Volume - II

Issue09

September 2011

CHLOROPHYLL
- Cause This, This Is A Poem
In this issue

Cover story - The challenge called Unique Identification Number You Innovate, I Copy and Paste ! ! ! Private Investment in Education Sector in India Social Media Marketing Putting handsets inside consumers pocket

A Monthly Newsletter from the Students of Department of Management Studies,

IIT Roorkee

Editors Desk
Dear Readers, Its the month of September. The month remembered for the fearsome terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. The constant news of financial instability in the Euro Zone further adds to the bleakness of this month. Falling markets, declining growth rates, growing unemployment; all point to a very uncertain future with economists predicting another recession on its way unless proper measures are taken. In the end it may all turn out to be a big false alarm but for now the global economy stands in an atmosphere of uncertainty and doubt. To take your mind off all this and to give you a fresh perspective of the world around we are here with another invigorating issue of domination with new articles and fresh new creativity. Starting on the home front; India or rather Nandan Nilekani envisaged almost the impossible when they dreamt of a unique Id for every Indian. The project Aadhar currently undergoing all across the country tries to bring that dream into reality. To generate a unique id for a population of this size is no ordinary task and the project is one of the most ambitious projects ever planned in the country. The cover story The Challenge called Unique Identification Number provides an in depth coverage of the project and elucidates the obstacles that stand in its completion. Next we have an article interestingly named You Innovate, I Copy Paste. As suggested by the name, the article researches on plagiarism in the field of business innovations and strategies and how companies imitate each other to gain competitive advantage. The article Private investment in the education sector in India covers the investment scenario in education sector and weighs the pros and cons of increasing investments in the education domain Social Networks have been used all over the world for recreation and online socialization. It has taken the world by storm .But what happens when the companies decide to use Social Media as a marketing Tool. Social Media Marketing covers the benefits and risks associated with integrating social network media into your marketing plans. Putting Handsets inside consumers pockets covers the ever increasing, continually diversifying, highly dynamic market of the mobile handsets and provides a glimpse of the various strategies employed by the mobile makers to put their mobile into your pocket. As a regular feature, DoMS-da-Evince covers a distinguished alumni from the batch of 2002 , Smitha Beohar. Regardez IEconomie provides a snapshot of the Indian economy and covers the latest developments in the economic world. And to wrap it all we have an aptly titled poem Cause This, This is a poem and Qutopia for those who love quizzing. Its the tradition of the world that old gives way to new. A similar transformation marks the September issue as new blood joins Team Domination and bring along with them new ideas and stimulating new creativity. The September issue marks the first contributions from the new batch at DoMS and surely helps in re invigorating the magazine. Hoping this invigorating spirit catches you too and provides a fresh new perspective from this bleak atmosphere, its Team Domination wishing everyone happy Reading !

-Regards Team Domination

Cover Story
The challenge called Unique identification Number
Shruti Goel

Putting handsets in side consumers pocket

Sayantan Pawan Upadhyay

You innovate, I copy paste...

Udit Gupta

Private investment in education sector in India

Divye Garg

Cause This, This Is A Poem

Manav Kaushik

Social Media Marketing

Aditi Joshi

DoMS-da-Evince
Interaction with

Regardez I'economie

Smita Beohar
Shibi Singh

Qutopia - 20
Prateek Tomar

Cover Story The challenge called Unique Identification Number

AnkajiBhai Gangar, a 49-year-old subsistence farmer, stood in line in this remote village until, for the first time in his life, he squinted into the soft glow of a computer screen. His name, year of birth and address were recorded. A worker guided Mr. Gangars rough fingers to the glowing green surface of a scanner to record his fingerprints. He peered into an iris scanner shaped like binoculars that captured the unique patterns of his eyes. With that, Mr. Gangar would be assigned a 12-digit number, the first official proof that he exists. He can use the number, along with a thumbprint, to identify himself anywhere in the country. It will allow him to gain access to welfare benefits, open a bank account or get a cell phone far from his home village, something that is still impossible for many people in India. Maybe we will get some help, Mr. Gangar said. reported the New York Times. Yes, this is the hope offered by the Indias UID Project to the nations poor, what is called as Financial Inclusion. It is one of the most ambitious projects of the UPA government, to-be the worlds largest bio-

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metric database, a mind-bogglingly complex collection of 1.2 billion identities. The agenda to set up the UID Authority of India (UIDAI), under the parameters of the Planning Commission, is targeted at providing a unique identity to most of the population of the flagship schemes to ensure that the benefits reach them. The unique identification number, a 12-digit ID is an ingenious solution to a bedevilling problem of lacunae in these schemes. Most of Indias poorest citizens are trapped in a system of village-based identity proof that has had the perverse effect of making migration, which is essential to any growing economy, much harder. Named as aadhaar, meaning foundation or subsistence, it would be used to verify the identity of any Indian anywhere in the country within eight seconds, using inexpensive hand-held devices linked to the wireless networks provided by mobile operators.What we are creating is as important as a road, said Nandan M. Nilekani, the chairman of UIDAI. It is a road that in some sense connects every individual to the state.

