We almost missed the Health Care : KPMG -CII report

We did .. dint we ?

So here is Big Question - How many of you guys read the India Health Care marketing report released by KPMG ?

No , I am not talking about the press article on the release of such a report . I am talking about reading the actual report. I bet , you haven .. All busy with your own life - job, family, gf, bf .. all that stuff..

But you should have ..

Why ?

First check if you have a good health care insurance. If you don't , then may i suggest you get it immediately .. ASAP .. check Star Health Life Insurance or Apollo DKV, LIC or better still, pick Outlook Money mag and they have some good info to help you chose . Recession or no recession. That is no excuse for not getting a well covered health insurance policy.

You don't need a more better reason than that .. like duh! ... It is you health in question here ..

But, here is the Big Idea : you should know where India stands in the Health Care sector. If not for humanitarian reason, but then why not look at it with a corporate eye ? Health Care in India is a un-organized sector . But here is the catch. It is more lucrative than than next-big-thing Retail Sector which hogs the media floodlights almost everyday .

why aren't we more concerned on health sector as much as we care about the retail boom in the horizon?

Don't ever forget that following sectors are completely recession proof , any day :

• Health Care/Hospital Management
• Integrated PR ( Marketing and PR with Social Media)
  
• Doctor
• Education ( this includes teaching)

It would do us good if we can help in anyway to do something for the health care sector in India . You may be a IAS officer, a marketing professional, PR specialist , web designer.. any profession. Just do you bit ..

See ya around ..

Meanwhile , read the report here :

Health Insurance Inc, The Road Ahead - 2008

News report here :

Health Insurance Inc- The Road Ahead KPMG - CII report

Will write more on Health Care management soon here ...

How the Rs 10 soup selling gal gets its right and Satyam doesn't on customer service

The race to MBA degree is mind boggling. In India especially, it is craze sometimes rivaled only to cricket. You can see it for yourself the hordes of mba wanna- be's and the media coverage peak during the Nov-Jan season every year. What a spectacle to watch . Almost every magazine worth its salt come out with b-school survey giving a list a top 50 colleges "you should study at " . Some even bring out a separate book to cash in on the boom. And, hey .. don't count me out.. I am in the race too .

A degree in MBA teaches you to understand cash flow statements, how to come up with great marketing ideas and all that jazz. But I wonder how did Shankari ,a 1 st year B.Com student from a low rung women college get great ideas on marketing and customer service.

Let me give you the story first .

I love soup and for having that one or two cups of it I go all the way to Ananna Nagar park where this guy sells really mouth watering , pipping hot soup ( completely natural ) at Rs 6 per cup. He has good stuff. You have to give him that credit !

These days( 3 months approx) , I drink soup from one of the Fresh retail outlets i visit. The soup is sold in small kiosks at Rs 10 per cup. You would have seen similar kiosks selling sweet corns and popcorn's at a retail store near to your house. Small enterprising men/women take franchise contracts from the company which sells these products , then pay rent to the retail store and put up a kiosk outside and sell it. Great business idea . Has the ideal ingredient of entrepreneurship, job and wealth creation and good products to customers at affordable rates.

Now, getting back to the story . Shankari is a 1st year student studying for B.com at W omen's College. She sits at the kiosk every evening with a book in hand selling Rs. 1o per cup soups. I have options to chose as well - Tomato, Plantain, Mushroom, Vegetable. For reasons unknown to myself I always buy Plantain or Mushroom. I knew what I was buying but never gave it much thought to it. I just go up ask , say , Monday it is plantain soup , Tuesday it is Mushroom. It is cyclic.Till the day - about 3 weeks back - shankari popped the question at me , " Sir, why do you always buy Mushroom and Plantain soup, why don't you ever try Tomato and Vegetable?" ...

I dint know what to tell her. I muttered and gave some lame answer about my preference for mushroom and not liking tomato taste and stuff.. the next question caught me by surprise.

"Sir , other than mushroom and plantain, what other variety you like ?" ..

I gave her my options. And then asked what is she gonna do about it . She said , " I will ask my brother to check if the company can give us the soup of your choice" ..

