The TECHSPARKS is back and so with a bang. the Delhi round-table is round the corner on 7th of May 2011. Though it needs no introduction, if you want to know more about #tsparks click here.
Delhi sure is going to witness a flurry of entrepreneurial activity on he 7th of May 2011. And why would it not happen, when, you have some real exciting names in the industry spanning the mobile to the venture capitalists joining the discussion.
I would have loved to present a sneak-peek into the action, alas it all got announced a while back by YourStory. But still to give you a little knock on your door for the action which you can expect at the event, the exciting speakers on board the Delhi edition are:
Well, if you are still wanting some more, here you go with a fantastic video introduction to the TechSparks 2011:
As the Official Blogger for the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0, many people ask me, that I would surely have a plethora of knowledge with me, as I have the opportunity to attend all the sessions and also since I LIVE blog the sessions, I must be highly attentive.
Today I again am excited to bring forth the high worth and value knowledge which gets created at the NASSCOM EMERGE Friday’s 2.0 and am glad to be making it alive for all of you who could not be present at the session, though we would love to have more participation along and expand the community.
Today we have Ulrich Bäumer, Partner, Osborne Clarke and BITKOM representative and Asha-Maria Sharma, Senior Manager, Service Industries, Germany Trade and Invest GmbH, giving us an insight into the German ICT environment and business verticals for partnership as identified by Germany Trade And Investment (GTAI) for Indian companies and important aspects of What works and what doesn’t in M&A, overview of the legal and practical ways of doing business in Germany.
The room is full and well, its interesting to know how many people in the room want to understand the German market. So we have the session with a brief introduction on what Germany Trade and Invest is.
Promoting Germany’s advantages as a prime location for foreign investors in hi-tech industries
Collecting and processing economic data and information about industries, tender procedures, legaal frameworks etc.
Interestingly, the investors consultancy part of the company, is into much diversified scope:
Renewable Energies and Resources
Chemicals and Healthcare
Mechanical and Electronic
Service Industries
We are now getting to know what it is all about being in Germany, with the geographical location to the travel time. To know how blackberry and Vodafone and such large companies are actually settling in Germany. Pros and Cons of different places for your business ill be different and you need to understand that, with relevance to your business.
We are talking clusters in Germany now, I am interested to know this space, as its pretty big a space in India as well and some really interesting work is on with respect to them.
Germany offers different incentive packages to re-imburse an investment project’s expenditures
With the market volume of above 133 billion Euros Germany’s ICT industry ranks second in Europe. These are interesting figures. in 2008 German companies closed a good number of BPO and IT deals, hence there is a plenty of space.
Germany is the most lucrative software market in Europe, accounting for 26.1% of the EU market value. We are talking about the diversification of software market in Germany.
There is a good presence of the SME industry in Germany and it could surely be of interest to many of you
Talking Green!
Green ideas in IT and Green through IT, is what we are working on this and should you have products under this umbrella, you should definitely explore Germany.
Software Security is one area which we are really concerned about. We have had cases with data loses with social networks and as anyone, we Germans are surely much sensitive about our personal information, hence there is good space in the domain. Embedded systems market is of a fairly good size in Germany and you will also find clusters in the Southern part related to the domain.
Germany has by far the highest number of internet users in Europe creating large potential for business
E-commerce
Gaming market
Online Advertising
I am personally amazed with the numbers on the slides, especially for the gaming and online advertising, which is showing a huge surge. German companies are moving from Print to Online.
Market growth areas: Green IT + E-Energy + E-health
Mobil apps: Increase in non-voice-services
Embedded systems
IT Services and Software
And now we are talking about the automotive industry in Germany, which to mention also is the home for Mercedez. The small manufacturers are spread across Germany and there is no one hub/ cluster.
I suggest the best way to get in touch is to attend conferences and other events to know the suppliers and other specific information you require about your business.
And now we have Ulrich, thanking everyone in the room, for whom this is the 12th visit to India. I advise SME’s in Germany also to get to India. And Ulrich shares the agenda for the session:
Interestingly we are going to discuss, Co-operation between Indian and German Companies. We have a very different law in Germany and its completely different in almost every way than what you have in India. Hence you need to understand the basic laws which are very important before you sign up your first customer in India.