Cover Story The challenge called Unique IdentificationNumber

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This project has the potential to reduce the kind of corruption India is facing, for which in recent weeks, Anna Hazare went on a hunger strike and the Indian streets were decorated by the placards displaying India Against Corruption. By allowing electronic transmission and verification of many government services, the identity system would make it much harder for corrupt bureaucrats to steal citizens benefits. Doubts prevailing on the success of this project International Experience :Globally, there are very few countries that have provided national ID cards or numbers to their citizens. The most important reason has been the unsettled debate on the protection of privacy and civil liberties of people. It has been argued that the data that is collected in this process can be misused for a variety of purposes. For instance, it can be used to profile citizens in a country and initiate a process of racial or ethnic cleansing, as during the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1995. Legisla-

tions on privacy cannot be satisfactory guarantees against the possibilities of misuse of ID cards or numbers. Australia was one of the first countries to try the implementation of a national ID card scheme. In 1986, the Australian government introduced a Bill in the Parliament to legalise the issue of national ID cards, which were to be called as Australia Cards. The declared intention of the government cited in the Bill was to check tax evasion as well as reduce illegal immigration. However, citizens groups launched a major agitation against the Bill citing concerns of violation of privacy and civil liberties and the Government had to finally withdraw the Bill in 1987. Despite the failure to introduce the ID card scheme in Australia, other countries like Canada, New Zealand and Philippines initiated steps in the early-1990s to introduce national ID cards but had to withdraw after strong public backlash. In the early 2000s, China also tried to introduce national ID cards along with biometric information. However, as per researchers, biometric technology was liable to major failures when

Cover Story
The challenge called Unique Identification Number

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applied to large populations ;in 2006 the Chinese government withdrew the clause to have biometric data stored in such cards. The countries where this issue is debated most are US and UK. In US, as the government tried to expand the use of social security numbers, it had to be kept aside due to huge public protests related to the privacy and confidentiality of data. In UK, during the regime of Tony Blair, the Identity Cards Bill was formed in 2004. But public protests forced the government to shelve the policy till date. The debate in UK has mainly centred on the report prepared by a group at London School of Economics. It stated The identity systems may create a range of new and unforeseen problems. These include the failure of systems, unforeseen financial costs, increased security threats and unacceptable imposition on citizens. The success of a national identity system depends on a sensitive, cautious and cooperative approach involving all key stakeholder groups including an independent and rolling risk assessment and a regular review of management practices. We are not confident that these conditions have

been satisfied in the development of the Identity Cards Bill. The risk of failure in the current proposals is therefore magnified to the point where the scheme should be regarded as a potential danger to the public interest and to the legal rights of individuals. Issues of PrivacyThough getting a UID number is not compulsory in India, it is debated that the wide benefits it caters to, will make it compulsory indirectly. But the most disturbing point is that the concerns of privacy or civil liberties are not discussed in any of the documents of the government or the UIDAI in any substantive form. If the project is extended to a spectrum of social services then there are possibilities of serious misuse of personal information as most of these services are increasingly being privatized in India. At present, the government has only affirmed a commitment to protection of privacy; no substantial information is yet available on how the database of citizens would be protected from misuse in the future.

Cover Story
The challenge called Unique Identification Number
Technological DeterminismA lot of questions remain unanswered about whether the technological infrastructure of the project can carry the burden of data storage, networking, live sharing and verification of more than a billion of people. If so, what are the associated costs of the project? What are the probabilities of system failures of different degrees? What are the probabilities of errors? What are the social costs of these errors? At present, there are no clear answers available for these important questions. The most critical aspect of Indias UID project is the use of biometric information for verifying the identity of a particular person. But the biometric scientists and legal experts doubt it, as no accurate information exists on whether the errors of matching fingerprints are negligible or non-existent. It is acknowledged that a small percentage of users would always be either falsely matched or not matched at all against the data base. Moreover processes like gummy fingers

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and latent finger printing could allow some to bypass the verification. A fundamental is not dismissed away, is the possibility of fingerprints of individuals changing over time, particularly among manual labourers. The fingerprints of manual labourers are highly likely to be broken or get eroded, inviting frequent negative responses during validation at the sites of wage payments. Apart from that, patterns of iris change with age, disease and health as well. The report of the UIDAIs internal Biometrics Standards Committee actually accepts these concerns as real. It says, Two factors however, raise uncertainty about the accuracy that can be achieved through fingerprints. First, retaining efficacy while scaling the database size from fifty million to a billion has not been adequately analyzed. Second, fingerprint quality, the most important variable for determining deduplication accuracy, has not been studied in depth in the Indian context. The Unknown CostsAt present, the UID project is facing opposition from two unexpected fronts the

Cover Story
The challenge called Unique Identification Number
Planning Commission, over almost tripling of costs due to iris scan and the Parliamentary standing committee on finance, over ownership of the project. In order to include iris scan, as a biometric tool for verification, and expand the enrolment drive to 1.12 billion, it is estimated that the budget has increased from Rs 6,600 crore to Rs 17,900 crore. Along with this, the fund needs of the Registrar General of India (RGI) or the Census office to complete the creation of the National Population Register, too has more than doubled from Rs 3,254 crore to Rs 7,732.85 crore. The NPR is also collecting biometric data of all residents and NPR cards will include UID numbers. Further, the strongest resistance to Aadhar is coming from two eminent members of the National Advisory Council, Jean Dreze and Aruna Roy. The standing committee on finance too is raising concerns over the costs and also the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010, that seeks to provide legal backing to the project.

