Strategy
Should Bajaj be dropped?
We all know by now that Rajiv Bajaj takes radical decisions. After deciding to exit the scooter market, he is taking another radical decision to restructure the company’s branding strategy. Unfortunately, Rahul Bajaj did not agree with Rajiv on his strategy to exit the scooter market and now he does not agree with Rajiv on the new branding strategy.
Blue Ocean or Positioning or Finding a Gap
I recently read an article about Renee Mauborgne’s book “Blue Ocean Strategy: How to create uncontested market space and make competition irrelevant.” I have not read the book but what her concept seems to be based on the concept of positioning or finding a gap in the marketplace which Al Reis and Jack Trout have explained it very well in their books. She uses the example of Cemex, a Mexican cement company which basically positioned cement as a gift item because of the desire of Mexican to build cement houses and were able to increase its sales tremendously. This is just positioning for a particular segment of people. Similarly, the example of Nintendo Wii and Sony’s Playstation 3, I think all about positioning and finding a gap in the market.
Mallaya needs to let go Deccan
According to me, the options available to Vijay Mallaya were just two when he bought Air Deccan which are as follows:
Automatic growth
I had ealier posted an article wherein I had discussed the penchant of company executives to be the number one in their market. Maybe they have become convinced of the idea that the only way to make money is become number one in one’s market from Jack Welsh of GE or maybe they have read the book on PIMS database which suggests that high profitability is linked with high market share in the served markets. In another article, I have also made comments of executive’s obsession to grow fast by whatever means so that they can either become number one or become large enough to reap economies of scale.
Should Indian Express invest in reviving its print media business?
It seems that Indian Express (IE) is going through restructuring so that it can raise funds to revive and grow uits print media business.
A lesson in branding for Vijay Mallaya
I am a little surprised as to why Vijay Mallaya (VM) is so confused about branding issues related to his airlines as he has been pretty successful at building his other brands.
Top 3 or out
In an interview in Economic Times (7/3/2008), Aditya Birla stated his criteria for being involved in an industry. He said that he will only participate in an industry only if they have 1,2 or 3 position otherwise they will quit. Well this is nothing new. Actually, its a criteria borrowed from Ex GE’s chairman (I am forgetting his name. Sure sign that I am getting old) who built GE based on the same criteria. However, I do not think this makes sense.
Flanking with Tata’s Nano
There is no one who has siad so far that they will be seriously affected by Tata’s Nano. I think this is the best sign that Nano will succeed as no one considers it a serious competition. What Nano is going to do is flank a number of product categories. It is going to nibble away small market share from a number of products and no one would be any wiser. By the way, the reason for the success of Nirma was that it flanked Surf. Surf didn’t feel that Nirma was a worthy competitor till it was too late. Lets see who all will Nano flank?
Why did Vijay Mallaya buy Air Deccan?
The reason why I am raising this issue is because I am unable to understand why Vijay Mallaya of KingfisherAirlines bought Air Deccan or why Jet Airlines bought Air Sahara. Here I will just focus on Kingfisher’s acquisition of Air Deccan. Was there a strategic fit? In fact, was there any fit? I am not sure if there was any fit at all.
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