How YouTube Got My Mother To Stop Nagging Me

     My sincere apologies to those who clicked on the link thinking it's a self-help guide to doing what the title says. It is not. But it is about YouTube, yes. Let me take you back to those days when you had to search for hours online for that movie clip or music video you suddenly thought about. By the time you got to it, either your desire to watch the video had vanished, or you found 12 seconds of that video in really bad print. Let me take you farther behind, remember when you had to buy VCDs and DVDs of movies that you would watch only in the first week after you'd bought them, or when someone came over, and soon it just sat in your drawer like a liability and a shameful reminder of how careless you had been?
     Not farther enough, how about the time you had to record on your VCR (Millennial kids: "What?") an episode of your favourite show or a movie on TV you wanted to watch but did not have time to? Pretty often you had to write over an old tape, which would mean watching the video in parts that made no sense at all. Or should I remind you of a time when the whole colony had one TV, and everyone would assemble in that blessed person's house every Sunday morning to watch their favourite show?
     What's the point of all this flashback, you ask? Ask yourself this, then and now, how simple has it become to watch videos? Get a good internet plan, be good at typing what you want to see, and voila! You have every video at your beck and call! Who made that possible? Many people did, with a special mention to Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, and their gift to a world that was struggling with online video streaming - YouTube.
     Hurley, Chen, and Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. Hurley and Chen developed the idea for YouTube in early 2005, after experiencing difficulty sharing videos from a dinner party at Chen's San Francisco apartment. The original idea for YouTube was a video version of an onlinne dating service, and had been influenced by Hot or Not. But like most successful companies we know today, they did "pivot".
     YouTube began as a venture-funded technology start-up, from an $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital in 2005-06. Its early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in California. The domain name www.youtube.com was activated on February 14, 2005, and the website was developed subsequently.

     From the first YouTube video 'Me at the zoo', uploaded on April 23, 2005, the site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 they announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day.
      YouTube says that 300 hours of new videos are uploaded to the site every minute, and that around 60% of the views on a post come from outside the creator's home country. The website has a billion users, and the number of hours people are watching on YouTube each month is up 50% year over year.
     In October-November 2006, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, shortly after YouTube entered into a marketing and advertising partnership with NBC in June. In November 2008, it reached an agreement with MGM, Lions Gate and CBS, allowing the companies to post full-length films and television episodes on the site, accompanied by advertisements in a section for US viewers called "Shows", and the rest, as we know it, is history.
      From "Shows" to an online film rentals service in January 2009, to free streaming of 60 cricket matches of the Indian Premier League, YouTube became the first worldwide free online broadcaster of a major sporting event.
     From providing free content to offering some content providers the ability to charge $0.99 per month or more for certain channels, in May 2013, YouTube went from a mere video sharing website to a vast marketing platform - a brand to watch out for. Be it movie trailers, television episodes or music videos, the producers of the above uploaded these videos themselves in high quality before they got uploaded by someone else, thus curbing video piracy hugely. This has also been true in India, as YouTube is increasingly becoming a platform to showcase your talent, be it Justin Bieber of Canada or Shraddha Sharma of India, or satirical comedy like TVF, AIB, Being Indian and many others.
     Red Bull's Statos campaign was one of the most successful YouTube campaigns to date. The live stream was watched by eight million people, while an additional 32 million watched the video on YouTube. Dollar Shave Club created a hilarious video that went viral and has almost 9.5 million views. Getty Images created an amazing video from 873 images to show how vast its collection is. It has over 2.5 million views to date. GoPro is one of the most popular brands on Facebook, creating amazing videos using its cameras. Here it shows how it got there through the medium of video. ReelSEO shows you how you can drive sales through YouTube and how you can increase your conversion rates.
     The 'You can skip this ad in...' ticker before certain videos has been cleverly made use of by many marketers today, in fact, some advertisements are made in a way that the first 5 seconds are incredibly attractive, so that the viewer does not skip the ad. Who would have thought that a song or movie trailer's popularity would be judged by its YouTube views?
    The future of YouTube is omnipresence. It will be available as widely as TV is today, possibly even more. If it makes itself simple enough to adapt to as many video devices as possible, it will be an every day affair even for a layman with a colour smartphone with an internet connection. It is important for YouTube to be everywhere. If YouTube wants to become as omnipresent on TV as it is on PCs, it should be available on nearly every platform, from Apple TV to the UK’s Freesat satellite service. The future of YouTube’s interface is to be simple enough to work on all sorts of devices, yet rich enough that people can find the videos they care about among vast quantities of available channels.
     Today, PCs, phones, tablets, game consoles and streaming-video boxes can play YouTube videos via apps or web-based interfaces. In future, YouTube itself could involve more gadgets, going wherever people want to watch video. Who would have thought that we would watch a three-hour movie on a 5-inch screen, but that happens now. “If something has a screen, and it makes sense to show a YouTube video on it, let’s make it happen.” For that matter, we should be able to play a YouTube video on a microwave oven’s screen as the timer goes off. That is the future of YouTube.
     And no, I haven't titled this post only to lure some of you into reading it. Ever since YouTube launched its app and we got WiFi in the house, the TV has become the least used gadget in the house. My mother could not be any prouder of her son, who, after working all day, prefers being with his family instead of surfing TV channels only to check out the latest advertisements. Little does she know that the Nescafe cartoonist advertisement has already found its way into the Offline (Or now, 'Saved Videos') section on my phone! And for that, YouTube, I thank you! 

