Business reality - face the facts!

From Puggie to ZOOZOO

2009-05-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

Vodafone never ceases to amaze.
There latest avtaar - after the PETA and other animal actvists threatened them - is ZOOZOO

Zoozoos these days it seems are everywhere.
The antics of these egg headed strange white humanoids have been entertaining millions of IPL viewers during breaks. Interestingly - there's a new ZOOZOO feature on every day... without repeating the ones gone by.

The buzz in the last 20 days has been such that they even have a FACEBOOK fanclub with members numbering over 66,000 (that's 3 Zeroes) and growing!

O&M, the agency that created these humanoids has done a great job. They promo spots focus on the value added services that VODAFONE provides and has made most viewers look forward to these advts instead of the opposite.
But the interesting part is that Zoozoos are not really animated characters. They are actually thin women artistes from Mumbai , dressed in white foam stuffed costumes.

My personal favorites are

travel alerts.. (with the music and the zz romance and the pyramids)
missed call alerts (with the croc eating zz up whole)
sing a prayer (as zz hangs on for dear life)
stock alerts (falling flat on the face - poor zz)
cricket alerts (reminds me of humpty dumpty as zz takes a knock)

more to come as the IPL comes along

I really like it when an advertisement campaign clicks. So what if I use AIRTEL... and these advts wouldn't make me shift.... but they'll work for a newbie!! And I guess the newbies outnumber the existing users.... 100:1.

Change your orbit!

2009-04-29T04:35:00.000-07:00

Said a wise man to me - don't follow the same path twice.

you will not learn anything new
your enemies might have laid a trap knowing your pattern
it will never test your mettle
gets extremely boring too

So I constantly innovate and make variations to what i do. Sometimes I fall - but mosty it helps me understand what not to do again.
So also with companies & their products. The time and tested formulae don't seem to be working. Change in the name of change is also ineffective. Reactive change is definitely not an answer.

Maybe change is not what we're looking for.
Micro-adjustment(s) & Macro-adjustments would be more politically correct.
A slight nudge here and a tweak there can dramatically alter consequences... consequences that can be fruitful!

Open for business!

2009-04-27T05:30:00.000-07:00

It's a Monday.
Are you open for business?
Yes - is the obvious answer!

I beg to differ :-)

Our doors are open - but the minds are closed.
We've stopped listening - to our inner gut feelings - that factor of "sixth sense" that drives exemplary success...
We rely too much on data to give us the information we need - i prefer the touch and feel factor.
It's easy to go with the herd that things are looking up or down .... stay a minute to examine the fundamentals... numbers definitely tell a story - but rarely the complete one.

I'll give a small example from personal experience. We have a product that the numbers suggest is doing pretty well - the achievement across the country stands at over 113%. No cause for worry here.

But I know from my field visits and customer interaction that certain problems have started developing and though we may write them off as non-issues at this time - the future looms.
Our time to react is now. Else we have open doors - but no one will be walking in...

All about business!

2009-04-25T12:11:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like a free lunch in the world today.

But let's just say that I want to treat you to a free lunch / dinner / breakfast.
Would you be willing to partake of the same without doubting my intentions?

I'm here to share some facts.
Running a business is not childs play. But it isn't rocket science either (unless you're directly involved with giong to the moon/mars).

Here's what I plan to do with this fact finding journal.

Highlight facts of existence across multiple industries and correlate them to find that common thread.
Updates from my on-the-job learning which could add value to my readers.
An insight into a family run busines - coupled with the above updates to explore better business practicalities.

Let's just keep it to 3 for now!
You can also catch me on twitter