Tag: India

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge from the time that mobiles were unheard of in India to the present where they have become almost ubiquitous. Beginning from those days, Indian subscribers paid around Rs. 16.40 for a mobile to mobile call and around Rs 32.80 for a mobile to a landline call. Today, as per recent statistics, customers pay far lesser for calls and occasional text messages that add up to around Rs 300 a month and upwards.

Now that mobiles have moved into the affordable bracket, there is a great demand for additional mobile services such as mobiles, email, stock market quotes, and astrology services, just to name a few.

A recent survey pointed to the fact that for most customers, mobile phones have become an extension of their personality. Many go a step ahead to say that mobile phones define their individuality as well.

In such a scenario, it is worthwhile to compare the growth of the mobile phone industry vis-a-vis the computer industry in India. According to recent statistics, there are nearly 300 million mobile phone subscribers as compared to just around 30 million PCs in the country. Additionally, around 8 million subscribers are signing up every month for mobile services alone.

For most individuals, mobile phones are becoming a single point of contact for the world surrounding them covering a wide range of utilities like emailing, entertainment, and banking.

More and more people are looking out for more than just talk time on their mobiles. All this is generating a lot of enthusiasm for mobile companies. A number of serious players in this industry are looking at a range of such value added services, which have the capability to boost their bottom line.

Not only are Indians enthralled, but they started spending a considerable amount on these services too. This figure amounted to around $250 million last year. This figure is expected to reach $1.7 billion by the year 2010. This is a boon in disguise for Indian cellular operators who are seriously looking forward to enhance their revenues. Currently, nearly 80% of the revenues come from services like ring tones and SMS. This makes India the second largest mobile market on earth.

The young mobile savvy generation currently feels less privileged in nearly every sector. And thats precisely what is fuelling the growth in mobile services across the country. As the market expands but fulfilling the needs of mobile users by providing them attractive services, mobile phones are becoming a new vehicle for reaching out to the mobile generation.

Mobile content providers also visualise a big jump in their services. These include many global companies such as Google, Yahoo and MSN, which have signed up with many Indian operators like Airtel, Bharti, Vodafone, Tata, and Reliance Communications. Together, they offer a host of services based on the local and regional markets in their area of operation.

The Indian mobile scenario seems to be all set for the next stage expansion and consolidation, but there are a few complications as well. Not all users can afford costlier services beyond messaging and talk time. What is expected is increase in the already growing user base so such services can become affordable to one and all in the long run.

Jaipur is the capital city of erstwhile princely state of Rajasthan, India. The city which is renowned for its timeless elegance and historic heritage, Jaipur allows its inhabitants to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle with the help of several industries where they are employed. Jobs in Jaipur are available at high, medium as well as low level industries. The city which inspires millions to head for India tour has developed immensely and is soon emerging as a cradle of job opportunities. Careers in Jaipur are inevitably available at a great scale in textile and service industries. Banking industry is another lucrative field which offers jobs in both government as well as private sectors.

Textiles: There are also various agricultural setups that offer lucrative job opportunities in Jaipur. Cotton industry is a very prominent industry which offers great benefits. Textile designers and other technologists in this field are paid-well and can build a highly rewarding career around this industry.

BPO & Outsourcing: The city is one also a recommended zone for BPO and outsourcing industry. In fact, it ranked 31 among 50 Emerging Global Outsourcing cities in 2008. Various renowned companies have their BPOs set-up build in Jaipur. Hence, candidates seeking jobs in Jaipur surely have a great deal of choices in IT, BPO and outsourcing industry. This is a youthful industry which has been providing a lucrative career options to a great percentage of young professionals. Graduates, undergraduates, software engineers, IT professionals, management professionals all are welcomed with open arms by BPO industry.

Jewelry Manufacturing: Jaipur is also a famous exporter of Gold, Diamond and stone jewelry in Asia which makes this industry one of the reputed job sectors as well. Manufacturing to sales of these precious and semi-precious stones require hard-work of skilled artisans and professionals and Jaipur is fortunate to have a history of skilled workforce in this industry. More entries are always welcomed here as well.

Tourism: It is a well-known fact that Jaipurs booming economy has a lot to do with tourism industry. The city of palaces and forts, royal fables and historic sagas, cultural vivacity and zesty celebrations, Jaipur is one of the most coveted travel destinations in the country. Every year travelers from round the world visit it to explore the city. Hence, tourism industry requires a large amount of work-force and hence there is no dearth of opportunities in this field. From hospitality to transport and other logistics there are various lucrative jobs in Jaipur. Fresh graduates can also apply for various executive level roles, while those with management degrees, a degree in hospitality or a diploma in travel are always preferred choices of employers for this industry.