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Besides, with the inclusion of iris data, the estimated data size per resident has gone up multi-fold from 150 kilobytes to 5 megabytes. In addition, it is unclear whether recurring costs for maintaining a networked system necessary for UID to function effectively have been accounted for by the government. Currently, on average,

150,000 enrolments are done each day. The number of enrolments is expected to reach six million per day by October. The task, therefore, is daunting, since the latest data places the country's population at 1.21 billion. A mammoth project that would lead to millions flowing out of the exchequer definitely needs to be debated at the national level. It is a pity that though we are striving on to move towards e -governance, consultation. Does India need a Unique ID number? According to experts, there is an immediate need for a unique identity so as to tackle the issue of multiple proofs, security breach and fraudulent disbursement of government we are missing on e-

Cover Story
The challenge called Unique Identification Number
benefits. For example there are ration cards that pertain to ghost citizens, numerous illegal immigrations and constantly increasing terrorist attacks. As there are numerous documents serving as identity proofs, with scattered details and inconsistent information, the need of hour is a repository that stores the information pertaining to all the citizens of a nation in a centralized location-a one point source of information hub. India has failed to bring its poor along the path to prosperity and the expensive public welfare systems are so inefficient that warehouses overflow with rotting grain despite

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high malnutrition rates; hence it needs a project of this magnitude to sort out the poverty issues that hamper its economical image. The government builds sturdy classrooms but fails to punish well-paid teachers who do not show up for work. There are so many examples of Governmental policies that fail to connect citizens most basic needs. Many believe that the technology could solve these problems because it would provide people with a way to interact with the state without depending on local officials who are now the main gatekeepers of government services.

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

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Cover Story
The challenge called Unique Identification Number

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Voter Id
Issuing Authority No. of cards Issued Population Coverage International Acceptance Disadvantages Election Commission 600 Million 52.5% No Duplication of data when voters migrate.

Passport
Ministry of External Affairs 40 Million 3.5% Yes Does not cover population which has lesser financial capacity.

PAN Card
Income Tax Department 70 Million 6% No No physical verification prior to issuing cards and inefficient record updating in case of address change or demise of ID holder. Currently IT hardware of PAN system can handle entire population of the country. The no. of reissues owing to errors is less than 0.1%.

Ration Card
Civil Supplies Department 220 Million 19% No Absence of centralized database of information.

Advantages

Electoral list is observed to be 90-95% accurate. 70-80% of Ids had photos by 2009 general election.

Widely accepted ID proof both in India and outside

Key source of ID for BPL and financially marginal citizens.

The key challenge: Security So far in India about 15 different types of ID work, but the UID is projected to have the entire database of information of Indians. As per a newspaper headlines, the main threat to UID number is

its misuse. Cyber-security experts say," The facility is ambitious and is sure to make functioning easy from the governance perspective. There is some kind of certification or guarantee needed from companies that are pooling the database or will be handling it. The immediate threat may not be realised now. But in a span of next five years, when the cards will be rolled out completely, we

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Cover Story
The challenge called Unique Identification

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may also witness cases of cyber mischief. Though the UID guarantees uniqueness and a universal identity through a centralised online identity verification process, experts point out that biometric information such as iris scan and fingerprinting lead to a misuse of an individual's personal information. It can also be used by anti-socials such as terrorists, since they can get it issued through fake identities during large-scale enrolments. The real fear is access to such a data would give the government a free hand to profiling, segmenting and targeting a sect, group or religion. This could lead to dangerous consequences. This data, if slipped into the

hands of corporate, could be used to serve various purposes. The government has shown sheer urgency in going for the UID project. If the project fails to confront the various questions and doubts being raised, it would hurt democracy. This is a dark joke making its rounds in the political corridors with the idea of investing an identity in every citizen. It is prudent at this stage for the government to have a frank debate on the matter and to put in public the entire structure before it goes into investing this enormous amount of money which could otherwise be used to lift millions out of poverty.

- Shruti Goel DoMS, IIT Roorkee goelshruti2008@gmail.com

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You Innovate, I Copy and Paste ! ! !

One of the most important things that is in the mind of every businessmen in todays business environment is whether to

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on the web page was pioneered by Overture and they even had a patent on it. The patent 6,269,361 also known as the 361 patent was issued to Overture by US Patent Office in July 2001. Overture sued Google for violating its patent and Google paid Overture to settle the lawsuit. This interesting revelation have been made in the book Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through To a Better Business Model written by John Mummins and Randy Komisar. So using analogs is good, but watch out for patents! Ever heard of www.facebook.com? Oh why am I joking with you all? You all have heard of it. Still for knowledge, Facebook is a social networking service having more than 600 million active users. And most of you must have seen the movie The Social Network, a drama film about the history and foundation of Facebook and the resulting lawsuits. Dont be surprised, Facebooks founders Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes were sued by their three Harvard seniors, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra for using their idea of social network called HarvardConnection.com and building a competing product. The lawsuit was subsequently settled.

PERSPECTIVE

develop a product, technology, business model etc by doing research and development (innovation) or

CHLOROPHYLL

acquire it buy merging with some other company or taking over some other firm or clone, imitate or adapt it ( copy and paste).

This article focuses on the reasons behind the success of copy pasting business strategy by looking at some of the examples. Lets start with everyones favorite search engine Google. You all know that among any other website in the world Google makes the most money, the reason why Google is the best search engine in the world and you also know the mechanism behind how Google generates revenue. But do you know that the business model behind the search engines success was copied. The company from which the business model is copied is Overture. Ever heard of it? Its a paid search specialist company based in South California which is now owned by Yahoo Inc. The mechanism which combined the search engine, relevant text ads, and their placement

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You Innovate, I Copy and Paste ! ! !

