other club at the top flight. As others have stumbled, an excellent season has transformed into a take-able opportunity to win a first Premier league title.
Watching Liverpool thrashing the big guns in a sensational fashion, you think that they are on the right track to glory. If they were to win the league this season the following factors would play a crucial role in the process:

India's best Marketing Campaigns

A marketing or promotional campaign is an activity carried out by an organization in order to create awareness about a certain product, event or occurrence, or simply about their brand. Many companies usually hold promotional campaigns when they launch new products, and politicians do the same when election time draws near.

Promotional campaigns involve reaching out to target markets through events or various activities. Traditionally, this was through entertainment, free samples or refreshment. But, with increasing competition, customers have a wide choice of products, and brand loyalty is declining. Hence, marketers have now come up with various new trends of promotional campaigns.They have realized that mere entertainment will not attract long-term customers. They have to give them an unforgettable experience. They have to touch the emotions of people, such that people associate themselves to the brand. Watch few of the best campaigns that have happened in India.


1) Cadbury Celebrations Airways

 

Malefaction by four men

She was always hailed as a prodigy in her family. She was indeed a cosseted child of her parents. Her beautiful brown eyes reflected the passion to reach the pinnacle of success and make her parents proud as every person rightly wishes so. Her friends used to go to pubs, get their spirits high, trip the light fantastic but she always found herself encumbered by heavy clutches of the books, the only high she got was from the caffeine that she had while burning the mid night oil. This continued day in and day out and finally her efforts paid off as she passed her exam with flying colors and got admission into Ivy League schools. With many thoughts pouring in her mind about her illustrious future and her heart filled with happiness and satisfaction a message on her phone intruded her train of thought. It was a message from a very good friend of hers asking her out for a celebration. She had proven her metal and now it was time to let her hair down. But the caprice destiny had something else planned for her.

New

     
      At the end of your old sphere

      You step into a new one.

      Beginning a new era,

      A new celebration and a new fun.

MOSS - The Dynamic Robot Construction Kit

Anakin with C-3PO

Be a techie or not, we all love Robots..! A robot has always been an integral part of our Sci-Fi fantasy since our childhood. And when we think of building up a Robot, we can imagine Anakin Skywalker fixing up C-3PO from Star Wars with all those wires and circuits. But building up robots now is no more complicated. After the concept of modular smartphones, here we have a whole new concept of building up modular robots.

Cubelets

A couple of years back a company called Modular Robotics came up with Cubelets. These were cube shaped robotic modules which could snap together with the help of magnets. These were like building blocks which had different functions and when interlocked together, could work autonomously like a robot. It was a great Robot Construction Kit for kids.

Resurging Roger ?

By his own lofty standards, Roger Federer had a disappointing 2013. He failed to make it to the finals of any of the four Grand Slams for the first time in a decade. He failed to win any of the Masters 1000 events. He had a shocking exit in Round 2 at Wimbledon at the hands of Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine. In fact the only title he won in 2013 was the Gerry Weber Open in Halle which is the warm-up grass-court tournament before Wimbledon. And when you are talking about Roger Federer, that does not count.

Also for the first time in his glittering career he was troubled by injuries. His back not a 100% for the best part of the year. This was the most evident when, in the 17 matches he lost last year, his normally reliable forehand was not working. His service was also not at its absolute best.

All this naturally led to the calls for his retirement. People started wondering if this was indeed the beginning of the end or maybe, some feared, the end itself. It was hard to believe that this man, after winning his seventh Wimbledon title, was the Number 1 player in the world in July 2012. That seemed to be ages ago. Plus the fact that Rafa Nadal was constructing one of the greatest comebacks in sport history and the continued dominance of Novak Djokovic, nearly everyone found it easy to write Roger off.

Schools – Killing the Creativity

UNESCO: “More people worldwide will be graduating through education than since the beginning of history.”

200 years ago, the era of Industrialism began. To make this so called Industry function better, main resource was needed called “Human Power”. For this British Empire started the system called “School Education System”. And the cycle starts from the very moment our beloved children start taking their first step into the beautiful world. No one denying the fact that all the children have extraordinary capacity for innovation. Kids have tremendous talents and we squander them, pretty ruthlessly.

I want to talk about Education and I want to talk about Creativity. Creativity today is as important in education as literacy, but the status it should be getting is not present there. All kids have one common thing and that is: they will take chance. If they don’t know, they will have a go. They are not frightened of being wrong. And if you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original. By the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way, we stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is, we are educating people out of their creative capacities.

