Flush to a Better Life !

Mahatma Gandhi has once rightly said, "Sanitation is more important than Independence" yet after so many years post independence a country that firmly claims to follow the principles of Gandhi is yet to reach anywhere close to that.

Over 770 million people in India still do not have access to safe toilets. If all these people who are waiting for household toilets in India were to stand in a queue then it would stretch from earth to moon and maybe beyond. But this not just an infrastructure problem but has a massive bearing on health, productivity and life of millions of people. More than 140,000 children younger than five years die each year in India from diarrhoea due to lack of Hygiene, Sanitation and Safe water. Nearly 40 per cent children are stunted; this will affect both their life chances and the future prosperity of our country. 

Open defection not just breeds disease on ground but also seeps into the soil below polluting the ground water.

It's not that nothing has been done with the launch of Swatch Bharat Mission' the GOI plans to make India open defecation free by 2019 and the programme has managed to deliver 8 million household toilets in one-year which is no mean achievement.

But the larger challenge beyond awareness is of Accessibility / Affordability / Adoption. In order to address the same, there needs to be a community participation and make toilets a fundamental right just like food and education.   

If we need to achieve the vision of Swatch Bharat and smart cities/ villages, we all need to come together in whatever form from education to volunteer to financial assistance - do whatever it takes.

I would like to end by quoting Gandhiji -  "Its health which is the real wealth not gold or silver"

Cheers

www.aryanomics.blogspot.in

My Tryst with Social Enterprise

Rampur is a typical Indian hamlet which lies in the heart of Bihar's rural belt. Ragi cultivation is the major occupation of a 1000-odd households in the village about 226 km from Patna.

Mishri Devi lives with her 2 children and old mother (in law) in the village taking care of her small farm and family. Her husband Ram Singh was unable to meet his ends with just farming income and decided to move to the construction hub of Noida for a better life leaving his family behind. He needs to earn fast to pay off the loan taken for the farm and ensure a better future for the kids. Today while he is earning better but can’t afford to own a place to call his family and has to make do living in slums or road.

While Ram Singh make more money today but still is unhappy as he is left with a scattered family with poor quality of life. But he isn’t alone, “Most people pray for an opportunity to leave the village and live in the city, a city is considered a gateway to innumerable facilities, benefits and opportunities that open up new career avenues and prospects for a bigger and better lifestyle. Alas, our village offers no such promise."

Village after villages are witnessing this apathy, lack of development and neglect. The impact of this migration is seen in India’s cities which are increasingly getting chaotic as there is limited infrastructure to support the millions of rural migrants who come in to seek a better life.

According to a 2010 report the top metros see an influx of 2.5 million people every year. This is not just an impact of an individual or a community it’s an attack on our way of life. Mahatma Gandhi once said: "the soul of India lies in her villages." However, that "soul" now seems haunted by non-existent roads, lack of sanitation, schools without teachers, hospitals sans doctors and beds and a lack of community welfare centers.

But is that the future of our generation, there’s hope through rural entrepreneurship.Social Enterprise organizations are working towards creating a ecosystem that helps build, trains and supports local livelihood.

India today has the largest nos of youth population more so in rural who are educated, passionate and seek a better life. The only challenge is that they don’t have opportunities in their own ecosystem thus driving them away to cities for better opportunities 

Social enterprises seek to transform the educated lot to skilled lot that empowers then to a better life at the comfort of their own village. They not just empower the local youth to be an entrepreneur but also help propagate on socially relevant products / categories that help create a better life for the communities.

Social Enterprise help create opportunities for the local communities by using their local influence in the market and connecting them to corporates in need of rural marketing & sales thereby creating a win- win business opportunity for all.

This is the first step in creating a sustainable socio economic impact in rural India,  a small step today hopefully a giant leap for the community in long term.

“Mai akele hi chala tha janib manzil magar, Log saath atey gaye aur carawan banta gaya”

 Cheers,

www.aryanomics.blogspot.in 

GST & Migration

Shantanu Guha my MBA batch mate from Dibrugarh loved to share stories of his hometown, he bragged about the natural beauty and relaxed life he enjoyed and mostly mocked us for the lack of it,But closer to the placement ,he was increasingly getting restless as he was looking at a situation where he would have to choose between family at home and a great career.   

Most Indians beyond the 8 metros face this kind of dilemma, because our economy is heavily skewed towards service sector (over 50%) which is concentrated in the top 6 to 8 metros. Anybody looking for a job in service sector had to migrate to these cities.

But the last year has shown a resolve for a change ,actions like the land bill to GST Bill they are both fundamentally towards the right direction.

While most of us are aware that land bill will help address the bottleneck in setting up manufacturing sector in India in line with the ambition of "Make In India" but few are aware about the impact of the GST bill on the Indian economy.