These two examples clearly show that imitating or copy pasting others ideas is a prevalent and successful business strategy. Peter Drucker, who was a writer, management consultant and self-described social ecologist, has referred IBM as the worlds foremost creative imitator. In the book Copycats How Smart Companies Use Imitation to Gain a Strategic Edge written by Oded Shenkar, it is mentioned that IBM created the first commercially viable product a personal computer, by taking the best of the Apple and Commodore machines, among others, which was subsequently cloned by Compaq and Dell. Ever heard of White Castle? No. White Castle is the first fast-food hamburger chain, first to sell a billion hamburgers and the first to sell frozen fast food. Walter Anderson, the founder of White Castle, was the person who first came up with the concept of a fast food chain, that too in 1921. But a lot of copy-pasters copied everything from the store design to his operating processes. Do you know who issued the first credit card? The answer is neither Visa nor Master Card which are the most popular one now. It was issued by Diners Club.

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The reason behind launching the low-end detergent, Wheel by Hindustan Unilever Ltd in the early 80s was to compete with Nirma who was giving a tough time to it, instead of diluting the positioning of Surf. Eventually Wheel became a bigger brand than Nirma. The vision to start a low-cost airline Air Deccan was seen and first implemented in India by Captain G. R. Gopinath which was soon copied and improved upon by other airlines like GoAir and Indigo. South Korean company Samsung was recently sued by Apple for copying the look and feel of its iPad tablet and iPhone smartphone. Enough with the examples, now let us try to understand the reasons behind this entire copy pasting and why imitators are so successful. One main reason is that the costs borne by the imitators are lot lower than that of innovators. Bessen J and Maskin E. have given an estimate in their research paper, The Imitation and Diffusion of Industrial Innovations that overall costs in case of imitators are around 60 to 75 per cent of the costs borne by the innovator.

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You Innovate, I Copy and Paste ! ! !

Since the innovator and pioneer have paved the way and they have also paid for it, the imitator just enjoys a free ride. The imitator is able to save not only time, money, effort etc on research and development but also on marketing because the customers are already aware of the novel product or service and its uses. So the chances of reaching a dead end for imitator reduce to a great extent. So the moral of the story is it all depends upon each and every individual businessman

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whether they want to go down in the history as innovators or imitators. Instead of blindly copying ideas, one should try to add something meaningful to it, so that it becomes more successful than the original one. But be cautious of patent violations, they can cost you a great deal of fortune. So if you are planning to start a business but not having any innovative idea, just look around and you might find something.

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- Udit Gupta DoMS, IIT Roorkee uditgupta1987@gmail.com

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Private Investment in Education Sector in India

Education sector is one of the largest service sectors in India. It is by far one of the largest capitalized spaces in India with government spending of about $30bn which is about 3.7% of the GDP of our country. In India, we have approximately 1 million schools and 18,000 colleges and universities but still they are insufficient and inefficient to cater to the demands of our countrys population and as a result, Indians cation. Education sector in India can be categorized into formal and informal sector. Formal sector is a $40bn market and comprises of K12 education and higher education whereas informal sector ($10bn market) comprises of preschools (1.53 years), coaching, vocational training, multimedia/IT to schools & colleges and books market. In formal education sector, investment opspend about $50bn on private edu-

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portunities are immense but the not for profit regulation in the sector has deterred the investors in this sector. K12 (Kindergarten to 12th standard) school must be affiliated to an education board like CBSE, ICSE or any other state board. Some states like Haryana and Maharashtra do allow institutes to be set up as for profit but they do not get approval of education boards. Similarly in higher educational institutes (colleges and universities) must be not for profit (trust/ society) in nature and must be recognized by regulatory bodies like UGC, AICTE etc. Other issues like bureaucratic control, corruption, little clarity on FDI policy and high land prices makes it even more difficult for the new players to enter and existing players to expand in this space. In non formal education sector, there is no not for profit regulation but the market is highly fragmented and scalability is a problem for the players in this sector.

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Private Investment in Education Sector in India

Scalability is the ability of a company to continuously increase its profits and sales figures year after year. Pre-school, a $300m segment is gathering some corporate attention due to low entry barriers and 11 major chains and about 10 smaller players are active in this space. Pre-school, a $300m segment is gathering some corporate attention due to low entry barriers, just 11 major chains and about 10 smaller players in the space. While the scale-up has so far been on the franchisee platform, corporate are increasingly forming JVs with builders/ partners and moving up the value chain by upgrading to K12 schools. Coaching class is a $6.4bn market led by scarcity of educational institutes and cut throat competition for entry into professional colleges in India. 80% of the market is private tutoring and is highly dependent on good quality teachers. Stability and scalability is very low in this segment due to inherent regionalism and person centric nature of this segment.

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Remaining 20% of the coaching class market is test preparation and has lower dependence on people and a larger focus on national level content, making it relatively easier for players to attain scale. The vocational training market accounts for $1.5bn. Though the market is continuously evolving with emergence of a host of new avenues beyond IT trainings (financials, retail, aviation, management tions and English scalability private certificaspokentrainings), remains schools,

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low. Multimedia for though currently a small market ($70m) is highly underpenetrated and technologydriven and offers value creation potential to the investors. Educomp solutions is a major player in this segment. The education sector in India is a promising sector with huge potentials for large investments. However, regulatory restrictions have prevented a floodgate of investments in the regulated education market and with increasing shifts towards deregulation we can see more investments in the future coming in this sector.