Coalition Politics

“Whoever forms the largest alliance will form the next government”

As the election is nearing both the national parties are hunting for allies and stitching partnership with the regional parties. In India there are more than 40 prominent regional parties with each having 2 or more seats in the Lok Sabha. Each party has its own area of influence and enjoys considerable vote base in respective constituencies.

Coalition is a pact or treaty among individuals or groups, during which they cooperate in joint action, each in their own self-interest, joining forces together for a common cause. We have seen the grand coalitions during the World Wars between major western countries.

Electoral or political coalitions are practised in a parliamentary system when no single party can achieve majority on its own. And many countries follow this type of alliance or coalition. In India coalition is a very old concept and was first experimented in 1916 when Congress and Muslim League reached an agreement to pressure the British government.

Harry Potter: Page, Reel and Beyond

Harry Potter. Much has been said, read and seen. The words printed on the pages were enough to transport the readers to a magical world of fantasy. Literature critics appreciated the text for its rich sensory elements especially visual imagery, fluid language and intricate details. The experience was magnified by the reels of the motion pictures directed by Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newell, and David Yates. J.K. Rowling became a happy woman with the shower of praise and tinkling Galleons. But from what I see, she is a woman with a great knowledge, understanding and insight of metaphysics which she has intertwined with the fiction. If your eye lens is your window to see the fiction, you will be mesmerized by what you see and read. But if you see it through your inner eye, you will undergo a process of realization and enlightenment.

Looking for a Laptop..?

Being an engineering student we are all familiar with the assignments, submissions and hundreds of pages that we merely copy down. But now as you plan to pursue your Masters abroad, everything changes. You have projects, presentations and assignments, which are no longer just the paperwork. This brings us to an important gadget that you will need throughout your graduate studies: A Laptop.

You’ll be needing a laptop to complete your assignments, to Skype with your family and friends back home or to just relax and watch a movie or play a game maybe. So let us have a look at which one suits you better. There are Notebooks, Ultrabooks and then there are Gaming Machines. If you want a simple machine that is portable, has a decent processor, memory and storage, you should probably go for a Notebook. If you want the look of a Laptop and the feel of a Tablet, Hybrid Ultrabooks are made for you. Or if you are a gamer, there are pretty decent gaming laptops available.

S(pain)

Forbes latest list for richest football clubs ranks   Real Madrid and Barcelona, first and third respectively on either side of   Manchester united. However none of the other Spanish teams could make it to   the top 20 of this list where as a premier league team who fought relegation battle last season was ranked 20^th on this list. Among the 20   richest football clubs seven come from England ( Manchester United, Arsenal,   Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool, Totenham and Newcastle United), five   from Italy(Juventus, AC Milan, Inter, Napoli and Roma), four from   Bundesliga(Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Schalke and Hamburg), two from   La Liga (Real Madrid and Barcelona) and two from France (Olympique de   Marseille and Olympique Lyonnais). Jose Maria Gay de Liebana, economics   professor at the Universidad de Barcelona and Spain’s leading football   economist predicts Spanish football will kill itself within 5 years if   current troubles continue.

“ If things go on like this Spanish football   will kill itself. A year ago I predicted that La Liga had only ten seasons   left, now I see that five more would be a lot.”

Reigning Metal

One of the most controversial ,misunderstood ,condemned stereotyped genre of music as we all might be aware of  is “METAL” music.

But how did this genre of music became so popular and larger than life and most of all, when did it all begin?

Origins:

Metal music is categorized as a sub genre of hard rock/psychedelic rock music in the early 1970’s.The metal scene originated majorly from Europe.

The foundation of the genre or this new wave of music , “metal”,  was put up by legendary bands like LED ZEPPELIN and DEEP PURPLE. Though they had a lot of influence from jazz and classic rock, they had something new, something different than the rest. Their tracks like stairway to heaven, Kashmir and smoke on water are literally worshiped by several musicians. JIMI HENDRIX, an American born hard rock and blues guitarist is one of the major influences for most of the lead guitarists from around the world. Along came JUDAS PRIEST, the first ever band who trademarked the genre metal by their sheer appearance. Leather outfits and metal studs. They bought masculinity and machismo into the genre. Rob Halford, frontman of the band had this “in your face” strong voice that connected with the audience.

The WhatsApp Mystery Model

     

     When my friends asked me to download WhatsApp some years ago, I had never thought that the green icon would soon be part and parcel of the smartphones of almost 450 million people. The app is quick, easy to use, and attractive and is downloadable free for everyone except iOS users. All-in-all, it is a really convenient to use fun app which does away with the woes and fluctuating rates of SMS, pervading the barriers of distance. As long as you have access to internet and a smartphone, no one can stop you from staying in touch with everyone.