You must definitely thank your peer Indian IT companies, who ventured into Germany 10-15 years back, coz they had to persuade German people, for the price and quality and hence for you guys its easier now to reach out to the German companies, which buy Indian IT not just because of the price, but for the quality as well.
So we have started with the introduction for the Law company which is Osborne Clarke. Very ineresting to know how many people they have helped set up in Germany. There are surely some very interesting and Big Indian names on the list that we have on screen.
Co-operation in Germany
Merger
Acquisition
JV
Partnership
Build Operate Transfer – It Outsourcing
Indo-German Strategic Alliance
Many of our M&A’s have been extremely successful and have been running for 10-15 years. Ulrich is sharing the previous success stories that they have created, and these also include some real big Indian corporate names.
So now we are discussing Common Law and Civil Laws in Germany which are surely an absolute necessity for you to set up in Germany.
Common Law (inductive)
Problem -> Judgement -> Ratio decidendi
Civil Law (deductive)
Statute -> Problem -> Application
I am very impressed with the way, Ulrich has simply explained the entire difference between the Common and Civil Laws and how can you in simple measures look at what you can expect when you reach the German shores, or establish out of India. Ulrich is very interestingly raised the awareness of the people in the room and sure all are all ears!
Now we are getting an insight into the European Legal System. Well, sure the German Law is definitely different from how we operate in India. And now gets answered the question, of many a people who wanted to know about Branch offices and how to set them up in Germany.
The outsourcing market is growing in Germany and I think in 2010 the curve will continue to grow up
Good to see how the Indian IT Services industry has grown and set foot in Germany. And well this figure has raised since 2007. Service providers have now crossed out to the other side.
Have you ever thought about off-shoring: 27% of the part said to this that they have larger projects already LIVE which have been off-shored. If we do off-shoring, we do it to India, is what the 67% of the people who answered this sample survey said. Some really interesting figures, being shared by Ulrich.
I personally dont see a single Chinese company, to overtake any of the large Indian IT service companies. China will NOT be a challenge in the near future for the Indian ITeS market.
In the Non Voice market, I dont see players as large as those in India, challenging the Indian players.
Language barrier is a comfort issue, in my experience it has been like: 80% of the deals across the table have happened in English. Its always good to have a native speaker, but its not a necessity.
Ulrich again shares the 8 key issues which you can face in your outsourcing contract in Germany.
warranty
Liability
Acceptance
Delay
Change requests
etc.
Talking about warranty, liability and guaranty. Well, yes the entire room is interested in this conversation. Ulrich presents the whole idea of liability with very simply presented examples. Well liability without any limitation under German law, implies fully, if you have not mentioned anything about it in your contract. Eyes get raised at such a point.
The data protection laws in Germany are surely something to learn from. The labour laws are surely pretty strict in Germany. The session is interactive and there are good questions coming from the audience.
And now we end with the session with the audience still very interested and questions pouring in with respect to IPR and other related to the IT services.
Its been a good session and I feel good to know about Business in Germany, thanks to Asha and Ulrich for their precious time.
So, we have Ms. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw post lunch at The Leaders In India 2009. I have always admired Kiran as a woman entrepreneur. She has proven words with actions! My respects Mam
Talkign about the Global Biotech sector Kiran says that it is a business size of over 90 billion dollars globally. Each of the past decades have triggered a new growth of innovation. Interesting to know how the entire Biotech industry has evolved over time. Though Ihave not really understood the Biotech industry much, but sure, I am intrigued!
My own journey of Biocon has been that of experimenting and learning! I call myself an accidental entrepreneur!
I was always interested in brewing. I have had to overcome countless challenges over decades. We started small with simple technologies we built and also partnering has helped me build my own entrepreneurial vision. I started my entrepreneurial journey when I had the provilige of starting India’s first Biotech company, which had its own large number of challenges. People were very skeptical of success and at my time, India was still a developing company and we had sub-optimal structure that we have today and it was the time of the license raj than today. I was a 25 yearold first generation woman entrepreneur!