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Private Investment in Education Sector in India

Key Private Players in Education Sector
Formal K12 Higher Education Pre-School Coaching Informal Vocational Training Multimedia/IT in schools

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PERSPECTIVE

Books Market

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Kidzee

Manipal

Kidzee

IMS

NIIT

Educomp

Navneet

Millenium

Amity

Euro Kids

Everonn Career Launcher APTECH

Macmillan

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IMS

IIPM

Apple Kids

TIME

Jetking

NIIT

Career Launcher

ICFAI

Tree House

FIIT JEE

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- Divye Garg DoMS, IIT Roorkee divyegarg@gmail.com

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Social Media Marketing

Social Media

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step further and created a strong fan base through social media marketing strategies. Currently, allow me to limit the discussion to weighing the pros and cons, as was observed by those foraying into this domain. Pros:

seemed to be the keyword for businesses in the year 2011. Every individual, business and expert was talking about it, the internet was spilling over with blogs and write ups suggesting tips and strategies to make use of this newly discovered medium and help all kinds of businesses flourish. Surely, as predicted, social media did gain a momentum that threatened to sweep companies off their feet lest they pep up for the new mode of competition. A lot of talk about social media, and the only thing that pops into my mind instantly is Facebook. Little do people like me realize that the territory of social media extends far beyond Facebook and other networking sites. To put it crisply, social media can include all forms of electronic communication channels: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and micro blogs, even cell phones, to share, promote and interact with the target audience. An example I would quote later has gone a

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Wider reach- Social networking has become a rage which allows for the confluence of a vast pool of potential customers and assists businesses to always stay in the eyes of the customers.

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Inexpensive/ cost ef-

ficient- Traditional marketing is way more expensive as compared to online marketing. Social media offer a very low cost of entry. Of course, that leads to an easy entry for competitors as well.

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Instant feedback- The response of the customer: good or bad, to the product can be instantly obtained and acted upon. This provides for a greater scope of improvement and customer satisfaction, which is the mainstay of business today.

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Social Media Marketing

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PERSPECTIVE

Personification of the brand- Social media helps create an image of the brand in the minds of customers that they can relate to and is easily accessible to them. Building sustaining relationships- It eases communication for both the company and the end user, paving way for a direct interaction between the two. This has a 2-way benefit: to help the company better understand customer needs, and for the customer by enabling a greater degree of involvement.

Pressure to innovate- Since the two parties involved are constantly in touch with each other, there is always the pressure to recreate and innovate to attract as well as maintain brand loyalty. Long term approach- It is important to understand that social media does not affect sales overnight. It requires extra effort and a long period to develop customer base and maintain relationships.

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Cons:

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Greater risk of damage- There is always a chance of inflicting damage on the companys reputation due to over exposure and negative response from customers. The backlash can be far greater than that in case of traditional marketing tactics.

It is evident that the advantages of social media far outweigh its disadvantages. Also, being part of an ever increasingly competitive business scenario, it is even more essential for organizations to invest in social media marketing. In June 2011, Global Web Index shared a graphic that outlines social network penetration by country.

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Social Media Marketing

As can be observed from the infographic Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the BRIC countries are highly active in the social networking arena. Hence, the marketers would be able to reap higher profit margins if they concentrated more on these countries. Returning to a few examples that would illustrate the potential that can be tapped through social media, I would like to stress on the fact that correct use of the medium is extremely important to make or break a brand.

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which had not been picked up by most Indian brands in June 2009 leave alone the telecom operators. It was unchartered waters but we knew that Social Media connects us with the exact TG that the brand wanted to associate with. It further had the wow element and was clearly doing the New. The perfect reason for Tata DOCOMO to draw up an extensive strategy to harness the power of Social Media and build the brand with its consumers.

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Laying the Social Media Strategy TATA DOCOMO CASE STUDY (Source : Interface Business Solutions) Why Social Media When Tata DOCOMO was planning to enter the Indian market as the 9th GSM operator, it faced entrenched incumbents and strong brand communication barriers from other telecom operators. However Tata DOCOMO was determined to change the game and cut through the clutter through pure innovation and doing the New. At the very core of the Social Media strategy was the idea of humanizing a telecom brand and make it warm, friendly and conversational. The strategy was simple yet brilliant. Reach out to every corner of the web and to every possible TG not as a corporate brand but as a friend willing to engage the consumer in a one-on-one dialogue on anything and everything pertaining to the brand, its offers, its deficiencies as well as anything to do with telecom per se. The desired outcome was clear in everyone's mind to build the most loyal set of beta customers who will champion the brand in their micro-communities at every moment.

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Social Media became the first opportunity

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Social Media Marketing

The execution A dedicated Social Media team at Interface was built to execute the plan. Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Youtube accounts were opened up and optimized even before the brand launch took place. The website itself actively solicited visitors to signup to the Tata DOCOMO communities months before it became a fad for others. The Social Media team set about targeting each of the Social Media platforms differently. The Outcome Each media of the social media strategy has helped Tata DOCOMO build a strong and

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loyal fanbase amongst the youth and has unmistakably taken ownership of the innovator platform thus firmly establishing the brand essence of do the New. The brand values of honesty, transparency and sincerity have been well established in the minds of consumers. Tata DOCOMO social presence is not seen to be a marketing gimmick but a genuine effort to connect and engage with every fan and follower with sincerity and with the authority to solve their problems.