Why We Need Religion

     Don't get me wrong, I'm neither a fanatic, nor an atheist, and definitely not agnostic. I just have a very liberal view towards religion, at least I like to think that I do. Have I read The Shrimad Bhagavad Gita? In detail. The Holy Bible and The Holy Quran? A few excerpts, yes. What I have understood out of each of these holy books, is that they communicate the same things, probably in different ways. One of these things they all abide by is 'There is only one God of this Universe'. You may have heard this being true in the case of Christianity and Islam. But Hinduism? Don't we have a lot of deities? 33 to be precise?

     Contrary to the '33 crore' misconception, in reality, the term ‘trayastrimsati koti’ as quoted in the Atharva Veda, Yajur Veda, and Satapatha-brahmana, is often misunderstood as 33 Crore. However, 'koti' in Sanskrit has two meanings - ‘supreme’ and 'crore'. Hence the basic fact that Hinduism has 33 Supreme Gods and not 33 Crore Gods is lost in translation. Even this is slightly debatable if we go by the theory which will follow in the next paragraph.

     I went slightly awry with the last explanation, but I felt it was necessary to clear that first. Coming back to the concept of monotheism which seems bizarre in Hinduism, it is important to note that Hinduism has evolve from the Ancient Vedic Religion, when Adi Shankaracharya united different streams and cultures and sects emerged. Hence, in the Vedic times the term Hindu was non existent. Vedic religion was based on deep philosophical and practical thinking. Worshiping many different deities did not even exist then. Hence, whatever verses from Vedas are recited in relation of classical Hinduism were written much before its evolution.

     Now that we have established that, the concept of God in the Vedic period would describe or explain the different phenomena occurring in the universe. The 'Gods' - Bramha,Vishnu, Mahesh (Shiva) were created to explain creation, sustenance and destruction of universe respectively. Similarly, more Gods were created for representing the energies in nature: Pavan (wind), Agni (fire), Varuna (Rain) etc. and a female half of the Parmatma (the Ultimate God) - Adi Shakti. The 33 crore deity concept could be attributed to the identification of 330 million different natural phenomena and forms of energy that were represented by corresponding Gods, all aimed at understanding the universe and how it works.

     The evolution of the Hinduism as we know today coincides with decline of Buddhism in India, when due to the dominance of Buddhism Adi Shankaracharya found it necessary to modify the traditional religious practices in the Vedic religion and make them simpler and easier to identify with common masses through idol worship, like that of many figures from Ramayana and Mahabharata like Rama, Krishna, Hanuman, etc. 