All I had was foolish courage!
There was no access to VC all I could avail of was very expensive debt based funding which I accepted. I was very driven by green technology at that time. But there were very few takers at that time and one of the BIG challenges I had was, the space I was getting into, was based on one very important need, which is: high quality uniterrupted power supply which India does not have even today.
I started my business from scratch opting for less evolved technology. We focused on a niche opportunity, as I had to be very real about the infrastructure and the environment I was working in. I always knew that India was a very small market for me and hence I had to operate in a niche which gave me some kind of advantage. Also in my starting years, what helped me was, I started this as a JV with a small Irish partner, and they provided me with assistance to market, my product to Global markets and this is what helped my business started.
Up until 1980′s we were still loners in Biotech in India
It was really abotu building this company step by painful step and slowly the Biotech sector started gaining acceptance in India when the govt realized the importance. Creating the skill based that we need to drive this industry has paid us fairly well in time. Thankfully because of the success of the IT and software sector, the VC had taken root in India. Since this happened, we started looking towards VC funding, when we tried to scale up. It also allowed to develop sophisticated products and I was able to compete due to our cost base.
By late 1990′s I had a fermentation unit which could handle all sorts of enzymes
The cluster effect that had started in Bangalore really helped us. the boom in Bangalore had many innovative start-ups in the space which also helped the entire industry as such and hence we were benefited. We had international players coming into India setting up operations which helped gain confidence and many are now building scale into what they were doing. Biocon had started gaining market leadership in the niche segment we were looking at.
As an entrepreneur I felt that enzyme segment was going to be limiting to our growth and we had to take some hard decisions
We hence applied our technology to develop into bio-pharmaceuticals. We were the first to cut across the IP barriers hence defining new opportunities.
“We are the world’s first and only company i manufacturing Insulin and Insulin analogs and I am proud to say that”
Overtime we have become bolder in saying that lets innovate in the Bio-pharmaceuticals now. We can today afford to innovate, we can afford to build programs around new products. Innovation in the field of Bio-tech is something we must surely take very seriously. We tend to opt for low risk services and generic versions of drugs and vaccines.
In India the cost of risk is very affordable and hence we must back innovation
What is happening to companies in the western world, is an opportunity for us. I think India really has a good opportunity to cash on in what is happening in the western world. There is a whole new emerging opportunity in Bio-generics. We will pursue Innovation led mantra to grow and that is really my goal as a company and myself as an entrepreneur! All along e have constantly challeneged ourselves and tracked new technologies.
An important learning that I have learned as an entrepreneur is challenging the status quo and moving ahead
We are trying to develop world’s first Oral insulin and its going to be a game changer for us, if it happens
We have really made a lot of conscious effort in partnering with companies, which has actually helped us leapfrog, and it has been a great business tactic for us. In our journey there is one inflection point, I had a tough and emotional call to make! Enzyme was going no where as we were not really investing enough in it, the reason being we had limited resources. And hence we finally said, we must dis-invest and divested into our competition and they have invested and grown this business fr more than we were doing it at that stage. But we surely benefited out of the IP and knowledge we had built over time. We bought a company in Germanhy which will help us start our operations in Europe.
We have started building global scale in our businesses
Our strategy has been always to develop products, leveraging India’s cost base and using affordability as our competitive edge and we are determined to do it at an affordable rate.
My message to other companies from developing world(s) is, who are stretching hard to fight against odds, we have:
Dont hesitate to partner when you want to pursue certain business opportunities, it allows you to grow faster
Its important to start simple and start local, be realistic about matching your skill sets w.r.t technologies you are trying to develop
I started my life as a brewmaster looking to brew beer, your journey can take you anywhere, but your life should be an inspiring hope
It was great to listen to you Ms. Mazumdar Shaw as usual! The fire of entrepreneurship has surely gotten a needed kick from you!
Praveen Rajpaul, talks about Innovation and how FICCI is helping organizations to improve their productivity and how innovation is changing the riles of the game.
Innovation distinguishes between a LEADER and a follower says Mr. Rajpaul
What do you need for innovation? Its an Idea!