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- Aditi Joshi DoMS, IIT Roorkee aditijoshi.iitr@gmail.com

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Putting handsets inside consumers pocket

According to Gartner, worldwide mobile communication device sales have increased by 19 percent in the first quarter of 2011 as compared to 2010. As the industry continues to grow rapidly, Nokia is losing its market share. Nokias world market share declined 5.5 percentage points year-on-year, and its share has reached its lowest, since 1997, to 30.6 percent. Nokia's market share in India has halved in just few quarters. The company controls around 30 percent of Indian market, according to research firm Gartner, compared with around 60 percent market share in the previous year. While Samsungs world market share stood at 18 percent which is the companys strongest first quarter ever. We studied how the two big names and other mobile phone companies are getting their share of the consumers wallet by doing a survey of multi brand mobile phone retailers in Roorkee. This article is based on our findings. With more than ten brands (namely Nokia, Samsung, Micromax, BlackBerry, LG, GFive, Karbonn, Spice, Maxx, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and others) competing across different segments in India, most mobile phone com-

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panies find it quite challenging to put their handsets into the consumers pocket. There are so many varieties available in the market; customers find it difficult to make choice, said a retailer. Here is an account of the retailers perspective of the mobile phone market. LAUNCHING PRODUCTS AND APPLICATION When a new product is launched and is advertised, it must be available with us within two weeks so that the initial demand doesnt dry out. said a retailer. Some brands to supply newly launched products only their own-brandoutlets for the first few weeks despite the fact that we can perform better than them said another retailer. When a new product is launched, some companies face the problem of high demand and low availability, so rather than being biased towards their own outlets they should take in account all the retailers. Most companies come up with a variety of products. But few take care of all of them. Others just concentrate on a few bestsellers, said another one. Not only launching new products, launching new applications are very

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Putting handsets inside consumers pocket

much important and contribute to the mobile business. The Samsung Application Store gives immense choice to consumers looking for I applications relevant in Indian context it offers 150,000 Java and as many as 9,000 Bada and Android applications which one can download. The company has also created a Samsung Fun Club from which smart -phone users can download games, videos and music. Samsung says, it is getting over 1.6 million downloads every day. Similarly, Nokia Store offers as much as 17,000 applications for download. The Ovi store from which one can buy music gets over one million hits from India alone. For every new product launched, the company must make proper arrangements for servicing the product. A quick response is very much desired by the customer and almost one-third of the customers were unhappy with the services provided by their brand and were willing to switch brands as mentioned by retailers. PRODUCT VARIETY AND TECHNOLOGY

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Technology is fast changing and so are consumer demands. These days customers want android phones said a retailer. When asked the reason, he added Android supports lot of applications. Google's Android platform rose to a dominant position in the smart-phone market in the first quarter of 2011. We offer customers Android operating systems, we also offer them Bada which is our own proprietary system and we are also looking at launching some Microsoft Window operating systems. Its a kind of range which our competitors match, said cannot Ranjit

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Yadav, Samsung India country head of mobile and IT. According to retailers, Samsungs dual SIM and android devices are customers favorites. To help its weakening position in smart-phone segment, Nokia has made a deal to start the use of Microsoft's Windows Phone software in its handsets instead of Symbian. Nokia has also come up with dual SIM products. Moreover, interesting trends in low-end segment of mobile phones shows drastic increase in share of new entrant mobile companies like Micromax, Lava, Karbonn etc.

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Putting handsets inside consumers pocket

This definitely proves the fact that the customers in this segment demand value for money.

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very less quantity, say 5, it could be adjusted in next months payout scheme. Brands which offer attractive payout schemes become retailers favorite and in-turn find their way into the consumers pocket. Another important aspect which motivates the retailers to favor a certain brand is retailer-distributor relationship. Few retailers complained about the poor relationship management by distributors. In local market, especially small cities, this relationship is very important because for a small region or town there is only one distributor of a brand. Then his relationship with retailers will certainly affect the brands sale in that region. A potential solution to this problem could be dividing the circle area into smaller regions so that the retailers could have access to two or more distributors.

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RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT Retailers help customers to choose a mobile phone that is beneficial for both of them. Most often customers buy products that we endorse, said a retailer. In a market where products are equally good and prices competitive, retailers are usually biased towards a brand that offers flexible and better margins and payout schemes. When asked about schemes, a retailer replied for example if we sell a thousand product of a particular brand they give us bonuses. Flexibility means that if a scheme is applicable for sales of 100 handsets of a model in a certain segment of a particular brand, then the scheme is made valid even if there is somehow a shortage of

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- Sayantan and Pawan DoMS, IIT Roorkee

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Cause This, This Is A Poem

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I want you to know Know that its hard living and how hard it pains Tell me can you feel it, See its running, running right through my veins I want you to know Know that there are some things, which I cant explain Cause this, this is a poem, a poem that I can never write again I may cry Cry my heart out, without a tear dropping down my cheek I may not say Say that you have the sweetest voice, & sure it can make me go weak I may try Try as hard as I can, and wouldnt hesitate a bit even to cheat Cause this, this is a poem, a poem that I may never be able to complete I can see See those colors and feel the heat your eyes pierce Pierce me like darts, and I skip a heartbeat And I can trade Trade my soul, if thats whats needed to seal the deal Cause this, this is a poem, a poem that will tell you how I feel Somehow I Know Know that all my efforts, would die in vain and Ill stay Stay forever, getting soaked in this pouring rain But I know Know, I wont get what I need Cause this, This is a poem, a poem that you'll never read

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- Manav Kaushik DoMS, IIT Roorkee manav2502@gmail.com

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Qutopia 20
Its Exquizite, Kills your Quriosity and adds to your Quizdom. Need we say more? Qutopia A Utopia of the best Biz Quiz Tidbits to wreck your brains! Rush in your answers to domination.doms.iitr@gmail.com, before 30th September, 2011. The winner will have their names published in the next issue. Also, person getting the highest score in the current quarter (July-September 2011) will get a gift voucher. Answers in the next issue of

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DoMination.
Section A
(1 Point for each correct answer)

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1. Identify the logo?