For more than six decades since independence, India’s 29 states have operated almost as separate countries. They set their own taxes, charged import duties on goods from neighboring states, had their own politics, culture and even languages.

But with GST coming in they are modifying their approval process, procedures to make themselves competitive,States are trying for their own economic development, which will help improve the ease of doing business and boost the country’s growth.This in turn will help the growth to spread of 8 metros to across India thereby ensuring the fruits of growth reach the far flung areas of the country.

This will not just help the larger companies to set shop in India but also create a conducive environment for young entrepreneurs (Start ups/SME) who would create a much larger impact on the economy.

The path the GOI has taken is definitely towards "Ache Din" just that the entire political setup needs to rise above the petty issues and work towards a better tomorrow for the nation at large.

Well Iam sure Shantanu would have loved to have graduated in these times where he could have stayed back in his home town yet would have flourished in his field  , So lets all join in create a "Ache Din" for all.

Cheers,
aryanomics.blogspot.in

The Right Fit

We had just moved to Delhi from Hyderabad , after spending 10 years of my growing up years in hyd suddenly my birth city looked alien to me.I was really mad at my dad for moving in the middle of my 11th class session.I hated Delhi and the fact that i will not have my old school friends to fall back on.On my first day at school my dad came to drop me and guessing from the look on my face he said "Don't worry you will make new friends , all you need to do is to fit in and everything will fall in place"    

FIT IN yes and that's what i did in my school and guess what i did fit in with the rest.

We know that a man is a social animal and the life of community living compels us to compromise and FIT IN.

Fitting in has become a norm today , a newly wed wife tries to fit in with her family , a kid from village tries to fit in with his town friends and a prospective employee tries to fit in into the new job. But while doing so we forget who are we trying to please someone else and loose your own self in the bargain.

Most of the marketing professionals love challenges and that's one of the key reason they switch jobs frequently but we fail to recognize one thing that "Does the profile fit us or , we fit the profile"  

If the profile fits you then you are one of the few lucky ones who have got a dream job but most of us settle for the later and that leads to frustration.

So the next time you are looking for that change ask yourself does the profile / job excites you to make the next move without compromising. 

If yes then don't loose it as these chances come once in a lifetime but if no dont get into a deal where you loose yourself in the bargain.

Cheers,

aryanomics.blogspot.in

Entrepreneur Internship

April is typically associated with the month of TAX where we hardly get to see our real salary (not that its a great figure otherwise) yet i was looking forward to the month.
Aadhrit & Anuradha's school was off and a i had long weekend coming ,so we were planning for our long awaited break, It had been over 2 years since we had last gone on a holiday as something in my office or otherwise always forced us to change our plans. But this time around i had managed everything booked a heritage property in Ranikhet and my son had started the reverse countdown.

Just a week before our planned break i got an internal mail that we had a to prepare for a Big Pitch that was due in the middle of my break. So all of a sudden my vacation break had to take a BREAK.

Well this has become the story of every other person in the corporate world ,with the slowdown of 2008-09 companies have increasing looked to minimize cost and the easiest way was Multitasking. Aligning one person to multiple jobs where teams a made to function as a small business unit with its own business targets and profit center.

This has not just helped rationalize the manpower cost but also somewhat manage the aspirations of the growing senior team.Today there is a army of young professionals running their office as a start up, doubling up from a executive to a CEO from running after finance to overlooking HR practice ,even compromising their personal time to build something that's not there.

Indians today are ranked as the 7th most hardworking people in the world willing to compromise even their personal time.

So why are people compromising personal life for just a JOB... Well the answer is they are looking at these interventions as not a job but a learning opportunity through these small incubation centers.

Some time back there was time when kids from business family used to start with a corporate setup to learn to run a professional organization. but today the tides have turned, and today millions of youth of service class family are joining the workforce to understand the tricks of running a well oiled machinery called the corporate world.

Indians by large have always had a innovation led mindset but most us have suffered from the "Start up fear of unknown" where we would never venture into a unknown territory due to the risk of failing.

But today these multiple corporate houses are working as start up internship platforms where they are grooming young minds to think ,work and behave like an entrepreneur thereby converting their fear to confidence.

Indian corporate houses like Godrej , Mahindra , Tata , ABG are all giving platform for these new ideas.

But all the budding entrepreneurs need to keep in mind that these incubation centers can offer you training and skills but not the passion ,motivation and the product mix.
  
A budding entrepreneur always needs to keep his feet on the ground and hard work to build , evolve and run a successful start-up.


Cheers

aryanomics.blogspot.com  

A Call of Change

I remember my grandfather telling a the story of Ramayana (Hindu Mythology) and how Diwali is celebrated by Hindus as a festival of triumph of good over evil.As a kid i remember asking my grandfather "Why did it take 21 days for the celebration to begin and my grandfather replying that it took people that much time to spread the news".