Incremental
Revolutionary
Disruptive
Game changer
Unless we have all these sorts if ideas, we wont’ further. But how do you generate such ideas? Is there a process? Can we make it simple? How can we simplify the process of generating the ideas? Puts forth Mr. Rajpaul to the gathering!
Golden Principles of Innovation:
COMBINE
products
proceesses
technologies
disciplines
capabilities
arts and science
REVERSE
conventions
business models
products
processes
Orthodoxing
ELIMINATE
ADJUST
Cost
Time
Space
DIVIDE
Handling
Transportation
Space
SUBSTITUTE
Greener
Lighter
Faster
Better
Stronger
Smarter
UTILIZE
Talent
Brand
Networks
Waste
Harmful effects
MODIFY
Designs
Eco friendly
Energy efficient
UNLOCK CREATIVITY
Passion
Well, there have been some real fantastic principles, that we have seen over time and some real fantastic concepts, which may be workable and may be just vague at the same time. But good to see innovatoin in my lifetime!
So here I am Live blogging the Day two of Leaders In India 2009, with the first keynote being delivered by Mr. Adi Godrej.
I am sure this is going to be a great learning session with immense value for all present.
Our group has a fairly long history, we are 112 years old, Our sales turnover is a little over a 100 billion rupees
Interestingly Adi is sharing keen information about the Godrej business and they have grown till date. In 1991 we clearly felt that we had to give a boost to our competitiveness. We partnered global companies in our existing businesses, which were GE and P&G as Joint Ventures, though they dont’ continue today.
We learnt a lot from these great International organizations, which we have implemented over the years and they have learnt a lot about India, from us
Each of our companies and businesses, has a non family managing director or president who runs the company, I am surely interested in learning this. We have a rather strict rule which has that only professionally qualified family members can join the business.
I am the third generation in the business and the fourth has already been inducted into the business
One of the major values we believe in is, that people are our strongest assets. We go out of our way to LIVE the value that people are our strongest assets. We have a constitution of a young executive board, one’s with great future potential and their job is to look at strategy, corporate governance, HRD etc, and then advice the Group CEO’s. Hence we get a tremendous bottom up response. I am very intrigued with the learning from Mr. Godrej.
Being a family business, as a professional and entrepreneur, I am so glad to hear and learn about the functioning of the Godrej group and how it is constituted at various levels. Very interestingly the structure provides the company a very strong bottom up feedback in runnign the company and in my view provides them with a great leadership development tool, creating a very scalable structure.
We have very emphatic programs on diversity within the group
Whenever we have emphasized diversity, the talent we get is much better than the average, Eg: if you go out of the way to recruit strong women, you get great talent, in cases much better than men. We have a very strong E-MBA program within the group. People who have not yet done a management degree, are eligible and promoted to do so. We insist on a 5 day learning schedule.
I myself make sure that I at least spend 30 days a year for learning
We follow a process of forced ranking in our group, we force ranks into non-performers and extra-ordinary achievers. The bottom non-performers which we get everytime in ranking, as it is relative. What this process doe sin a country like India is to strongly improve the working of the team, as everybody does good to work to be in the top 20 per cent.
I get evaluated by my sub-ordinates on a 360 degree basis regularly, and this is only a self evaluation tool
We re-assess our portfolio on a very regular basis and in the last years we have had several strategic acquisitions. We hired a British branding partner called Interbrand to re-launch our brand and it helped us great way in re-positioning our brand and leverage the brand asset value and equity towards achieving growth!
Interestingly we have Mr. Godrej talking about the various succession plans in the company. Talking about succession planning, Mr. Godrej talks about what if you tomorrow come down a bus, well, we are planned for it, and I remember having the similar conversation with a friend, while running an Incubation Consulting company.
So now we have a power panel talking about recession and the current scenario and the road ahead being moderated by Steve Tappin, chair, LII 2009.
What’s happening at the Global credit Markets?
Theres’ no doubt that the US and UK are going to see slow growth and hence if you look at where the growth would really be, well, India, China are in the race. We did go through difficult times in Q1, but now we are introducing the concept of reverse integration. We are manufacturing products at price points which make sense to the masses int he country. Hence we are focusing on a whole new market segment to look at.