     The Vedas, the cradle of present day Hinduism, thus talk of One Parmatma - the Supreme God, who has neither a form nor a gender, but a state, a consciousness, which is similar to the Islamic concept of Allah, who is without a body. Now let's talk about the concept of God in Islam. As goes the popular verse:

لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله

lā ʾilāha ʾillā-llāh, muḥammadur rasūlu-llāh

There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.

     This does not mean that the religion says that there is only one God named Allah. 'Allah' in Arabic means 'God'. So the actual translation is : 'There is no god but God. Muhammad is the messenger of God.' Does not seem so fanatic now, does it? Again, the concept of One God, whose messengers span religions, regions and beings.

     There are many such similarities between Hinduism and Islam, Islam and Christianity, Hinduism and Christianity, and the other religions of the world. For example,

Bhagavad Gita: They who worship me with true devotion are in me and I in them. (Ch. VI. 29)
New Testament, Bible: I in them, thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one. (John XVII. 23)

Bhagavad Gita: Be assured that he who worships me, perishes not. (Ch. IX. 31)
New Testament, Bible: He that believeth in me shall never perish, but shall have eternal life. (John III. 5)

Bhagavad Gita: I am the beginning and the middle and the end of things. (Ch. X. 20)
New Testament, Bible: I am Alpha, Omega, the beginning and the ending. (Rev. I. 8)

     We can go on and on with such similarities. But these similarities are not enough to ensure that religion, which is actually a way of life, is free to be practised by anyone and everyone in the world. Sadly, many religions have been interpreted horribly, to the point of exploitation and violence, examples of which need not be mentioned to the well informed reader.

     Then what needs to be done to maintain religious harmony in the world? Have one true religion? No, we have seen the terrorizing ways of ensuring that. Then can it be achieved by practising some of the principles mentioned in these books? After all, aren't these mere moral guidance? They do not have to replace the civil laws governing our countries. Nor will reading a religious book other than yours change your religion. Then why can't we follow the religion that suits us? If each religion claims in all its clichéd-ness that it is 'a way of life', why force someone at gunpoint to follow your religion just because you have interpreted your own religion terribly wrong?

     Religion guides us, sometimes even binds us together. It makes us disciplined and tolerant. No religion advocates killing others for salvation, or mistreating women, or inciting others into uncouth conduct. So please follow any of the 5 pillars of Islam even if you are a Christian, if it suits your ideals, or give charity out of your income if it gives you joy, even if you are a Hindu, or spread joy and cheer during Christmas even if you are a Muslim. 

     All said and done, every religion has evolved over a long period of time. There are many paths to attain enlightenment and only some of them are through God.

Indian Child Is The Father of American Man

     My Facebook timeline these days is currently full of these things:

1. Hilarious animal videos/memes of fake Godmen getting ripped apart

2. People my age getting engaged/married

3. ___ *aeroplane emoticon* is travelling to ____, United States from Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Terminal T2 - Mumbai. - feeling excited *happy face emoticon*

    The third type of posts is usually accompanied by pictures of their family and friends coming to see them off, as they go off across the oceans, to live the American Dream. But 4-5 months later these very people land up on my timeline frolicking at a local pub in Khar or Andheri. 4-5 months away from home? It does not seem too different from when I was studying engineering in Pune. 

     I'm not going to argue how bright Indian minds should stay in the country and utilise the opportunities here, or how the very 'dream countries' they are dying to go to will soon start vomiting them all out due to an overburden on them. Much has been talked about it earlier, yet every year we see a surge in the number of Indian graduates going abroad for higher studies to absolutely any university or course they get. Why the compromise? Why not live in your motherland, flourish here, help the economy here grow and make it a dream nation for people other than terrorists?

