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

Business Standard

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

While brands are all gung-ho on the technology, cheaper and relevant content is still some time away from reaching all 3D-enabled devices....

3D: The time dimension

Ever wondered what it would take to capture true-to-life 3D pictures, a la James Cameron? Well, digital cameras sporting this capability are already available in the market. And some, while yet to be launched in the country, have such advanced features that they are truly worth mentioning. That's the result of camera makers realising that the future of imaging is not only in the connected experience, but in 3D as well. What's more, these beauties are fairly priced too...

Clicking a new angle

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

The mother of supercars

Many instant messaging and e-mail applications show you who&rsquo;s online at any moment. A new communications application takes this a whole step further. It can tell you if a co-worker is busy working at her desk, if she&rsquo;s chatting on the phone or if she&rsquo;s left the building on a lunch break.

Someone is watching you

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

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

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 may come as a surprise to some that whenever you decipher scrambled words &ndash; known as captchas &ndash; before accessing sites, you are doing much more than merely authenticating that you&rsquo;re a human being and not a computer bot.

Making good use of your computer time

The new Skoda Yeti is an unusual kind of automotive creature.

Rare species

Though I have been doing my research for a long time, choosing a hatchback option is still driving me crazy. I wish I had bought my first car two years back, when options were fewer. Anyway, I have shortlisted the following: 1. New Hyundai i10 Kappa2 (Sportz): Rs 5.15 lakh on-road Pune 2. Ford Figo Diesel (1.4 ) EXI: Rs 5.40 lakh on-road Pune. I am a little inclined towards the Figo because of the obvious reason of getting a diesel engine for Rs 25,000 more.

Nice Figo

Runs for their money

Rayabarapu Venu, 48, is an enterprising man. Around six months ago, the owner of Anjali Ladies Tailor and Fashion Design Institute in Mancherial, a bustling town in Andhra Pradesh&rsquo;s (AP) Adilabad district, bought three sewing machines and got into stitching curtains. &ldquo;Look at these,&rdquo; he says, proudly brandishing a pleated curtain, &ldquo;No one stitches curtains like these here.

Small money big trouble

After the euphoria of CWG, Indian athletes face an acid test at the Guangzhou Asian Games. BS Weekend takes a look at the medal hopefuls.

Delhi dazzlers to Guangzhou greats?

Prakash Jha&rsquo;s films capture India&rsquo;s journey from the socialistic eighties to the post-liberalisation era.

The political filmmaker

Zulqarnain Haider's recent discloure is the worst scandal to hit Pakistan.

Who do you blame it on?

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