These are some of the obvious choices for careers in Jaipur and the city offers horde of career opportunities for deserving candidates.

The Oldest Joint Stock Bank of the Country, Allahabad Bank was founded in April 24th of the year 1865 at the confluence city of Allahabad by a group of Europeans. At that occasion Organized Industry, Trade and Banking started taking shape in India. Thus, the History of the Bank spread over three Centuries – namely Nineteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-First. As a leading public sector commercial banks in India, Allahabad Bank offering banking products and services to corporate and commercial customers and retail customers. The Bank particularly focuses on the retail banking while serving all sectors of the Indian economy. Bank’s operations for corporate and commercial customers cater to large corporate customers as well as to small and middle market businesses and Government entities. Corporate and commercial products include Term Loans, Bill Discounting, Export Credit and other business credit and financing products. Also the bank offers a wide range of retail products including Home Loans, Personal Loans and Automobile Loans as well as Debit Cards. In addition, specialised products and services to the agricultural sector also one of entity of the bank. All the above products and services of the bank offered through extensive branch network, extension counters, ATMs, phone banking and the Internet. This article will be helpful in writing Project Report on Marketing.In Twentieth Century, The Bank became a part of P & O Banking Corporation’s group with a bid price of Rs.436 per share in 1920. The Head Office of the Bank was shifted to Calcutta on business considerations during the year of 1923. The Bank crossed its century year in 1965. In July 19th of the year 1969, Allahabad Bank was nationalized (with 151Branches – Rs.119 crores of Deposits and Rs.82 crores of Advances) along with 13 other banks. United Industrial Bank Ltd was merged with the bank in October of the year1989. The Bank made a foray into merchant banking activity in 1984 and subsequently instituted AllBank Finance Ltd as a wholly owned subsidiary for Merchant Banking in the year of 1991. The Official Language Implementation Committee of Calcutta awarded the Rajbhasha Shield to the Bank as Second Prize for its best performance for the year 1991. During the year 1995, The Bank had entered into an MOU with the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) for financing small-scale industrial units. In 1996, The Bank had set up Information Technology Centre to provide in-depth computer training to Officers at Calcutta and Lucknow. Consequent to the SEBI Rules and Regulation the company surrendered its merchant banking registration in 1998 and got it registered as a Non Banking Financial Company (NBFC) with Reserve Bank of India (RBI). In the same year of 1998, the bank had received permission from the RBI for gold trading. Allahabad Bank has entered into an arrangement, informally though, with IDBI and ICICI in regard to funding of infrastructure projects. During the year 1999, Allahabad Bank has launched two new schemes to increase the pace of credit off take and in the same period TATA Consultancy Services (TCS) has entered into a contract with Bank for implementing the Integrated Standard Banking System (ISBS), a branch mechanisation package at 60 branches. The Bank bagged three major core sector clients, namely the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), Power Grid Corporation and Indian Railway Finance Corporation Ltd (IRFC). This report shows that Allahabad Bank has performed well which is reflected in its Ratio Analysis Reports In Twenty-First Century, Allahabad Bank has launched its new personal loan scheme for pensioners in the year of 2001. As at October of the year 2002, the bank came out with Initial Public Offer (IPO) of 10 crores share of face value Rs.10 each, reducing Government shareholding to 71.16% and in the same year 2002, Allahabad has tied up with National Institute of Banking Management, Crisil and Earnst & Young for development of HRM, risk Management and general business strategy. The Bank has seized the commercial assets of the Guarantors of Ramolene Fabrics (P) Ltd in 2003 at Mumbai and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Corporation Bank for mutual sharing of their ATM Network. The Bank has entered into an MOU in the year of 2004 with the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India (ECGC) for distribution of their products to the exporters. UTI Mutual Fund and Allahabad Bank on April 5, 2004 announced a strategic tie-up for distribution of UTI MF schemes. During April of the year 2005, the bank made Follow on Public Offer (FPO) of 10 crores equity shares of face value Rs.10 each with a premium of Rs.72, reducing Government shareholding to 55.23%. The Bank has signed MoU with Mahindra Gujarat Tractor Ltd in the identical year 2005 for financing Hindustan brand tractor under special finance scheme. Allahabad Bank transcended beyond the National Boundary, Allahabad bank had opened a representative office at Shenzen, China in June 2006. In October of the same year 2006, the bank rolled out its first branch under Core Banking Services (CBS). During February of the year 2007, The Bank opened its first overseas branch at Hong Kong. During the calendar year of 2007, 100 more branches opened throughout the country, the total number of branches were stirred from 2042 to 2142 of which rural are 983 (46%), semi-urban 402 (19%), urban 450 (21%) and metropolitan 307 (14%). There is no doubt that reading Banking Industry Reports is essential for knowing the history of a bank. Allahabad Bank has opened its 2154th branch in at Pudukkottai, Tamil Nadu during March of the year 2008. The Bank has 211 ATM’s and Card members can now have access at over 16500 ATM’s all across the country under National Financial Switch. One of the premier nationalised banks of the country, Allahabad Bank has commenced the process of implementing the Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme-2008 in June of the year 2008. The Bank has improved its performance and established its visibility and strong presence in the market. The Bank is steadily moving at a faster pace to consolidate its position in the coming days introducing extensive computerization to ensure the state-of-the-art service comfort for its customers. The Bank has already in hand 116 authorizations for opening of new branches. Bank’s plan is to expand in areas where the Bank’s presence is not very much visible now and where business potentiality is good.