Well that would have been a way by my grandfather to wriggle out of my silly questions but it was true when information took forever to reach people.

But today the way we create ,consume and share information has made a tech tonic shift from a classed based slow dissemination to a free for all real time messages.The single biggest factor that triggered this shift has been the advent of wireless hand held device popularly known as the “Mobile Phone” something  even Martin Cooper the creator wouldn't have imagined.Today mobile phones have evolved from being just a calling device to a revolution agent

Lets look at the 7 Big ways how Mobile has transformed the world.

1. Information:
2. Education:
3. Entertainment
4. Health
5. Disaster Management 
6. Banking
7. Activism

All of us remember the Arab Spring or the Anna Movement closer home in India one of the key factor in the success of these movements have been mobile, as it suddenly transformed ordinary citizens disenchanted , into resistance fighters.

Programs like Kilkari that seeks to take basic child health care to the remotest part of the country rides on a simple voice call as the agent.

People in rural India use mobile as a key entertainment source,The youth are taking up to FB & Whats App as a medium to stay connected. From weekly update on content (Songs, movie clips and soft porn) via SD card to online content download mobile is fast breaking the regional /cultural barriers.

A Mobile device has become a symbol of empowerment , democracy breaking the barriers of class and geography and giving voice to the invisible. 

In order to reach to the masses mobile needs to be central to any communication plan, be it Govt led / NGO led or Brand led. Mobile can enable not just for empowerment but also for bringing the behavioral & social change.

Author Speaks:

A Mobile can be different things to different people, but it sure is an agent of change that can trigger a massive Socio – economic re engineering among the neglected communities. It’s not the end but sure is the means to delivering a sustainable socio-economic development.

aryanomics.blogspot.in

Sweet Spot Marketing

"Marketing Master" yes that's what some of my batch mates call me, A a lot of my friends had started something of their own or were in the process but i was few of those who still believed in being a do oer than a creator.

Last week a friend of mine called me saying that he had decided to start something of his own and wanted to meet up to discuss this , so we agreed to meet on the weekend.

We met at a coffee shop near my house as it was easy to discuss outside without any distraction. I entered the coffee shop at 11:30am and my friend Saurab was brimming with excitement, wanting share his great entrepreneur idea.

His idea was a new Health Bar that would offer healthy snacks at great price targeting the youth ,he kept talking about how he would be different , his bar would be different etc etc

He kept talking for over a hour until he got tired hearing his own voice and finally asked me "So what do you think". I looked at him and shared his excitement but i also knew that i had to be conscious that i not only advised him as a friend but also as a marketing partner.

I said the ideas great as the youth of today is out and about and flushed with cash. But whats the "Sweet spot" that would make them asking for more. While youth might like something new but what after the monotony wears off after all they are spoilt for choice. He looked at me puzzled like a child getting scolded who knows something is wrong but not the reason.

The consumer is constantly evolving and to capture his/her mindshare we need to connect with his passion/aspiration and not just need.

Well Sweet spot is the point where your business goals meet the consumer aspiration.Most of the times we miss one of the two. We either focus completely on the business part or completely on the consumer part which result in short term gain but might not result in long term success.

A sweet spot helps us connect with our consumer that helps build a long term partnership with them.

Lets take saurabh's case to understand the Sweet spot for his business.He could very well start with his Health Bar and Iam sure it would succeed as the youth is always looking for something new. As much as it would excite us ,it can also be a trigger for failure in case we don't connect with the sweet spot.
Lets understand with is business plan,He mentioned the youth is his core consumer group so lets identify their passion. My experience supported by some study has led me to arrive at these passion points.

• Music 
• Sports
• Fitness 
• Networking

These might not be sacrosanct for all but i believe it would hold true with most of them. So if were to take fitness as the passion then how can we convert it to our sweet spot.

Fitness is about what you eat and how you burn , what you eat can be addressed with Menu that we have ( healthy / organic/fresh) etc well there are quite a few options but can we also be part of how we burn.

One of the key reasons people give up on their fitness regime are due to high expectation ,lack of fun and monotony. Well fun and monotony are factors to do with the friends and partners we work out with and its said better the company , the better the work out.

So how can we connect their passion to create our passion point. 

Healthy Menu + Fit Life = H Bar

Sweet Spot for H Bar will be to create a community of fitness seekers through not just diet but fun ways of recreation.A simple idea of connecting like minded people walking into your bar by creating local fitness community.A community of joggers , Gym goers or just walker i mean who doesn't need a like minded company.

