Rural customers take brands on a roller coaster ride…ride…€¦ · he Indian handset manufacturer Ziox Mobiles has recently launched 10 smartphones and 20 feature phones in India

Rural customers take brands on a roller coaster ride… brands on a roller coaster ride…

www.customerclick.in

CUSTOMERCUSTOMERvCanara Bank 06 vDSLR Comparison 10vCarnival Cinemas 14vMyntra using InMobi 22vBig Data at Croma 26v3D Printers Comparison 28

Vol. No. 4 Issue No. 8

August 2016 Pages 40 `75

3Customer Research Frontiers January 2012 3Customer Click August 2016

CUSTOMERCUSTOMER

August 2016 - Vol. 4, No 8

Group Publisher : Babu Nair

Group Editor : Manoj Agrawal

Editor Technology : Brian Pereira

Advisory Board : Yogesh Joshi

Editorial Team : Dr Ravi Lalwani

: Mehul Dani

: Anita Rege

: Mohammed Irshad

Marketing

Zahid Siddique, Wilhelm Singh,

Ian Rodrigues, Sunny Rajendra,

Varun Kataria

Events & Operations

Shirish Joshi, Saaniya Naik,

Pramod Jadhav, Stalin Saldhana,

Ashish Verma, Bharat Solanki,

Gautam Magare, Amit Gupta

Design

Somnath Roy Choudhury

Published By

Glocal Infomart Pvt Ltd

D-312, Twin Arcade, Military Road, Marol,

Andheri (E), Mumbai 400059, India.

Tel: +91-22-29250166 / 29255569

Fax: +91-22-29207563

Printed & Published by Babu Nair on

behalf of Glocal Infomart Pvt Ltd and

Printed at Colorscope, 302 - A, Dhanraj

Industrial Estate, Shah & Nahar Compound,

Lower Parel (W), Mumbai - 400013.

Editor: Manoj Agrawal (Responsible for

selection of news under PRB Act)

Editor’s BlogManoj AgrawalMobile : 98673 66111Email : [email protected]

Rural India is the Engine

A large portion of business news about urban India comprises corporate

directions, new business models, innovative products, exotic designs,

fund raising, hiring at IIT-IIMs, etc. However, when it comes to overall

economic trends, I hardly see any co-relation between these exotic news

items and the national economy. The national economy always comes back to

basics such as, agricultural output, global fuel prices, global commodity prices,

infrastructure development, monsoon, etc.

So, any company that aspires to actually participate in nation building has

to seriously become a part of India’s rural economy. Selling massive luxury

SUVs or serving exotic pizzas is good business, but, not part of mainstream

economy. So, what we have done in this issue is do a cover story on rural India,

focusing on what a wide variety of companies are doing to mark their share in

the rural economy. Thanks to poor infrastructure, vehicle sales are a leading

indicator of rural market trends, and so, we have given greater importance to

this segment in this story. I am sure you will find some interesting insights in this

cover story.

With the forecast of normal

monsoon after 2 years of drought,

rural India looks promising this year.

I am hopeful that greater business

integration between rural and urban,

rural India’s fortunes will become

less dependent on nature (weather

cycles) and more on human effort.

marketing

Customer Click August 20164

The Indian handset manufacturer Ziox Mobiles has recently launched 10 smartphones and 20 feature

phones in India. The 3G and 4G supporting devices offer screen sizes of 3.5”, 4”, 4.5” and 5” inches with top quality hardware including 5000 mAh battery, Iris support, GPS tracking, 16 MP back camera, as well as gorilla and dragontrail X scratch resistant glass.

The company has its presence in 8 states of India that includes Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, West Bengal, Delhi-NCR, Bihar and Jharkhand. Ziox will expand its national wide presence by end of this quarter. It has 500 service centres across the country and it is further planning to increase the service network. It is not looking for the tie-ups with the e-retailers as it is currently focusing on offline and brick-n-mortar channels to get brand visibility among the customers.

Segmentation and priCing StrategieSZiox Mobiles currently operating in the sub-5K segment and SEC classifications for B2-C2 with varying degrees of functionality and aesthetic needs in individual cases. Vikas Jain, Managing Director, Ziox Mobiles speaks on the segmentation of the customers and customer centric prices of the phones: “We would want to move away from such hard-line definitions and would say that a Ziox consumer stays across the strata and is the one who is looking for a device that will make their life simple and much more connected. Our feature phones operate in the range of ̀ 1000-2000, while our smartphones are available in the price range of `3000-5000.”