Culinary methods and varieties differ from nation to nation. You will find a great difference in taste, cooking, garnishing, and the ingredients used. With changing lifestyles, the traditional eating has witnessed a revolutionary change. You need not spend hours in the kitchen, as you get ready-to-eat snacks to appease your appetite. So, when you are in a hurry or just spend some leisure time at home or at the restaurant, you will love savoring snacks and sweets food.

Food in India is different from rest of the world; you get countless varieties. You can satisfy your palate as per your choice. It is not only meals but also snacks and sweets that are specific to one particular state in the country. And food in India is a legacy carried from generation to generation. In few of the culinary specialties, you will get a blend of various cultures and ages. It would not be an exaggeration if the statement of food in India that of being influenced by numerous civilizations is made. Tourists who have visited the various parts of the country have spoken volume about snacks and sweets food.

No Indian festival or marriage ceremony is complete without sweets. Right from serving to gifting, sweets food have found their way into the homes of all Indians. And given the increasing demand, there are brands that have maintained a market rapport with a quality collection of sweets. Going by the online trend, you also get sweets and snack food online no matter where you are located. Most of these brands have their own chain of outlets spread across the country or franchise centres. These brands also represent the wonderful food in India, most etching distinctive identities not only in the Indian market but also globally.

The Indian snack industry is one of the largest when considered in the global level. As aforementioned with rising standard of living, people are more resorting to snacks items during breakfast, supper or any time; snacks most often take the place of meals. Right from production, using up, export and growth prospects owing to emerging markets, increasing demand, and incorporation of latest technologies, the snack industry in India has witnessed a dramatic change. Ready-to-eat foods, samosas, kachoris, namkeen, chips, are few of the snacks that are most preferred by Indians. Given the rising demand, the snack industry is going to witness further growth in the future.

If you are looking for franchise business opportunities in the snack industry that also encompasses sweets, you can go online and look for such deals. You can also visit the corporate sites of the leading brands to find out if franchise business opportunities are offered or not. It is like starting your own business especially a lucrative business. The greatest advantage of purchasing a franchise is that you become your own boss but representing an already established brand. So, you need not create a market as the market is already created for you!!

Prof. Satya Sidhartha Panda Bangalore (India) E-mail: /

Abstract

This paper attempts to persuade the banking industry to recognize and Increasing sophisticated approaches and techniques to customer relations, value proposition development and life time value calculation will help companies better in understanding how value should be created for customers and the enterprise. E-business refers to any electronic means of collaboration or coordination between organizations. In simple terms, e-Business is the use of Information Technology to exchange information and conduct transactions among enterprises and individuals, both business to business (b2b) and business to consumer (b2c). With the availability of more affordable e-Business software and service offerings in the market, many enterprises in India are likely to embrace these applications in the near future. When people ask, -What do you mean by CRM?- the literal answer is, -Customer Relationship Management,- but that doesn’t really convey much in terms of what all CRM does for a business. This CRM definition is too narrow to really explain everything the system does if it is working to its fullest potential and is user-friendly enough to expand and grow as a customer-client relationship changes and grows.