"We have created an experience where passion and purpose come together to create business success and consumer delight"

So next time we are looking at a business idea lets ask our self what the Sweet Spot and iam sure the answer will lead you to a success full business model.

  

Cheers

www.aryanomics.blogspot.com

Law of Scarcity

"Necessity is the mother of all Innovation" 

Well this is one line that i graduated listening and believing to, we were always told that and product or service sold to a consumer has to have a unique offering and only then it would be a success. 

Well it was a simple enough a bargain and rightly so you a create something new that people want and bingo people lap it up. 

But when was the last time we were exposed to a real good innovation .. Mobile Phone i guess. Innovation is not something that we churn out everyday (although we all do have a great track record on innovative excuses to take a day off). So what marketers do.

Marketers in the new age depend heavily on the power of marketing as someone rightly said "Marketing is a art of selling a comb to a bald guy" well that's really true and most of the brands today are a ME TOO yet they are successfully. So life is good business is successfully and we are all happy.

But in today's day and age where the consumer is cluttered with messaging thru multiple media how do we stand out and get noticed .

But what if success is just not good enough and what you seek is BLOCKBUSTER.

Well the latest marketing trick to move from hit to blockbuster is "Law of Scarcity"

When the category is new/few and demand is high its innovation but when category is old yet the product is few its called scarcity. 

Yes Scarcity, remember the time when you had just got comfortable with your first email id (i still remember mine was a yahoo id) Well it was a great service provider with its own messenger where you could chat with your friends anytime anywhere then what happened suddenly when GMAIL was launched.

It was new hardly people knew about it and most of all the entry was by INVITATION only and guess what that was the trick everyone i knew wanted to know if we had a invitation or not and if yes we really begged that we could be 1 among the 50 invites. Today 8 years after its launch it has the largest user base , not taking away anything from the product itself but that had something to do with it.

Recently i met a friend who was proud owner of Xiaomi Mi3 and he said it was a proud owner and rightly so he was 1 of the lucky 25000 out of over a billion people to have had a chance to hold that.

From a not known Chinese company to a sought after brand the transition was overnight.

So from Paper boat selling exclusively on Indigo to Exclusive product preview for P&G Moms to One Plus phone by invite only it works every time so Scarcity or Exclusive the way marketers would put it is the new mantra of today.    

So if you are one of me who so AIB roast or the BBC documentary on YouTube you would agree that fact it was banned and scare to find added to the mystry of experiencing.

So if Necessity is the mother of all innovation it can be safely said that Scarcity could be the mother of all Blockbusters.

Cheers,

aryanomics.blogspot.in
  

Evolution of the 4th Screen

It was a lovely Sunday morning and not just any Sunday but today was the day when we would play our first world cup match with our arch rivals Pakistan. 

The stage was set for a penultimate fight so i decided have some friends over to enjoy the kill.

We were all charged up wearing the Indian jersey , tricolor on face and beer for company ,just then my young nephew Ahaan gets up to leave it was his math class preparing for the impending class. A cricket enthusiast stuck between passion and education started to leave just them my bhabhi packs him a snack and says come straight i'll make your favorite Rajma - Chawal for lunch and call me before you leave.

Well the champ had to do what he had to do but we went back to enjoying the match. Kohli was at his best scoring a century and setting a target of 300 for the Pakistanis.

It was a fun first half and we were looking for a kill , it would have been great had Ahaan been hear he would have loved to see his favorite Kohli bat never mind will watch the repeat.

Just then Ahaan reaches home all excited saying Chachu did you see how Kohli hit the century and how shikhar made that silly mistake and got run out. I was shocked how did he know all that i said aaj kya tuition ki chutti thi ya bunk mara. He said looking at me chachu what are you talking about the smartphone you gave me came in handy we kept checking the score on crick-info and my friend carried a tab we were watching it during the break. I thought to myself well this generation has moved into a new age the digital age.

Today Mobile devices have an exponential reach in India , with over 900 million mobile users as per TRAI and over 400 million internet users (PC+Device) its the screen of today               

Well the case in point is the India - Pakistan match that my nephew missed garnered the highest viewership creating history with over 25 million views on their site.

My nephew like all his friends is most of the time either on whatsapp or FB messenger even his school home work is available on the Whatsapp group. 

at times i feel his Mobile has become more important that his family when that could be to dramatic but the point is that its here and growing.

With the increasing internet penetration and rapid drop in the smartphone prices it sure is the media of tomorrow.

Be its the urban high rise of Colaba to a Rural farm in bhiwani mobile is fast catching up to be the device of choice.

4th Device is fast changing the way we create , consume and share content and that's something every marketer needs to stand up and take notice.

The future clearly is the 4th device and going forward its highly possible that the 4th screen will transform into the first screen. 

Cheers

aryanomics.blogspot.in