Strategic tools for the practising manager
KIT
| World silk production is estimated to be 95,000 million tonnes a year, whereas the world market for silk and silk products has grown by a mere 4 per cent in the past few years. |
| China and India together produce more than 80 per cent of the world's raw silk. |
| Although India is the second-largest silk producer in the world after China, it accounts for just 5 per cent of the global silk market, since the bulk of Indian silk thread and silk cloth are consumed domestically. |
| The sericulture industry is land-based. Silkworm rearing involves over 700,000 farm families and is concentrated in the three southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. |
| The US and EU remain the largest markets for silk outside Asia with minuscule growth rates. |
| American imports of silk bed linen have almost doubled in the past two years. India commands a 40 per cent share in this market in the US. |
| Over 90 per cent of the silk produced in India is multi-voltine in nature, which is of inferior quality. The demand in the US and EU is mainly for the superior quality bi-voltine silk. |
| Of the 300,000 looms in the Indian silk weaving sector, only 10 per cent are powerloom. The rest are in the handloom sector. |
| Selections from management journals NUGGETS |
| Sales departments tend to believe that marketers are out of touch with what's really going on in the marketplace. Marketing people, in turn, believe the sales force is myopic "" too focused on individual customer experiences, insufficiently aware of the larger market, and blind to the future. |
| In short, each group undervalues the other's contributions. Both stumble (and organisational performance suffers) when they are out of sync. Curious about the misalignment between sales and marketing, the authors interviewed pairs of chief marketing officers and sales vice-presidents to capture their perspectives. |
| Among their findings: the marketing function takes different forms in different companies at different product life cycle stages. Marketing's increasing influence in each phase of an organisation's growth profoundly affects its relationship with sales. |
| The authors describe the four types of relationships sales and marketing typically exhibit. They provide a diagnostic to help readers assess their companies' level of integration, and they offer recommendations for more closely aligning the two functions. Subscribe to this article at www.hbr.com As global companies entered China, many of them focused mainly on serving its urban-affluent consumers. However, if these companies continue to use this strategy, they risk missing the real opportunity "" the emerging middle class. |
| During the next 20 years one expects a huge middle class, with enormous spending power, to emerge in China's cities, following two distinctive waves of growth. |
| As incomes increase, the spending patterns of this consumer group will evolve, fuelling various levels of growth across consumption categories. |
| Although it will be difficult, companies should broaden their focus to include this swiftly evolving middle class. Since this segment is a hard one to serve, companies must think creatively to succeed. Read the article at www.mckinseyquarterly.com Of the myriad complex decisions that senior executives make before and during a merger, one is mandatory and critical but often given short shrift: the branding of the new corporate entity. |
| In a study of more than 200 mergers and acquisitions completed since 1995 with a transaction value exceeding $250 million, the authors found 10 different strategies for a corporate rebranding. |
| The 10 options can be grouped into four main categories that communicate fundamentally different messages: first, this deal is a merger and we are adopting the stronger brand; second, this deal is a merger and we are adopting the best of both brands; third, this deal is a transformational merger and we are creating a new brand; and fourth, this deal is simply a portfolio transaction and no brand changes will occur. |
| In any M&A, executives need to select the right strategy with respect to three important constituencies: employees, customers and the investment community. Subscribe to this article at http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/ Innovative ideasSPARKS |
| If it's not the humidity warping the wood, it's termites boring holes into all your lovely old furniture. And pest control seems to work only so far. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? What we need is someone who can stalk the creepy crawlies' every move and nab them in the act "" pest paparazzi, in fact. |
| That may have seemed like an impossible dream, but Godrej Hi Care seems to have worked on something like that. Godrej India's pest management service recently launched a forward-looking infrared (flir) camera, a heat-sensing camera that captures images at speeds of up to 50 Hz. |
| It can, therefore, scan moving termites and appropriate action can then be taken. Now you can actually see the little critters before you exterminate them. |