KIT: The bath and shower market in India (2008)

Strategic tools for the practising manager

The bath and shower market in India is valued at Rs 6,728 crore and is expected to reach Rs 7,142 crore by 2012.

The market consists of body wash/shower gels, liquid soaps, prickly heat powders, talcum powders and toilet soaps.

The liquid soap market in India is valued at Rs 42 crore and is expected to reach Rs 55 crore by 2012.

The prickly heat powder market in the country is valued at Rs 135 crore and is estimated to reach Rs 197 crore by 2012.

The talcum powder market is about Rs 754 crore and is expected to grow to Rs 816 crore by 2012.

NUGGETS
Selections from management journals

Interviews with 85 female leaders around the world have suggested five common themes that all executives can master to improve their leadership skills.

Although many of the themes — such as finding meaning in daily activities and building strong networks — are familiar individually, taken together they create a new model for thinking about how to develop leaders. The authors have had early successes teaching this model to young leaders — men and women alike.

Centered leadership: How talented women thrive
By Joanna Barsh, Susie Cranston and Rebecca A Craske
The McKinsey Quarterly
September 2008
Read this article at www.mckinseyquarterly.com

Why do mature businesses struggle with innovation? Often it’s because they think the secret to growth is rapid-fire line extensions that get customers excited for a little while.

But the trick isn’t being fast; it’s being hard to copy. Meeting consumer needs is a necessary but no longer sufficient condition of sustainable innovation. New products that stand alone longest in the marketplace, without serious competition, bring in the highest returns.

The unique advantage
By Alexander Kandybin and Surbhee Grover
Strategy+Business
Autumn 2008
Read this article at www.strategy-business.com

Global M&A is on the rise. Recently, Coca-Cola announced the $2.4-billion takeover of Beijing-based China Huiyuan Juice Group, the number-one juice maker in the country.

What are the characteristics of this re-energised global M&A market? What should a company do to ensure that its acquisition is successful and that the cultures of the merged companies are well integrated?

In an exclusive interview with China Knowledge@Wharton, David O Kompare, head of the global M&A practice at Hewitt Associates, discussed these issues.

Hewitt Associates’
David Kompare on the Coke-Huiyuan deal and global M&A
China Knowledge@Wharton
September 10-23
Read this article at www.knowledgeatwharton.com.cn/

Casual observers may have concluded that Google’s introduction of its Chrome web browser was a direct assault on the dominance of Microsoft’s Explorer.

But Wharton professors David Hsu and Kevin Werbach see a longer-term strategy at work. They say Google wants the new browser to influence the development of web technology that will help draw consumers to its various web applications, making Google overall more attractive to advertisers.

Will its ‘Chrome’ web browser put a shine on Google’s long-term strategy?
Knowledge@Wharton
September 3-16
Read this article at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/

Many people and organisations find it difficult to be as innovative as they would like. Yet there are concrete steps organisations can take that can make it easier to stimulate innovation and change.

A successful campaign to save 100,000 lives by changing the practices of thousands of hospitals illustrates the importance of making it easier for organisations to embrace new ideas and engage networks of external collaborators.

The campaign helped hospitals eliminate preventable medical errors by recombining old ideas to create new priorities, setting goals that galvanised action, and developing tools that eased the burden on change agents. Businesses looking to innovate can borrow from these moves.

The ergonomics of innovation
By Hayagreeva Rao and Robert Sutton
The McKinsey Quarterly
September 2008
Read this article at www.mckinseyquarterly.com