The Rise of Brendan Rodgers

Rodgers prominently started his managerial career when he was invited by Jose Mourinho to join the Chelsea academy as their head youth coach in 2004. Two years later he was promoted to reserve team manager and retained that position under Chelsea managers Avram grant and Luiz Scholari. On 24^th November 2008, Rodgers left Chelsea to become the manager of championship side Watford. Rodgers had a dreadful start to the season winning only two of his first ten games, leaving Watford in the relegation zone by January. However watford’s form drastically improved and they finished the season 13^th avoiding relegation. Weeks after watford’s survival on june 5^th 2009 Rodgers joined Reading F.C. After a string of disappointing results Rodgers left Reading on mutual consent on 16^th December 2009. Rodgers accepted the offer to manage the championship side Swansea on 16^th July 2010. His beginning at Swansea was so successful that he was awarded the championship manager of the month award. Rodgers led Swansea to championship play offs and after beating the favorites Nottingham forest in semis and his former clud Reading in finals, Swansea became first ever welsh team to join premier league. Despite many predicting Swansea to be relegated, their debut season in premier league was very impressive, having picked up points against many big clubs and kept well above the relegation zone. In jan 2012 a win over aston villa, arsenal and draw with Chelsea earned Rodgers his first premier league manager of the month award. Swansea’s last game of the season was a 1-0 win over Liverpool which saw them finished 11^th in the league.

Why Do People Engage In Infidelity?

     Infidelity as an act is condemned, more than understood. It is often derided as an outcome of an insatiable lust or a polygamist psyche. As we started working on a research project to find out why people engage in infidelity, my research team and I had it very clear that we would look at the infidel as a person with unfulfilled needs, a misunderstood individual who was led by certain circumstances to get involved with someone other than the one he/she was committed to. What was even more shocking was the fact that ‘Infidelity is universal’; it starts at a mental level, develops at an emotional level and may or may not manifest itself in the physical sense. 

Why are Indians preferred as Global Leaders?

It was almost a month ago when newspapers were flooded with the list of Indians who were successfully leading global multinational giants. Surprisingly, the number was more than a dozen. The occasion was the Hyderabad-born and brought up Satya Nadella being crowned as the new CEO of Microsoft, the world leader in the software market. This indirectly meant that an Indian has now occupied the most influential position in the software sector. 

Strive For a Better India

For the past so many months India has witnessed a spate of corruption scandals and scams only to make our country a not-so-safe country for the investors who have become wary of investing in India.

Regrettably, India which was once viewed as one of the best investment destinations in the world has sadly been rated down by the global ratings agencies due to corruption, lack of governance, regulatory hurdles, rupee depreciation, inflation and the twin deficits -fiscal deficit and current account deficit.

Tile - Cutting Your 'Losses'

     It is said that we live in an era of smart phones and dumb people. Is it true? The better and more sophisticated our mobile phones get, the more we tend to depend on them. Mobile phones have made the ability to remember phone numbers extinct. Who would go through the ordeal of remembering 10 digits per person when they are just a few ‘touches’ away? The routine of calling people to wish them on their birthdays has also been replaced by an SMS or a WhatsApp text. But getting to a serious alteration to the human ‘smartness’ because of a smartphone, we see a considerable reduction in memory and retention capacity of people who use smartphones extensively. Forgetfulness is the order of the day, and we often miss out on important events and things because of forgetting them.

     How often do we wish that everything we lose had a ringtone attached to it? How convenient will it be to find something just by means of that very smartphone that is responsible for its loss? Let me introduce you to Tile™. Tile will make sure that you never lose anything forever! Just stick Tile™ to everything you do not want to lose and let Tile™ take care of the rest. Confused? Intrigued? Let’s find out what Tile™ is!

Every Day Is a Woman's Day

                                                                                                         A day to celebrate
                                                                                            The Almighty's most exquisite creation.
                                                                                                          A day to flatter her
                                                                                             Amidst all blossoms and admiration.

                                                                                    Someone who happily endured all pains
                                            Just to give you birth
                                      And then sacrifice all her life
                               To become the pillar of all your mirth.

                                 Someone who is not just a sibling
                               But also the best childhood mate.
                           If elder, she becomes your second mother
                             If younger, your little student with a slate.

            She is a perfect friend
       Who shall pledge to support you life-long. 
            She is that underground  soil 
         Who makes your roots strong.

      She is someone who makes you rejoice
      And someone who rejuvenates your life.
      She forgets her identity to build your home
      The angel of your paradise - your Wife.

      Her Dad is her Super- hero
      And she is his princess
     Her smile is his biggest gift
   Which kills all his stress.