He further added: “Our pricing strategies are consumer centric and not manufacturer centric. If our consumers will be able to afford us only then we would

be able to better their lives and be their true partners.”

maximum growth from tier 2 & 3 CitieS Due to the brand saturation in the big cities, small cities drive maximum revenues for most of the brands in India. Tier 2 & 3 region drives the maximum growth for the Ziox Mobiles under the current operating price segments. Vikas commented on the tier 2 & 3 cities strategy: “There can’t be a fundamentally different strategy for the centres in the tier 2 & 3 cities, as the end consumer across geographies have the same needs of best quality devices at affordable prices and superior post sales associations.”

BtL aCtivitieS The company is using BTL marketing activities to reach its customers. Vikas

explains: “As we are still to be recognised as the brand that a consumer should yearn for. Ziox Mobiles is currently not focusing on ATL activities. A solid product, backed by guarantees and safeguards is something which consumers are unaware about it, and we are focusing on creating awareness for it. We are currently focusing on retailer level branding and out/in-shop brandings supported with adequate POSM material with replacement cycles in place.”

uSp of the SmartphoneS The USP of the Ziox Mobiles includes features like mobile tracker, SOS feature, storage medium, etc. Vikas added on the advanced features of the phones: “We have come up with a few devices with SOS feature, which is our integration of the panic button on our devices for the safety of our consumers. We also have started work on building 8 GB as internal memory with audio-video content in our feature phones, so that consumers don’t have to waste a moment in looking for a storage medium, etc. We try to make the UX and UI easily navigable with minimal invasiveness.”

future LaunCheS Ziox Mobiles is planning to launch 15 new smartphones in the coming months; these phones will be available in different screen sizes like 3.5”, 4”, 4.5” and 5” inches. The devices will be equipped with intuitive UX. The company has also announced that it will soon foray in the accessories and white goods businesses. In the accessories segment, it will be launching power banks (up to 10,000 mAh), noise-cancelling headphones, chargers, USB cables, tempered glass and more. In the white goods category, it will be introducing LED TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines.

[email protected]

Ziox mobiles banks on offline channelsIn a tête-à-tête with Dr. Ravi Lalwani, Vikas Jain, Managing Director, Ziox Mobiles speaks about the special features of the new smartphone range, pricing strategies to target sub-5K segment, BTL marketing activities and future plans:

vikas Jain is looking forward to further foray the Zios brand into the accessories and white goods

5Customer Click August 2016

marketing

Anita: Please share your retail expansion

plans across India.

Chandrahas: Acer has put in place a robust channel strategy to accelerate growth. Acer is strengthening its partnership as well as customer outreach program with intensive engagement programs. It has forged strong partnerships with all the large format retail stores, with an aim to increase Acer’s brand presence in tier 2&3 locations. Acer has a robust distribution network comprising Acer Lounge, Acer Malls and Acer Points, and is planning to expand it even further. To keep pace with the dramatic changes in the IT landscape, Acer has been investing significantly in training, in-store merchandising with apt showcase/display of new high end models, sales enablement, schemes and easy finance options.

What innovative and new are you doing

in terms of marketing and promotions

in India?

The PC market is a highly cluttered space which makes it challenging for all players to stand out. We always introduced innovative features distinguishing us from the rest of our competitors. Our data fuels the very essence of our marketing strategy. Digital has always been deeply rooted in Acer’s approach but it is now becoming our go-to-market strategy. Technology has evolved dramatically and so have consumers. We are using predictive analytics to manage such complexity.

For the current set of products that we have, online was the very obvious GTM strategy. We intend to find our niche in challenging the market and establishing Acer in a particular segment. In the coming years, we will concentrate on sustaining our growth momentum, and expanding our reach to address the next wave of technology adopters and users.

What are you doing

to reach out to the

digital and non-digital

customers?

Today a huge chunk of our audience are online so we are always f i n d i n g n e w w ay s to reach the digital generation by interesting content and interactive communication. But we also have another huge chunk of potential customers in smaller towns who will be a first time buyer of a PC. We are doing strategic partnerships with our key partners like Intel to reach these audience as well doing lot of on-ground marketing out-reach to tap into this set of consumers.

How is your communication changing

with new media emerging?

Our marketing strategy is completely hybrid. Technology has evolved dramatically and so have consumers. It is important that marketers evaluate new mediums in terms of right fit for the objective and how effectively it reaches the defined target groups. Digital devices and technologies will be a major enabler of human buying behaviour. Marketers will dive deep into all these technologies to find space to occupy the mind space. Virtual reality will become more and more popular and it will definitely play a big role in sales and marketing in the future.