CRM is a business philosophy, a bent of mind that aims at understanding and managing the needs of the customers. A successful CRM implementation will enable the marketing people to make quick, informed and intelligent decisions, create cross selling and up selling opportunities, measuring marketing effectiveness in value creation and deliver personalized customer care. The key here is to adopt a truly Customer-Centric approach that touches every point and more importantly every person in the company. Everyone in the company must live and breathe customer focus for CRM to work. Key words : CRM, Value Proposition, Customer Care, Implementation.

INTRODUCTION: Satisfaction drives the engines for business to invest and reap benefits. Satisfaction makes companies to consider their customers as catalyst, towards their growth and prosperity. Most of all satisfaction brings life and business much closer towards moments of worthiness of the time spent. CRM has already made a big impact in the world of customer service and will continue to do so. As more and more companies become customer-centric those that fail to do so will lose competitive advantage. The real value of CRM lies in harnessing the potential of people to create a greater customer experience, using technology of CRM as the enabler. Value creation process is a critical component of CRM as it translates business and customer strategies into specific statements of what value is to be delivered to customers and, consequently, what value is to be delivered to the supplier organisation. The value management process is crucial to transforming the outputs of the strategy development process in CRM into programmes that both extract and deliver value. Only a balanced value exchange will ensure that both parties enjoy a good return on investment, leading to a good long term, profitable relationship. Achieving an ideal equilibrium between giving value to customers and getting value from customers is a crucial component of CRM. Increasing sophisticated approaches and techniques to customer segmentation, value proposition development and life time value calculation will help companies better in understanding how value should be created for customers and the enterprise.

CRM in the broader sense encompasses not only customer relationship management itself but how customer relationship management is handled and the most important elements of a CRM program that are essential to its being successful. The range of CRM software options vary from those that provide simple customer tracking and live chat capabilities to the more complex CRM solutions that can integrate all of the customer relationship data an enterprise has on each client past, present and future in a dynamic information data network. With the advent of better computing and communications technology, the marketplace is loosing all boundaries and country specificities. Limited sources of growth and higher prospect of maturity in local markets mean that companies are increasingly facing the need to operate, compete, and communicate on a global level by sharing knowledge about different cultures, environments, technologies, and customers. Mergers and acquisitions have forced companies to synchronize the existing systems with their new products and features by adopting standard business solutions. Therefore, new products and services are rapidly taking on new global perspectives. E-business applications such as ERP, SCM, CRM, or e-commerce are looked upon as strategic tools for major business improvements, enable the breaking down of boundaries-departmental and geographical. The inherent flexibility of these applications is being leveraged by global companies to implement their global strategies and local tactics by making minor changes in the enterprise solution. Over the past two to three years, e-Business applications such as ERP, SCM, and CRM have witnessed lot of transition globally. Enhanced functionalities and vertical centric solutions have evolved providing companies solutions that cater to their needs even better than in the past. Vendors have even tailor made the solutions to suit not only different business verticals but also business sizes.

Fig. 1. Best-fit sectors for CRM practices and packages

Note: Figure Source from Icicle Consultancy, Mumbai, INDIA

Senior vice president Girish G Vaidya who heads the Banking Business Unit (BBU) at Infosys Technologies says, -In order to provide an end-to-end solution for banks, banking product vendors should have three products-core banking, vertical-specific CRM and risk management software.- Though banks, telcos, and software houses use traditional CRM products, the basic CRM model has problems like not satisfying the vertical requirement, which comes up in the second phase. The vertical CRM provides a 360-degree view of the customer. The Infosys Finacle CRM product is being used by the National Commercial Bank of Jamaica. The bank is using all of Infy’s products, including the recently introduced CRM product. Infy has been successful in India too, bagging Unit Trust of India (UTI) as its first Indian customer for Finacle CRM. Infosys is positioning itself as the only vendor that satisfies two of the three requirements of banks, by offering core banking and four specialised products. Infosys recently bought technology from Trivium and created Finacle CRM, a banking-specific CRM product. Vaidya says, -Infy does not have a product for risk management for treasuries but we have alliances to fill up the gap. However, there is a big opportunity in services such as assets liability management and trading risk management.- Business Situation : Keeping in mind the growing financial and banking business ,the company wanted to provide adequate customer services and reporting capabilities .It wanted a powerful,offordable and scalable customer relationship Management Solutions . Benefits : Flexible and customizable soluations Increases Business opportunities Secures customer information Improves Business management Simplifies development The CRM soluation provided basic insights into following common modules and functionalities developed by Religare technnova specifically for capital market / brokerage : Lead management Contact management Channel partner management Campaign Reporting automation /compliance reporting automation The company found that the Dynamics CRM 4.0 Platform provided the perfect frame wok on which it could build such a comprehensive and customized CRM Solution , because Dynamics CRM is built on a sophisticated line -of-business application platform; It provides the basic required services upon accountable for new leads and manage the process through entire customer management life cycle .