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2. What does ADR stand for? 3. What was Anna Hazares occupation before becoming a social-activist? 4. Where 2022 FIFA World Cup would be held?
Section B
(2 Point for each correct answer)

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

2. Whos the CEO of Procter & Gamble Company?

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Qutopia 20 3. What is the official publication of Germany, China and Portugal known as?

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

Section C
(3 Point for each correct answer)

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* Identify the legendary Indian?

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Answers to Qutopia 19 Answer: Section A

1. First postage stamp of Independent India 2. Chicken market is the stock market with no significant movement in the index 3. The Silicon Valley 4. Lakme 5. Year 1969 6. MLaren Formula 1 has the engine from BMW

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Answer: Section B:
1. Logo of the United Nations Climate Change Conference held at Copenhagen, commonly known as the Copenhagen Summit 2. Shombit Sengupta, he designed the logo of each of them r 3. Kothari Pioneer in 1993 later merged with Franklin Templeton 4. The Big Mac Index

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Winner:

Udit Gupta (Batch 2010-2012) G.Manoj (Batch 2010-2012)

- Prateek Tomar DoMS, IIT Roorkee Prateekdps89@gmail.com

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DoMS-da-Evince

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This time in DoMS-da-Evince, we bring excerpts from an interview with Ms. Smita Beohar, who is a dynamic professional with over 7 years of rich experience in Strategic Planning, Sales & Marketing, Business Development, Channel Management, Key Account Management and Team Management in the Petroleum Industry. She is currently working with Reliance Industries Ltd. as Manager Sales Planning.

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1) What are the roles and responsibilities with Reliance Industries Ltd.? How did it help in your career? I joined Reliance as a Management Trainee and have come a long way. When I had joined Reliance I was supposed to take over the profile of a Field Sales officer and spent the better part of a year under training but as the date of confirmation neared I was in for a shock. I was told that the job isnt suitable for a woman and I was adjusted into another profile which was mainly of an assistant. I took it as a challenge and am now working in the head office as Manager in operations. I handle national sales, industry data, coordination between field & head office. It has not been an easy journey but it surely has been an interesting one. 2)What characteristics make Sales profile challenging and demanding? Well, I havent really been in the hard core sales. My profile is of data churning ,the most challenging part being accuracy. A number here & a number there make a hell lot of a

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difference in the final output & trust me I have learned the hard way. I have always been a person who does work in a hurry & in my initial days I paid more emphasis on finishing on time rather than on accuracy and to top that I have been blessed with bosses who are razor sharp in numbers. They just have to see the nos and they can tell you something is wrong. I would suggest you to be sure of your work as it is a cut throat world out there & all of you wont be blessed with generous bosses like I have been. 3)How has the government resistance to allow deregulation of Diesel affected the petroleum industry specially the private sector? Do you think that like petrol diesel should also be freed from the clutches of subsidy? This is one topic which is very close to my heart. When I had joined Reliance petroleum the company was onto launching some 4000 odd petrol pumps across India. Our motto was to do something different in a market where the customer has been short changed forever.

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DoMS-da-Evince
Within 3 years we were up & running and even managed to get a market share of 13% which was no mean feat. During this time we even managed to wake up the PSUs and result is visible to all. The petrol pumps are now much consumer friendly and there are facilities which go beyond the basic product. But then came a time when crude prices increased and the PSU continued selling at less price and got subsidies from government in the form of oil bonds but none of the private companies like RIL, Essar & Shell got that benefit. The direct result of this was that these companies started slowing down. Every year there are talks of deregulation of Diesel which would allow the companies to regulate the price but due to political pressure the deregulation is yet to see the light of the day. The government had dismantled APM in 2002 to give a level playing field to all companies. The move resulted in Private players to join the business but despite the dismantling government still holds the thread to the business which makes or breaks elections. Complete de regulation would give a level playing field to all players & trust me to some extent

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it will also solve the problems that a consumer faces i.e. of adulterated product. Yes de regulation would also mean little higher prices but then I feel that it is high time that we are free of the clutches of subsidy. As it is these subsidies help rich get richer. A lot more can be discussed on the same. So in case you want to discuss the issue with me do drop in a mail at smita.beohar@gmail.com 3)How has DoMS, IIT Roorkee contribute to your success? Well, DoMS made me what I am. It laid the foundation of where I stand today. I believe it continues to provide a good platform for building oneself. It is more of a facilitator and it is up to us, what maximum we extract out of it ! 4)Any Message for the readers, especially the current batches? I have been hearing only good things about the department. you guys have a lovely infrastructure, a good faculty & an excellent brand name. Never underestimate it and use the whole system to its full potential. Try and make the best possible use of these 2 years. All the best.