Corporations like us have to better how to work with the governments around the world. We as an institution have to get better at doing this as the funds today really are with the governments. We have realized that in some markets its better to partner with exsiting organizations to achieve the right and fast growth.
Now we have the Airlines industry being represented and what we are discussin are the cycles in the airlines industry. Global recession and fuel prices, have hit the industry pretyt badly. Now how do you weather a downturn like that?
I believe, what you need to do is have a very detail and deep customer focus. If you listen to your customer right, you kind of know the bad weather for which you could well be prepared. You hence start thinking on what best can be done with the customers hence delivering and creating the right value. In any industry if you do your homework and understand where the world economy is going will help you a lot.
One of the reasons the Indian airline industry is losing 1.5 billion dollars is the Me-too syndrome!
And now we are discussing the remittance industry and interesting to note that the trends in this industry are still increasing. And what we did as a company is get the slow down much faster and quickly, hence we looked at strategic growth options. We as an organization grew and looked at our corporate strategy, aligning it with the growth and then we looked at investments. We had the following two crucial pieces with us:
Communicating with our stakeholders
Being progressive and Aggressive than the industry – high level of execution
And now we have the IT Services business being represented from the panel and interesting to note that the comopany went ahead to drive growth within and external to the organization.
We went to our top 50 customers and understood their issues and problems and had our swot teams helping clients and helping them grow their businesses
We went to our partners to look at how we could get the right pricing models for our customers and finally we went to unions in the EU, and supported the cause of outsourcing which highly supported us in generating new business than cutting on any sources/ costs
And now we are in the Q&A mode in the panel discussion, which will be open to public view next. Interesting to share the notes here, we are discussing the defence industry as an opportunity in India. Tejpreet from GE remarks that the new and innovative products which will come, will be from India and China and emerging economies now rather than the west and this will drive growth of the market in the west.
So here we are with the second session of Day 1 of The Leaders In India 2009. This is a panel discussion with a very impressive moderated panel, and the discussion will revolve around Mergers and Acquisitions which surely is an interesting discussion to be in.
We have the resident editor from Mumbai for Outlook magazine moderating the session for the gathering and he talks some very interesting numbers.
70% of acquisitions fail
Company like Cisco which has done more than 135 acquisitions till date, we have the Chief Globalization Officer from Cisco, talking about how Cisco has mastered the art of acquisitions. He says the majority of our acquisitions came from our customers. This is the Go To Market anc business strategy for Cisco. We differentiate in market enetering, expansion and acceleration. Our success rate is 70%. We are very high on retention as well.
You need a culture in a company to be able to do M and A
We also do acquisitions to enter new business models. Our learning with acquisitions is that you have to have that culture in your company and today we have an entire team to do these acquisitions. Last but not the least, its a process. Now we are talking India in specific and interestingly Cisco has so far done 6 new investments in India.
Key takeaway: M&A can be a key part of your strategy and it can become your culture
Now we have Mr. Charles from wattson wyatt, giving the Human angle to M&A. What I have learned working with clients, there is no standard template for culture. It has to be something which is central to all parts of your transaction. In terms of due diligence, if you really dont understand the culture of the organization that you are buying, you should not think of buying them.
I was very impressed with the amount of expertise and process and real hard work which went into due diligence when I was working with clients in India
But the whole diligence was on the financial part and not the cultural or Human part. One of the things you need to accept about M and A, is that you need to be better at it.
Interestingly we have an expert talking about post integration and acquisition and she says, when you are in the midst of your deal, how much attention have you paid to the fact that what would happen to the organization after merger and what would form out of it?
You need to have the systems integrated to get the right prioritization, post acquisition integration. The key thing for you is to get the right internal team together. You need to bring all the elements together with common objectives and right prioritization, as you cannot do everything in 30 days, hence you need to have the right planning which will definitely pay dividends in the long run.
By bad post acquisition realizations, and if not planned well, you could inherit losses and other issues. Hence plannign the right internal team with the right objectives is the right thing.
Bad M&A?