That bowled me out completely . Why did she bother to find out what my taste are ? why didn't she just sell the soup at Rs 10 and continue to sit and study with that book in her hand ? why ? why ?

Normally, unless you pack it to your house, one drinks the soup standing there right next to Kiosk. There are 2 advantages to it - One , the soup remains hot and two you get extra corn as second helpings. I love the corn which comes with the soup , so I stand there and finish the soup then drop it in the dustbin and go back home.

That day, while I was standing there drinking the soup ( I was drinking vegetable soup with lots of pepper. I had cold and shankari said drinking that soup with lots of pepper helps) she was asking the same question to other customers of hers. Not every one. But a lot of them . Similar questions . In her own ingenious way she was conducting a survey. Maybe she realized what she was doing . Maybe she dint. That is not the point. She was proactive. She tried to understand her customer.

Later when i asked why she only asked the questions to a select few customers , she replies , " They are my regular customers" ..

I felt privileged to be her customer and beamed...

Her brother has taken the franchise contract from the parent company. While she sits at the fresh outlet , her bro is doing the same thing some other part of the city.

I wonder if she had read any of those management books? Did she read "The New Age of Innovation: Driving C0-Created Value through Global Networks" by C.K Prahalad on how to serve customized products to a customer in a collaborative environment with the N=1 , R= G rule ? How did she get this idea what a Univerity of Michigan Author did after much research ?

By the way, The New Age of Innovation made it to the top 12 books on innovation given out by Business Week.

Read it here : Best Innovation & Design Books 2008

But how come Stayam Computers dint get it right ?

The big fiasco of merger/buying Mayatas infra and properties which caused ripple of appalling magnitude among the investors across the table is there for everyone to see.

I read somewhere that the ISB's dean was also part of the board which took the decision to buy out the two companies ( run by Ramalinga raju son's). I am no authority to question the merit of the proposed buyout. Nor am I an investor. As a rule i don't directly invest in Sensex. No speculative, sentiment prone gambling for me..No Sir.

But what I would like to know is how come such highly educated ,the creme-la-de creme managers and CEO and CFO of the company dint have the inclination to ask its investors and clients their opinion before taking such a decision? How come the MBA's of IIM and MDI and blah blah dint know the tenets of customer service when such a proposal was mooted in the first place?

But man, what a PR and Corp Comm nightmare they should be having right now ? I cant but feel sorry for the guy who is handling the company's PR account. He must be literally running pillar to post to get things "done" .The green horns must be having a great time in learning the art of crisis management. what better case study can they get .. ?

By the way , I loved the new Idea Cellular ad . About asking the people first before taking a political decision. The creative guy and the copywriter deserve full marks for the new ad . The previous ads were highly creative but not practical . The new one is very creative, very practical and got the execution right . kool Ad huh ?

IBM has a great caption going for its print ads - "STOP selling what you have and Start selling what they want". Now, they get it ! .. Bingo ..

You get the drift ?

UGC Grants Commission ( Public Notice )

In case you have missed /don't read Employment News then here is an important press release which you ought to be aware of .

In the interest of the  public and students I ask you to either pass on this blog post or inform them about this notice. I couldn't find the  link for the article online so I am quoting it here as give out by U.G.G 

" It is hereby informed to the public at large and students that Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), New Delhi is not a university withing the meaning of Section 2 (f) of UGC Act 1956,. Further as per Section 22 of the U.G.C Act 1956, the IIPM, New Delhi does not have the right of conferring of granting degrees as specified by the U.G.C Section 22(3) of U.G.C Act."

The article then goes on to inform the students that the universities established by a Central Act or a State Act or an Institution deemed to be a university under Section 3 of the university Grants Commission  Act can confer or grant only those degrees which are specified by the U.G.C  Act,1956.

The list of degree can be found in this website U.G.C 

If you know anyone - friend, son, relative - just about anybody , ask them to think twice before applying for IIPM 

I will share my thoughts on this issue in my next blog. Meanwhile, you can read :

The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) advertising controversy

IIPM: Tall Claims