Two years ago, 83-year-old Kerala-based Dhanlaxmi Bank decided to expand to the rest of India. For that, it needed an aggressive front-end workforce. The challenge was to bring the brand up to speed to connect with the rest of India, which would not relate to its tradition-laden banking history in Kerala. At the same time, the bank could not alienate its traditional customers either.

Dhanlaxmi Bank: Brand new

Business Standard

A cheeky outdoor campaign on Linking Road, Mumbai, announced a new brand&rsquo;s entry into the footwear market through an exclusive store. The brand is Tashi and it comes from Tata International, the Tata group&rsquo;s global trading arm. Tashi is derived from Tata and ashi (Japanese for footsteps). &ldquo;Tashi also means good luck and prosperity,&rdquo; says Tata International Vice-president (retail) Deepak Deshpande.

Tata International: Footwear walk

In search of paper to pack its cigarettes, ITC had set up a pulpwood plantation and paperboard factory at Bhadrachalam in Andhra Pradesh in 1975. In 2010, the plant not only supplies the bulk of packaging paper to India&rsquo;s manufacturing industry but also fuels another revenue stream for ITC &mdash; stationery. Somewhat lost in the noise of ITC&rsquo;s cigarette, fast-moving consumer goods, food and retail divisions, it has quietly reached Rs500 crore in size.

Notebook battles

Tropical diseases may have become a part of history in the West, but mosquito-borne diseases like dengue, chikungunya, malaria, filaria and encephalitis are still a fact of life in India. From early summer in April to the end of the rainy season in September, these diseases rage across the length and breadth of the country. For those who make mosquito repellants, it is of course an opportunity. Because diseases caused by mosquito bites have died down in the West, multinational corporations are unlikely to focus on it &mdash; they prefer to deal with products that can be sold across the world. So, Dabur India, India&rsquo;s fourth-largest fast-moving consumer goods company, rolled out Odomos Oil, a mosquito repellent, in July this year.

Odomos goes rural

How do business leaders make decisions? Based on gut feel or data, or perhaps a mix of both? According to research by Jeanne G Harris, an executive research fellow and senior executive at Accenture&rsquo;s Institute for High Performance, and her colleagues, 40 per cent of the decisions that executives make are based not on facts but gut feel. Sometimes intuitive and experience-based decisions work out well, but often they fail. One can hardly be sure of the desired results.

Q&A: Jeanne G Harris, Sr Exec, Accenture's Institute for High Performance

Recently, there was a new occupant in the Tata Motors showroom &mdash; the Aria crossover. Staff trained specially for the vehicle could be seen extolling its virtues to prospective buyers. The Aria, which means an expressive melody in Italian, is the company&rsquo;s most expensive offering till date &mdash; the seven-seat crossover is priced between Rs13 lakh and Rs16 lakh (ex-showroom, Mumbai).

Tata's crossover experiment

The hype over Bugatti Veyron&rsquo;s launch last week is understandable.

The mother of supercars

Ford Figo has had dream debut, selling 50,000 units in six months. But building Figo meant a paradigm shift for Ford, which is not known for its small cars. In an interview with Business Standard&rsquo;s Ranju Sarkar, Micheal Boneham, president and managing director of Ford India, explains what went behind the Figo and the road ahead.

Q&A: Michael Boneham, president and MD, Ford India

Offers up by 50-70 per cent; stipend up by 35-40 per cent.

B-schools inching to peak placement levels

JK Organisation, promoter of JK Tyre, JK Paper and JK Lakshmi Cement, among other group companies, is in the process of setting up a multi-disciplinary university &mdash; JK Lakshmipat University (JKLU) in Jaipur. The university will be operational from the next academic year. Upinder Dhar, vice chancellor of JKLU tells Kirtika Suneja that the university will be based on four principles &mdash; long term teaching, corporate training, research and consulting.

Q&A: Upinder Dhar, Vice Chancellor, JK Lakshmipat University

Since its launch in August, Star CJ Alive &ndash; the 24 hour home shopping channel from Star India stable &ndash; has recorded a three-fold increase in franchisee sales.

Home-shopping grabs the eyeballs

I have been asked numerous times on various occasions and by people from all walks of life about the purpose of advertising and the purpose of a brand. Is it informing people about your products and services or like the legendary David Ogilvy simply put it- to sell? While both of these are true, none of them stand out to be the one ultimate goal of a brand. Advertising transcends all such horizons and serves the supreme purpose of - transforming human behavior. Here is one brand which has shown us the real purpose of a brand with a fantastic campaign. Yes, I am talking about Cadbury Dairy Milk and its recent campaign Shubh Aarambh.

Transforming human behaviour

University of the West of Scotland (UWS) has roped in Punjab-based GGS Group of Colleges as its India partner, besides Hyderabad-based Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU).

UWS forms partnership with 20 Indian institutes

Leading with Care
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The top 10 business bestsellers

The mantra sprouting at leading ad agency Leo Burnett&rsquo;s offices these days is &lsquo;HumanKind&rsquo;. The man who has coined the term says it essentially means finding a human purpose for every brand and focusing on that.

Leo Burnett looks for 'human purpose' of brands

Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C) students received over a 100 pre-placement offers for summer internships on the first day.

With over 100 pre-placement offers, it rains jobs at IIM-C

Even as the prospect of growth drives new players into India's booming over Rs10,000-crore organised foods &amp; beverage (F&amp;B) market, existing players are ramping up fast in a bid to secure their position in the expanding segment. The organised F&amp;B market in India is growing at clip of about 15 per cent per annum, so nobody desires to miss the bus at any cost.

GSK plays catch-up in foods & beverages

India led the ad spend growth in Asia Pacific in the second quarter of this year, according to a survey on ad spend on mainstream media, conducted by The Nielsen Company. India saw a 28 per cent year-on-year growth and a 32 per cent growth in the second quarter of 2010 over the earlier year.

India leads ad spend growth in Asia-Pacific

It's not just the traditional destinations like the US and Europe that will lure students at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) during summer placements that begins on Friday, November 12, 2010. Internship offers for roles in the likes of Australia and Africa are set to debut this year during summer placements which would be following a cohort-based system as opposed to the Day-based system for the first time.

IIM-A summers to feature new locations

The consumer electronics retail business in India is characterised by low margins.

KIT: Consumer durables and electronics retail in India

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Practicing Greatness
Author: Reggie McNeal 
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ISBN: 9788126525027.
The Three Laws of Performance
Authors: Dave Logan and Steve Zaffron
Publisher: Times Publication Books
Price: Rs 395
ISBN: 9788126525072.
Leading with Care
Author: Mary Cantando
Publisher: Times Publication Books
Price: Rs 350
ISBN: 9788126525010.
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Getting Naked
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Page 576 - News