Sure, there is bad M&A there, but it is also the time for opportunity. Governments are going to have to raise money in the near future and taxes are the way to do it and hence this is the time to have a strategic look at your group structure and if you have your IP rights at the right places in your organization and if you are exploiting them fully.
Q&A:
Now we are in the q&A mode with the moderator of the session leading with the questions.
Very interesting discussions happening about Indian family businesses and also how Cisco does the right things by setting the right expectations, while discussing business Integration across verticals and internal employee cultures.
Money is a Motivation – setting the right financial structure post integration:
We now are discussion how compensation structures change and how they are controlled and managed over time, post integration. You need to structure the deal looking at the fact that anybody who has set up a business has a huge amount of emotional attachment with the business. What we have found is: if you can intelligently find out the right roles for people post integration, looking at what they are doing, they love, you can have a successful post integration team merger and integration.
Listening to Steve Tappin from Yorkshire, and he pushes the ambitions of CEO’s to be the best and be more inspirational which is his day job and his night job is the book he is writing, which is secrets of CEO’s.
Interestingly, Steve says that two thirds of Global leaders that we have at the moment are not big enough, two thirds are managers at best and they don’t have the leader’s qualities. Steve gives areas for CEO’s:
1. Business performance
2. Business leadership
3. Personal performance
4. Personal leadership
5. Talent
And after a good networking energy filled opportunity, we have Peter Rigby, Chief Executive of Informa Group plc, Non-Executive Chairman of Electric Word plc. Peter starts the day with introducing the Leaders In India and how the contribution of such platforms can make a meaningful difference to the communities we serve and as the community as a whole.
We now have Steve again talking about the TRUMP group and here we have Donald Trump. And Donald starts with the resilience of the Indian marketplace and Donald will be talking about the emerging markets in specific the Real Estate Market. WSJ has dubbed Real Estate as India’s new Tech.
It takes an outsiders perspective to look at the things that can change
Donald is sharing his experience of a conference he attended at Dubai and well how the buying patterns are evolving.
To move things forward we really have to get things back to basics.
My father was teaching me abotu business and about focus and he told a story in the early nineties which explained to Donald what focus really is. you can’t be all things to all people. One of the biggest pitfalls every one has seen over the last few years is that all are going the same direction, but in my view we have to understand the subtleties. We hence lost track of basis, we lost track of cost, margins shrunk. Its time to ge trealistic!
Why India today?
interestingly, Donald is talking about the India story and what things can you do differently and what new things can you do to move forward. In 27 years India has only had 1 year of negative growth.
Fluency in English in India is a great advantage, which I see as a great potential, as it still is the language of business
There is a level of aspirational wealth here, that you don’t see anywhere else in the world. The desire here is so much stronger that I have not seen anywhere lse in the world! People here really love try and do things. And you have to love what you do to be successful. You never will out-perform anyone else in the company if you don’t love what you do.
Urbanisation is another thing which is very rapidly growing and is a mind boggling statistic which has applications everywhere
I have always heard of the American Dream, even in Obama’s speech, but today listening to Donald Trump, creating the amazingly HUGE Indian DREAM! I am a proud Indian (as always) !
Opportunities:
People wanna know what they are buying
They wanna know who they are dealing with
Creating a risk adjusted level playing field
The biggest issue in my mind in investing into any emerging market, is the lack of transparency
Certainty creates value. Without transparency its going to be difficult to create continued investment. When my own backyard is getting interesting, it creates good competition for not just the emerging markets but for everyone.
The TRUMP organization has developed a model over the last few years to do business across the globe. We dont assume that we know all things about all markets. The first emerging market which cracks the transparency code will WIN – Donald Trump Jr.
I just love the so much home grown talent in India, but that doesn’t still mean that you dont want to attract foreign talent.
You don’t get anything that you don’t ask for. And this is one of the biggest lessons I have learnt in life, which took me three years. Transfer of knowledge creates clarity. International players have not been able to get in touch with the legal system in India.
Donald Trump Jr. is now talking about Infrastructure and I agree to him on this, as an emerging market, we do need infrastructure, not just in terms of rail and roads, but also agriculture, education etc. Someone has to bite the bullet and it has to be done says Donald.
