After 15 years of unrivalled presence, Mercedes Benz is seeing competition heat up from compatriots BMW and Audi in the luxury car market in India.

Merc in search of a sporty, young image

Business Standard

    McDonald&rsquo;s. A move away from junk food.

Answers to last week's quiz (#159)

    This company in 1936 held a public contest to rename itself in order to shed its founding family name. It received 27,000 responses, but finally chose to use a name which had no meaning. Name the company.

The Strategist Quiz (#160)

The Indian ice cream market is estimated to be between Rs 1,500 crore and Rs 2,000 crore.

KIT: The Indian ice cream market

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The top 10 business bestsellers

The Dharampal Satyapal group, which owns brands like Rajnigandha (pan masala), Baba (chewing tobacco), Catch (spices and beverages) and Pass Pass (mouth freshener), wants to get a bigger share of the food and beverages market. And the brand it has chosen from its portfolio for this purpose is Catch. Catch salt, pepper and spices sold a little over Rs 100 crore in 2009-10, while Catch beverages (natural spring water, soda and tonic water) sold a little under Rs 28 crore.

Dharampal Satyapal Group: What's the catch?

Wynn Telecom, a new entrant in the mobile handset market, has unveiled its launch campaign, &ldquo;Win it all&rdquo;, with Bollywood actors Saif Ali Khan and Bipasha Basu. It wants to be amongst the top three Indian mobile handset brands by March 2011. Wynn Telecom Marketing Head Naved Chaudhary claims that the company has sold 100,000 units in the first 40 days of the launch.

Wynn Telecom: Winning ambitions

GSK is pitching new Horlicks Foodles as a healthier option in instant noodles.

Foodles in the noodle bowl

3M India is a 76 per cent subsidiary of 3M, the $23-billion diversified technology company. It has a presence in categories like infrastructure, automotive, oil &amp; gas, healthcare, office stationery and home care. Ajay Nanavati, the managing director of 3M India, has had a long innings in the company. He talks about the 3M strategy for India with Bhupesh Bhandari.

Q&A: Ajay Nanavati, MD, 3M India

Bhavdeep Singh, the chief executive of Fortis Healthcare, recently got a letter from a patient. He was full of praise for the nurse who served him. At night, after visitors were asked to leave his room, she would come and play cards with him. That kept him in good cheer &mdash; research shows that a patient&rsquo;s lowest point comes in the evening once family and friends call it a night. Singh, 48, didn&rsquo;t know what to tell the nurse. Playing cards on duty is simply not on. But her gesture made a patient happy with the care he got. He may go to Fortis again when he needs medical attention.

Treating with care

Why Emirates has launched a high-decibel campaign to promote the planes in India even though the country is still not on the A-380 map.

Hardsell in Indian skies

From news to entertainment, most channels are rebranding themselves to showcase their content.

'New' brands on prime time television

Loop Mobile, which owns mobile telephony licences in 21 states, is on an overdrive to launch new value-added services that, it hopes, will increase its revenue market share to around 15 per cent in the next 18 months, from 9 per cent now.

On a value-added Loop

It is taking tips from Stanford, Harvard and MIT for the revamp.

IIM-K changes curriculum, hopes it's a 'trendsetter'

IIMs are busy updating and revamping the existing curriculum for their two-year flagship post-graduate programme (PGP). They typically conduct a comprehensive review of the syllabus every 3-4 years to incorporate developments and changes in industries and the economy.

Other IIMs also join in

Singapore&rsquo;s diplomat-turned-writer Kishore Mahbubani is known for his provocative ideas on the &ldquo;power shift&rdquo; from the West to the East. To contribute in his own way to this &lsquo;power shift&rsquo;, Mahbubani has built what is so far a unique &ldquo;Asian&rdquo; institution in the field of public policy, to compete with Harvard&rsquo;s Kennedy School of Government (KSG) and the Science Po in Paris.

Asian school beefs up Indian bureaucracy

After focusing on the Indian market, the Delhi-based Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) is now spreading its wings. The institute recently inaugurated its Africa Business Cell to bring business leaders to India to promote partnerships and encourage entrepreneurship.

IIFT inaugurates African business cell

Wharton School&rsquo;s healthcare management department is exploring research tie-ups with Indian institutes in the healthcare and insurance sectors.

Wharton scouts for healthcare, insurance research tie-ups

The proposed joint venture between Tata Global Beverages (TGB) and PepsiCo, announced this April to develop beverages in the health and wellness space, is likely to begin with developing affordable water.

Tata-Pepsi JV to first focus on affordable packaged water

It has been positioned across the globe as a product to take on Coca-Cola&rsquo;s popular Coke Zero, a sugar- free carbonated drink. But the story is different in India where Coke Zero has not even been launched.

Fizz back in cola wars

Two of India&rsquo;s largest selling cars &ndash; Alto and i10 &ndash; operate in different price segments, but they are now taking their fight for market leadership to another level.

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