     I've probably drawn a lot of flak for this comment, from both - Indians studying abroad, and terrorists, and probably even more for using the two in the same sentence, but that is how it is. Globalization has hit us with its positive effects and negative effects alike. Positively, the job opportunities we have in India today are hardly any different from the ones abroad. Indian companies and the MNCs operating in India are focusing on going global, and it is almost like working abroad, while still being in India. Why work the same amount, for the same job profile in a different country? For a higher pay, you might argue. But isn't the cost of living abroad higher too? Plus, God knows how long the danger of you being deported or losing your Visa status looms over your head, which is already burdened with work pressure. Like it or not, India is the only country which will never ask you, "How long do you intend to live in this country?"

     I certainly do not seek to bring the Indians settled abroad back to India, nor do I mean to discourage those preparing for their GREs, GMATs, TOEFLs, IELTSs and what not from studying. Living in India may not present itself as a very rosy picture, and that is where the negative effects of globalization begin to show in our younger generation.

     What this generation wants is to be well fed and cared for until the end of their days, but they also want the freedom that their American counterparts enjoy. Seldom do they notice that this perceived freedom is because most American children move out of their house at an age no later than 18 years. Whether it is to become a scientist or a punk rockstar, their 'freedom' is actually their 'independence'. To enjoy the free will that they do, our children should be prepared to bid adieu to the care and safety net that awaits them at home after they get back from their parties.

     I am not saying our whole generation is corrupted with this bug, but it forms a major chunk of the high potential, well educated population that can make or break the country's future. One of the nation's most beloved Presidents, or the most beloved I daresay - Dr APJ Abdul Kalam always maintained that he was very happy that he completed his entire course of education in India. Imagine, the very nation you are so keen to leave, made the legend whose birthday - May 26, is celebrated as National Science Day in Switzerland.

     No leader, no matter how dynamic and strong he is, can lead a country to progress if its very population doesn't want to progress. If half of our population is decadent and the other half is waiting to cross that yellow line at emigration, we might as well start calling ourselves the Red Indians, after all, all roads seem to be leading us to the same fate.

Of Positivity, Optimism and Sanguineness

     A professor once announced to his students that he was taking a surprise test.  As they waited for the test to begin, he handed out the question paper, with the side with text facing down as usual.  After handing them all out, he asked the students to turn the page and begin.  To everyone's surprise, there were no questions, just a black dot in the center of the page.  Noticing the surprise on everyone's face, the professor said, "I want you to write what you see there."

     The perplexed students began working on the bizarre task. Once they were done, the professor took all the answer papers and began reading each one of them aloud to the whole class.  Every student described the black dot, trying to explain its position in the middle of the sheet, etc. After reading it all, the professor said to the quiet class:

"I am not going to grade on you this, I just wanted to give you something to think about.  No one wrote about the white part of the paper. Everyone focused on the black dot - and the same happens in our lives. We have a white paper to observe and enjoy, but we always focus on the dark spots. Our life is a gift given to us by God, with love and care, and we always have reasons to celebrate - nature renewing itself everyday, our friends around us, the job that provides our livelihood, the miracles we see everyday.

However we insist on focusing only on the dark spots - the health issues that bother us, the lack of money, the complicated relationship with a family member, the disappointment with a friend, and so on.

The dark spots are very small compared to everything we have in our lives, but they are the ones that pollute our minds.

Take your eyes away from the black spots in your life.  Enjoy each one of your blessings, each moment that life gives you. Be happy and live a life filled with LOVE,"

     I read this story recently. So simple to understand, yes? But is it as easy to practise? We don't hesitate before throwing free advice to everyone who doesn't even ask for it: "Be positive in life!", "Don't compare yourself with others, you wil just be disappointed, you don't know what they had to struggle with".

     But when it comes to us, "Look you don't know what I'm going through, okay? If you had to go through what I have, you would have understood!"

     Why are most of us so good at preaching optimism but bad at practising it? Have you ever begun a Monday on a positive note, right after you open your eyes from sleep? Isn't the first thing that comes to your mind the most disturbing of all? Now if you start your day on a note like this, how can you expect the rest of your day to be good?