Cultural Differences
Donald Trump talks about talks about business and how it is done globally. And how people do need to understand that there has to be a common understanding in doing business. A times I go losing 3 hours on a business call which should effectively get closed in 5 minutes for me. Trump talks about creating a level play, a level playing field and I agree no less to himi on this. Business in India has to become this.
Donald, closes with his remark the potential for this country is amazing if some of these things are changed and now we are in the Q&A mode.
Walk the Walk… Talk the Talk… Times have now arrived for the corporate to consider Blogging the Blog!!
Yes, its true, as social media is arriving with the Corporate, there are new rules getting created. New possibilities opening up. The Corporate today wants to get one with the consumer, interact with his relevant target audience wherever the consumer is!
Your consumers are already on the Internet
With the usage of Internet spilling over to almost all parts of the country, the corporate has a valid and an entirely new and ever increasing scope to interact in real time with its consumers, take feedback and hence constantly evolve as a ‘People’s Brand‘.
Your clients are already talking about you, are you listening?
We are licing in change, which essentially is the only contant thing in life. And so is a brand. A brand needs to evolve with the times, reaching out to the relevant set of people who are talking about you or would want to talk about you!
Blog and Get Blogged about
I suggest many of my clients that they should themselves participate in corporate blogging and not leave the entire communication to be handled by the PR team or any third party agency or marketing company handling your online communications.
Should you tie up with an external agency – Case Study?
Hmmm… I am sure with the strategy that Nokia used before launching N97 in India and Samsung while launching the Jet. What did they do? Call a select group of bloggers and wallah they have arrived at a much lesser cost as compared to doing a TV ad or big hoarding out there, which they will do for sure, but they have captured one strata of the market.
Trends In Indian Corporate Blogging – My View
The trends purely show, that there is a BIG opportunity and according to me it exists due to the fact that agencies have not been able to show the GAP and the OPPORTUNITY to the Corporate.
Say ‘hi’ to your sutomer each day, reach out and extend your hand! Get connected and retain your loyal customers!!
A focused Corporate blog will EMPOWER your customer to know more and get connected with the brand.
To leverage the power of Corporate Blogging and create a successful strategy of saying ‘hi’ to your customer each day, CONNECT WITH ME at
There are many Buzzwords in the Social Media industry today and each day one evangelist is harping on a new one. Much clutter gets created due to the same and hence the diluton of your Brand Equity, as each Brand is pitched these high flying Buzzwords by the marketing agencies.
Corporate Blogging though not a Buzz word, but has been so messed up that many a corporate have lost value rather than generating it. There have been instances of big corporate entities using fake blogs and many other tactics to boost up terming them as “so called social media campaigns”.
I have been LIVE blogging some of the most major corporate conferences in India since over an year now and have been approached by Corporate to support their initiatives. Am I averse to it? NO! But would I go ahead and support just about anything? NO!
Through this post, I intend to cut through the clutter which has been created and make the Corporate present to how they can successfully integrate Corporate Blogging in seamlessly in their marketing effort and with much ease!
Though these may not be the absolute latest numbers, but with respect to the industry growth, this surely is a number to reckon with, stand up and make a note of, I believe. In the current times corporations large and small are increasingly taking the “being different” and “with the times” route. Blogging has suddenly taken the mainstream route and is one of the factors in the Corporate overall marketing mix and budget.
There may be many people giving much gyan, but what I present here is the on the field reality and of my experience, hence there may still be better ideas, which I would be glad to listen to and incorporate.
What should you do before you decide on that oh! so blog!! ??
Put in black and white, your marketing objectives both in the short and the long term
Determine if blogging is a good fit for your company
An apple a day keeps the doctor away, is almost true for all, but why are you generalizing the apple with a blog in the social media space? Blog for one company may work wonders for them, for the other it may not work!
Just being cool using blogs, is already a passe! Social Media space is changing and growing at a much faster pace and is much complex. Just having a corporate blog may not be of any tangible return.
Are you ready to invest on a blog?