Secures Customer Information : As the Bank handles a large number of financial translations ,security of data is absolutely essential .For each department, different segments are created so that, only that segments can access the data .A concerted effort was made to import logic as well.Such as end-to-end metadata relationships and improved workflow, have helped the company to streamline business operations and provide an integrated view and functionality to its employees across the country .

A. From the point of view of Business Firms: How business firms perceive CRM, What gadgets are used by the business firms to create CRM How do business firms create value in their offers How business firms assess the effectiveness of CRM Programmes Role of electronic devices in managing customer relations and value chain Problems faced by business firms in managing customer relations and value chain The future of CRM and Value Chain B. From the point of View of Customers: How do customers perceive CRM How do customers perceive Value Customer satisfaction with regard to CRM and Value Customer Behavior towards firms offering high value versus low value Customer loyalty and CRM Customer irritation with CRM Programmes Customers problems and CRM Customer compatibility and convenience with eCRM Expectations of customers for CRM and Value Chain Management Customer rating of various firms on CRM and Value Creation C . From the point of other parties: Role of government in CRM and Value Chain Management Role of Social and Consumer Organisations in CRM and Value Chain Management Availability of necessary infrastructure for CRM CRM Software Multinational Corporations and CRM CRM and Value Chain Management in Globalised World International Legislation and CRM The overall end-user understanding of e-Business applications and its capabilities in the Indian enterprises is very low. Strategic steps are being taken by enterprises to educate the market, but it is a long time still before majority of the end-users attain certain minimum understanding of e-Business applications and its benefits.Low awareness can be tackled by educating the end users, but what compounds the problem is faster spread of failure stories. Fallacy of faster communications medium has affected technology products the most as low educated end users fall prey of these non-successful stories Service is becoming the key to differentiation and this is driving corporates to adopt CRM solutions. Vendors, both domestic and international, are making their presence felt in the Indian sub-continent either directly or through multiple partners. Given the high churn rate in the telecom sector, an increased demand for CRM solutions is witnessed in this sector. Some of the prominent telecom players in the Indian market that have gone in for these solutions are Bharti, BPL, and Orange. Retail sector is also showing strong demand for CRM solutions.There has been slow uptake in the demand for c-commerce solutions in the Indian market. Most of the organizations are still evaluating the efficacy of other e-Business applications such as ERP, SCM, and CRM before going in for these relatively new generation applications. An interesting point to take into consideration is that product development management (PDM) solution and product lifecycle management (PLC) solutions are gaining acceptance in the Indian market. In order to ensure successful implementation of e-Business applications, some of the key issues that needs to be taken into consideration are: The first and foremost pre-requisite is that the enterprise should have a very strong business focus and genuine need for the solution. The consulting partners should have adequate experience in handling projects of a diverse nature. In order to gain end-user confidence, successful stories and case studies needs to be showcased by the vendors. Setting the user expectations right in the first instance Conducting a detailed business and functional requirement analysis Conclusion : The demand for ERP solutions in India is likely to be driven by both the large organizations and SMEs. However, the awareness level and application adoption rate is relatively high amongst the large enterprises as compared to the SMEs. An interesting point to note here is that majority of the top tier companies (organizations with annual revenues in excess of $500 million) in the country have already gone in for ERP implementation. Thus, the real potential lies in the SME segment, which offers tremendous opportunity for the ERP vendors operating in the country. Banking and finance clearly are the better exponents of e-Business applications and have made the best use of enterprise applications in rolling out the e-strategies. Technology has played a key role in this industry, although a large amount of public sector banks in India still are in the early phase of e-Business application adoption, the leaders in this sector are as technology savvy, as in any other industry. Private sector banks are typically using technology and better customer services to match the heavy penetration of public sector banks. As a result, CRM and core banking applications have penetrated private banks more than the public sector banks for -Customer relations-, their -satisfaction- and right way to manage the expectation of your existing and new Customer. I am confident that banks and other financial institutions will meet these challenges head on, continue to find new and better ways to put technology to their and their customers’ best use, and that they will manage the technology and business risks associated with these investments.