     Expectation.. That is another advice that is most commonly given - "Do not expect, you will never be disappointed." But is it possible to not expect anything at all? A slight bout of expectation always exists, followed by the sinking feeling of disappointment.

    So why are you reading this article that is just telling you things you already know and feel every day? Why not just stop and focus on the little joy you have left in life? Guess what, you can have more than a little joy. Ever heard of the term 'train of thought'? Can you take a guess at who the porter for that train might be? You are. Believe me, you can choose which thoughts you let on board that train. Some amount of bad thought is bound to come on board, but it is the power of the good thoughts, which does not let the bad thoughts go beyond the first halt that helps you see clearly. And when you see clearly, things get sorted automatically. You begin to see the right path ahead, and what follows, are the good things in life; the best outcomes of your actions.

     Now this might seem to you as another free advice, but trust me, it is being practised by yours truly. So what do you say, let's fill that train with only those thoughts that we want, and kick the rest back to the platform?

There Is A 'G' In 'Alphabet'!

     Innovation, Technology, Making The World A Better Place. 'Google' stands for all of these. The word, which had no meaning whatsoever about 17 years ago save for its phonetic similarity to the word 'googol' (10 to the power 100) which it was originally going to be called, is now a near inseparable part of our lives. With its numerous products to assist our daily activities, this brainchild of  Larry Page and Sergey Brin has earned its place among the greatest organizations in the world.

     In a recent turn of events, the company announced that it is no longer going to be called Google. WHAT?!

     Please excuse the dramatics, what I meant was that it is now creating a new publicly traded parent company called Alphabet Inc. to house all of its disparate businesses. This conglomerate will have Google as its largest subsidiary, and here's where we Indians have a second of pride, the executive who will replace Larry Page as Google’s CEO is an Indian - Sundar Pichai.

     This is the third time in a year that a person with an Indian-origin who started at the bottom has gone on to become the top executive of a tech-giant. It was only last year when Nokia and Microsoft appointed India-born Rajeev Suri and Satya Nadella, respectively, as their CEOs.

     I am not going to talk about how the restructuring of Google is similar to that of Berkshire Hathaway, or the transparency that it is supposed to bring in, nor am I going to sing praises for Mr. Pichai, who can be called the reason I, and billions of others are using Google Chrome, or how his management of Android is giving Apple a tough fight. There are, by now, thousands of articles on these and many more topics on the web and in print. Don't get me wrong here, I am not trying to undermine his efforts and success. No person in their right mind would do that. 

     Born in a humble family in Chennai, Pichai, who will be the first CEO of Google that isn’t a white man. An engineer from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, his family had to put everything they had on the line to facilitate his coming to America to study materials science and semiconductor physics at Stanford. From a product manager at Google to the SVP of Android, Chrome and Apps, and now CEO designate, he has seen it all. Kudos to that.

     What I really want to bring to the table is, what makes Indians the best choices for such positions? It cannot be a coincidence that the Indians who have been chosen to head these companies have all been really long term employees. 

     Indians have been known worldwide for their academic prowess and managerial skills. They have proved their ability to work and deliver under pressure, and have enabled the change of perception that Indians cannot lead, only follow. 

     The West has realised that the cradle of future technology is on Indian soil, and that in order to get more Indians on board, they must have an exemplary Indian lead them, so as to attract more like him into their fold. If this is true, aren't they getting the better end of the deal? We have been battling a 'brain-drain' from India to the West for decades now. While the drain is due to better living conditions and perceived better opportunities abroad, it is impacting the huge number of untapped vistas we have here. 

     Opportunity is relative. While some may find more opportunity where most people have achieved success, others create opportunities where there has been limited or no success in recorded history. We have stark examples before us that prove this - right from a taxi service on your beck and call to a space shuttle that takes you to the moon and back; right from setting up a marketplace on the internet to an actual affordable market chain across the world; and finally from a search engine to a driverless car. 

     So congratulations Mr. Pichai on your remarkable achievement, we couldn't be any prouder. But for those of you who emulate him, remember, where we stay isn't so bad either. After all, the Americans did not invent the Alphabet!