The last time I was sitting in this major corporate HQ, I asked them a question, are you ready to invest on a blog and well they were a bit off the track. Blogging they said is easy, we will leverage a free platform like wordpress or blogger. Well, yes, I agree, but you need to invest much focused time and energy on customizing the design of the blog as it represents your Corporate sentiment. Today blogs are as much a part of the entire corporate image as were websites sometime back!
Don’t be afraid, Create a solid strategy
Strategy for a blog? Well, YES!! For a Blog! As a corporate you may have a single blog for all your functions/ verticals or you may choose to go ahead with multiple blogs representing each of them. Now this is the first stage of your blogging strategy.
Positioning: You need to be clear in a properly documented form on the positioning that you would like to create with your blogging effort. Who are you positioning the blog to? What is your target group?
you may just create a blog to attract the best talent in the industry
you may have a focused blog on thought leadership to position yourself accordingly int he industry
Branding: the branding strategy that you intend to establish with the emerging of the blog should be clear. What campaigns (if any) would you intend to run on the blog. Would the CEO/ CFO/ Senior management participate on the blog? Are you trying to make a point?
Are you open to external content on the blog other than your own? And are you willing to be open to comments from the external environment?
Are you selling/ marketing? STOP…..Start ENGAGING!
Since Corporate blogs are generally an effort of the PR department of a company, they have a restricted vision, and hence it reflects on the way they PUSH content on the blog. PUSHing is not the key, ENGAGING is! Your content will speak for itself. If you have smartly invested into content creation, in terms of videos, pictures, etc. you will break the ice much faster with the prospective target audience.
its fairly simple, you get unsolicited calls on your cell phone. Would you refer such a company to your circle? Probably NOT, but a genuine follow up and feedback conversation at a preferred time, well yes you would and WOMM is bound to happen
Provide Value
This is one of the most crucial aspects of a successful blogging effort. VALUE creation.
why do you think would I (either your prospective employee or client) spend 5 minutes in going through things which are not adding any value to me in terms of knowing more about you or the industry? Even if I land up and stick to your blog for a couple of minutes the first time, with no VALUE I will not bookmark it for my future reference, leave aside following you on my Google reader.
Take Feedback, Build Relationships
This is one aspect of Corporate blogging which many a Corporate think of and include in their agenda, but their focus shifts from this objective to the exclusivity of presenting and design. Looks do matter, no doubts, but you need to understand that each feature of the blog would essentially be leveraged towards achieving a particular business objective!
Remember YOU are a HUMAN and the person reading yoru blog is a HUMAN too!
Many a times, the Corporate get so consumed in their vision of presenting their best foot forward and trying to arrive the best way in their client’s perception, that they lose the basic essence of the fact that WE ARE STILL HUMAN. And business is all about relationships.
Write the blog as if you are expressing yourself to your target market/ group!
Select Bloggers
Yes! I know everyone can write and that you hire the best of class human resources in your company, still blogging is an art and hence I suggest my clients to select a team of bloggers who are honed in their skills and trained further by the company. This team should essentially consist of the following people:
PR professional from the company
Group of employees trained on company’s social media./ external communication guidelines
Social Media agencies
NO, your “Corporate Blog” DOES NOT need a SINGLE VOICE
Dont be afraid and get only one person to be writing/ punching the keys for you. He/ she will have a certain perception of the company and may as well be limited in the scope. Go ahead involve people. Give them a platform to express what you want to. More hands on deck make the experience for the client all that worth it!!
This is one of the many posts that I would be doing on the correct measures and tips and tricks of the trade of blogging, not out of what people say, but what I have experienced in real time on the field. And I would not be a common voice, but I would say, it works for me!!
To devise a Corporate Blogging Strategy for your company, CONTACT ME
"We thought we understood social media marketing and seo optimization fairly ok but after our one on one session realized many of the fundamental mistakes we were making plus learnt many new tools. Overall an investment I would recommend every entreprenuer to make"
- Nidhi, Founder CEO, Pinnacle Works
Yes, its true, as social media is arriving with the Corporate, there are new rules getting created. New possibilities opening up. The Corporate today wants to get one with the consumer, interact with his relevant target audience wherever the consumer is!