                                           The most graceful and the most fascinating
                                                 Whether at work or play
                     A man can't stand a single moment without her
                                    So everyday is a Women's Day.

Can KitKat take on iOS7 ?

We know that Google and Apple are big giants of modern mobile world and their babies Android and iOS respectively, are household products. By using just one you can access almost everything in this modern world, be it through your smart phones. And they aren't stopping here, they are growing and will continue doing so in future as well. So let us discuss about what Android’s new KitKat and Apple’s iOS7 have got to compete with each other.

The Business of Football

Bought for 23 million pounds. Outstanding performance for 2 years. Sold for 37 million pounds. This sounds like the perfect business. Profit, performance, consistency it has it all that a business demands. Businesses are built on things like these. Sadly this is not a story of a 'thing'. This is the story of Juan Mata, a football player, a human being. He signed for Chelsea from Valencia CF for 23 million pounds and after two Player-of-the-year-award winning seasons was sold to Manchester United for 37 million pounds.

LOVE- Fairy Tale In a Real Life !!

David and Goliath - Demystifying the Myth

     How often do we see small brands, firms and businesses topple some of the oldest, mightiest and seemingly invincible corporations? That is where we often find the phrase ‘David versus Goliath’ used, quite liberally I daresay. David - the underdog, is seen taking on the might of Goliath, the giant and the eventual defeat of the giant is considered as an incredible feat.

     For those of you who do not know the famous story of David and Goliath, it dates back to the time when Israel was a united kingdom in the mountains, and the Philistines (now Palestinians) would try to invade it multiple times. One day, the Philistine army gathered for war against Israel. The two armies faced each other on opposite sides of the steep valley of Elah. A mighty Philistine giant – Goliath, over nine feet tall came out each day for forty days, challenging the Israelis to fight, thereby terrifying Saul, the King of Israel, and the whole army.

Telangana - 29th - How many more...?

भारताचे २९वे राज्य किंवा दुसऱ्या भाषेत म्हणायच झाला तर भारताचा २९वा तुकडा. २०/०२/२०१४ रोजी राज्य सभेत स्वतंत्र तेलंगणाच्या विधेयकाला मंजुरी मिळाली व आपल्या भारत मातेचा अजून एक तुकडा पडला. या घटनेनंतर काही प्रश्न डोक्यात आल्यावाचून राहत नहित.

The Beautiful Game

Football, the most popular game on this planet is growing more and more popular each day. Football is played at national as well as club level and is the national sport for many countries across the globe. Football players are worshipped like gods in many countries and the way this game is practiced, followed and supported is nothing less than a religion. It is called the beautiful game not only because of its high tempo and exciting nature but also because of the passion of supporters and fans whose devotion to the game and the team and the club they support sometimes is fanatical

Football is basically played between two teams consisting of eleven players each, with an objective of using their feet to get the ball into opponent’s goal which are situated on either side of a rectangular field. The game is played for 90 minutes with a perfectly spherical ball, 28’ in diameter. The game is played on basis of 17 basic rules called as the “laws of the game” which are monitored by referee,linesmen and other officials. Each team of eleven consists of one goal keeper and the remaining ten are divided into defenders, midfielders and attackers.

A Customizable Smartphone

Gone are those days when people used to buy a single branded desktop computer. Now they want an assembled one which has a Quad-core processor to go with a specific motherboard and a particular DDR5 graphics card to satisfy the gaming requirements. Thus, Customization led to Optimization! Now imagine you could do that to your Smartphone..!

Do you like to use your ‘Phablet’ exclusively for gaming? Well, go for a multi-core processor and a full HD display. Do you like to share your special moments on Instagram? Go for a high megapixel camera with better focus. Or do you like to use your phone simply as an IPod? Just go for Bluetooth 4.0 and a high mAh battery. Thus make your phone really ‘Smart’. Phonebloks came up with this idea in late 2013 where different components called ‘Bloks’ can be attached to the main board and thus the users can personalize their smartphones.

Phonebloks

Facebook-WhatsApp, a crazy deal?

In recent times, the most renowned billion dollar acquisitions have been in the web domain. To name a few, Yahoo acquired the famous Tumblr  for  $1.1 billion, Microsoft acquired Skype for a whopping $8.5 billion, Facebook acquired Instagram for $1billion and the Japanese firm Rakuten acquired Viber for $0.9 billion. India too isn’t behind in the website race. The online shopping giant Flipkart is in talks for merging with its competitor Myntra at Rs.300 crores, while the restaurant guide Zomato is valued at Rs.1000 crores.