There's Still Hope, Introverts!

"Your son really needs to speak up!"

"Why don't you join personality development classes?"

"Marketing? For an introvert like you? You should take up finance."

"You have a lot of great ideas. On paper they look superb. Just make sure you're vocal enough about them."

     Didn't quite catch what I was getting at? Or may be you did. The above four verbatim comments are few of the many that have tried to deride my personality as an introvert, self-centered, a recluse, and even a laconic social outcast. Yes, that climax got a bit out of hand, but that just about covers everything that many "introverts" like me are subjected to at different points of life. This is no self-establishing, putting-my-foot-down article; just a fresh look at what the world of marketing needs in terms of personalities.

     It isn't necessary that we fall into one particular personality category or type. We can be "divergent", showing traits belonging to more than one type. And that's what often confuses and even frustrates the conformist world around us. I'm not trying to imply that I'm remarkable, but just consider this for a moment: can a person enjoy both - socialising and solitude at the same time? It's quite possible, you know.

     I just finished reading a book called "Quiet - The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain, thanks to a HBR article I stumbled upon. I couldn't help but connect with the book instantly, primarily because I am an introvert. 

     How often do we see extroverts getting all the attention and introverts being sidelined? More often than we can count, yes? And that's no one's fault. Extroverts have an involuntary longing for attention even while they work while introverts prefer concentrating in silence with less commotion around. Introverts prefer listening to talking, think, sometimes even over-think, before they speak, and attach a lot of importance to others' feelings, relationships and rules. In short, and I'm quoting the HBR article here, "introverts focus on the meaning of events around us, while extroverts focus on the events themselves".

     Then what was that I said about belonging to more than one personality types earlier? Does it apply to introversion and extroversion? Yes, it does. It's called being an 'ambivert', and these kinds of people are the future of marketing. Marketing needs more introverts, those who listen to the customers' needs, rather than just shove the product in their face, focus on customer relationships, which also needs them to be a bit extrovert, and ultimately drive long-term business.

     The customer is king, always has been, always will be, and is now more than ever before. Naturally listening to the customer becomes necessary and valuable. The consumer is spoilt for choice. Every day you have someone or the other advertising a price off, websites comparing prices of everything right from handbags to mobile phones to real estates, and the consumer, now more than ever, has a voice, all thanks to social media. Social media can make or break a brand, and the world is hooked to it. Feedback, complaints, online wars are an everyday occurrence now and how leaders react to feedback is often decisive. This is where the relationship-building and feelings-oriented traits of introverts come into play.

     

     We no longer live in a world where all advertisements are monologues. Advertisers are increasingly turning to video and image sharing websites to convey their offerings to their target audience. The "voice" that a customer has now is being tapped to make things go "viral", be it a response of a supposedly "dim" female celebrity, or a World Cup campaign. The patience that is paramount to listen to what the customer has to say exists only in introverts, which is why introverted marketers will be more successful in leaving the creation of their brand in the consumer's hands. According to Susan Cain, “An extrovert can quite unwittingly get so excited about things that they’re putting their own stamp on things and other people’s ideas may not bubble up to the surface.” Gone are the days where the brand manager is the whole and soul of the brand; he HAS to work in tandem with his consumers to decide where his brand is going.

     Most of us are familiar with the Pareto Principle, the law of the vital few, a common rule of thumb in business - "80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers". These "vital few" determine which brands are successful and which aren’t. It is essential to engage in deeper conversations with the few key consumers, which is a classic favourite of most introverts. This even helps forge strong ties and helps in long-term relationships.

     I don't mean to say that extroverts have no future in marketing. In fact, marketing is a field where it won't help you if you're rigidly introvert or extrovert. All I intend to say is introverts can offer more than they are generally thought of. And moreover, their traits are indispensable to business. So let's not confine them to departments where there is trivial human interaction, instead let's build a futuristic society with ambiverts who know when to speak up, and when to shut down.

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.