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

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This August saw frantic happenings of historical struggles both in the domestic territory and on the International stage struggles that ranged from the rise of a unique revolution against corruption (dubbed as freedom struggle Part II) to the struggle of the Western giants in keeping their head high in the tumultuous waters of a shaking World Economy. The tremors of the present crisis in the United States and Europe could be felt all across the globe. The fear of another recession but the might be giving scenario nightmares to many people, current could also signal a shift in Global Power. India, in current circumstances, is not only facing the change in dynamics of Global Power but also fighting the evil of Corruption on war front at home,

so much so that it has paralysed the already slow decision-making in the current UPA Government as the focus has totally shifted from inflation and GDP Growth to just one bill the Jan Lokpal Bill. God Help America! Can we seriously count on it for the upcoming time to tide us to the safety of shores? Last October, when the rating agencies Moody, like Fitch

even though the Obama administration was able to secure the votes in favour of increasing the US debt (to the tune equal to that of US GDP!) ceiling as that was the only option which was there with them to tide over the crisis of this deficit. There are various opinions regarding this downgrading from political to economic. Standards & Poor, during its earlier review had given a warning on downgrading the US Credit Rating on account of increasing deficit and slowing growth in the US. The repercussions of the downgrade have descended upon the global economy like a bolt from blue. Amidst all the promises to lower down the budget deficits by Obamas administration, the event has shattered the hope of investors and traders across the globe.

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and S&P had warned the US lawmakers of their ballooning budget deficit, no one could have imagined of this unpredictable future. The US economy stumbled badly in the first half of 2011, coming close to contraction in first quarter. Americas AAA credit rating has been downgraded by a notch by Standard & Poor to AA+ rating

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Every stock market including ours took a huge hit and crashed like Babel. A feeling of panic can be sensed not only from the amateurs of the market but also the tycoons of Wall Street. In the backdrop of a weakening dollar against other major currencies like the Euro, the Japanese Yen, etc there are calls from the next generation super power like China asking for replacement of the US dollar as the reserve currency, even though they are the biggest lenders to the US Government and the holder of a huge pile-up of US dollars. But then it is China the Country which maintains a prudent balance of everything be it the currencies, Gold or even the Crude Reserve for that matter, which is why in the current vicious scenario, the Economists all across have started looking at China from a very close angle and speculations are ripe as to how might China react in this situation will it act like an opportunist or will it act in the larger interest of the Global Economy. But the replacement of US dollar as the Global reserve will not only impact the US, it will also have an impact on the emerging countries which depend on easy loans and FII inflow from the dollar market and India especially, has got huge dollar reserves as compared to other currencies in the kitty of our Foreign Exchange Reserves. The European Union, already suffering from the burden of PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain) will have another addition to its investors fears and anxiety and this could adversely affect the Euro. The panic in the currency market could easily be pointed out with the lump sum increase in commodities like Gold & Silver. Gold & Silver with other precious metals like Platinum and Palladium are expected to attract buyers, and exchange traded funds with gold as underlying asset as in the current scenario, when the Equities market world-wide are facing a bear run, the investors are acknowledging Gold as the safest haven for investment. One of the global impacts could be softening of Commodity prices too, and Middle East could face the impact in earnings of oil producers who will try to hold on oil prices. Because of the above consequences, initially a double dip recession was forecasted and it further resulted in a panic environment among traders and investors. As we have already seen the global impact of crisis, but a question still remains how the situation so

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Regardez I'economie
far mentioned going to affect us? The answer is somewhat complicated if both current political and economic front are taken into account. Within few days of downgrades in Rating, UPA government started reassuring through different media channels about the stability of Indian markets. And it actually helped in sustaining the fall in the Indian Equity Markets. But again the credibility of UPA is being tested with number of scams and a totally oblivious attitude towards the mass movement of Jan Lokpal Bill. A mixed feeling among investors led to a flee market type situation with a wide fluctuations in stock markets. SENSEX started with 18365.11 points on August 1 has already taken more than 2000 points dip till now and similar is the situation with NIFTY. According to many industry experts, the US and European Debt crisis, will help India to get more FII inflows and will boost the Indian Markets. The Crude Oil Prices are projected to fall in the current scenario, as the oil producers in Middle East will try to hold the prices. This will definitely help India in combating the perennial problem of uncontrolled Inflation which has been plaguing the Indian economy for past few years and somehow restricts our economic growth. But the Indian exports could be constrained due to this global crisis. Indias main items of exports to the two regions (US and European Union) are IT Services, pharmaceuticals and Consumer durables. The Demands in the western markets has not shown any good signs since 2008-2009 and now this crisis has further complicated the Indian exports scenario. Lets just wait and watch for the time being as to how the IT sector braces up to the challenge. UPA government is further trying to give more tax concessions and other incentives to the exporting community. The US rating Downgrade would surely be felt on the treasury bills issued by the US government. There might be increase in Interest rates by Government which wouldfurther increase the borrowing rates. This move will definitely help to hold the investors in Indian Markets. In todays Globaized World, there would be some impact on the stock markets across the globe and it would further result in low investor confidence and sudden shift of investments in search of safe markets. The concept of the Global Currency to check on the currency market, are bound to be back on the platters of next G-20 Summit. The rupee would be strengthened and could result in change of our mone-

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-tary policy, as it might further affect our exports. But, as the EU is still trying to recover, and a sudden fear of another recession in the US, the new power group like the BRICS have a larger role to play in Global Economy. So this might be the blessing in disguise for our nation, the time has come for India to raise itself from the garb of corruption and to play a significant role in the World stage.

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- Shibi Singh DoMS, IIT Roorkee Shibi.singh@gmail.com

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The Team
Shruti Goel Anuj Mody Chetna Yadav Mukesh Rathi Rajneesh Kumar
Anirudh De Deep Pathak Harsh Singh Pallavi Rohini Sharma Rishi Arora Udit Gupta Sudeep Dakua

Contributors
Aditi joshi Anurag Agarwal Manav Kaushik Pawan Prateek Tomar Saumya Verma Sayantan Shibi