‘Chatbots’ is another emerging medium - In coming months, users of messenger apps can expect to find new automated assistants offering information and services at a variety of businesses. These messaging chatbots are basically software that can conduct human-like conversation and do simple jobs once

reserved for people. We think chatbots will bring the revolution in online and consumer-based industries which deal in the product and service sectors.

Having said that marketers need to stop thinking ‘channel o f communicat ion’ and start thinking ‘consumer’. Marketers are often guilty of placing

too much focus on separate channels, be it social media, print or in-store branding. Consumers don’t see brands this way. For a consumer, there is no distinction between channels; communication channels between a brand and its customers are entwined in a complex relationship that often demands a two way conversation. Marketers need to adapt to this way of thinking and develop content that reflects how their customers want to interact with brands across different channels. We need to create relevance not awareness.

How are you addressing your rural and

urban customers? Is the communication

different?

The rural environment is strikingly different from the urban one and therefore proper and effective manner communication to the potential customers in those areas is a trial. Understanding the mindset of the customers, including their hopes, aspirations, and fears by conducting extensive research helps us in better assessing the mindset of these consumers. The influence of the electronic media, in particular television is contributing to the growth of rural aspirations, which are leading to increase in consumers in rural India.

[email protected]

‘We need to create relevance not awareness’Chandrahas Panigrahi, Sr. Director and Consumer Business Head at Acer delves into marketing activities of the company in an interview with Anita Rege:

Chandrahas Panigrahi

CAnArA BAnk


N. Mohan: How does Canara Bank take

care of the key issues like customer

care, ease of doing business, technology

efforts and profitability so that it makes

a difference?

Rakesh Sharma: Canara Bank was established more than a century ago in 1906. Since then, the bank has grown from strength to strength and at present it has a network of 5849 branches and 9251 ATMs. This is the highest number among nationalized banks.

True to its founding principles, the bank has always remained a customer focused bank. It has been undertaking a slew of innovative initiatives and measures to remain customer centric, be it in the IT front or in the new products and processes. These initiatives have been improving customer satisfaction and enhanced delivery system. To take a few examples, instant in-principle sanctions for home and car loans, loan application and tracking systems, updated net and mobile banking applications, eInfobook, mWallet, customer grievance redressal system, etc, are some of the innovations in IT, which are increasing customer satisfaction.

Given our elaborate branch network, we are focusing on growing our retail business – mobilizing retail deposits and deployment in retail assets like agriculture, MSMEs, housing, vehicle, education, etc. We are able to grow our customer accounts to over 72.5 million, and this is growing day by day.

What are your turnover targets for the

coming 3 years? What customer segments

will fuel most of the growth?

The bank has crossed `8 trillion business as at March 2016, comprising `4.8 trillion under deposits and `3.25 trillion under advances. The industry is growing at little over 10% yoy at present.

Being a large PSU bank in India, we have kept our growth at above 12% for FY2016-17. Our retail assets segments are continuing to register good growth yoy like, priority credit (23%), agriculture (14%), MSME (10%), retail lending (27.8%), including housing loans (38.6%) as at March 2016. We are confident that with the turnaround in the private corporate sector in FY2017, it would be feasible for us to sustain the double digit growth in the next 3 years. We have been reorienting our focus on growing retail segments, which shall continue to get the attention in the medium term also, including agriculture, MSME, and lending to various retail segments like housing, vehicle, education and other personal loans.

The emphasis will also be on

marketing quality corporate business with efficient risk management. We had a 3-tier organizational structure for both retail and corporate business. We have gone for an organization restructuring system thereby putting up 4-tier structure for retail, SME and agriculture to improve on customer connect and staff connect. For corporate business, we have introduced 2-tier system to ensure faster delivery and monitoring mechanism.

Canara Bank has branches in London,

Hong Kong and Shanghai as well as

representative offices in major world

capitals. Do you intend to expand this

operation?

At present, we have overseas footprint in 9 countries, which include branches in London and Leicester (U.K.), Hong Kong, Shanghai (China), Manama (Bahrain), Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) (U.A.E.), Johannesburg (South Africa) and New York (U.S.A); a representative office at Sharjah (U.A.E.) and a joint venture bank, viz., Commercial Indo Bank LLC in Moscow (Russia) in association with State Bank of India. A new subsidiary has also started commercial operations at Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania from 9 May 2016. Our overseas branches contribute 6.32% to our total business. We are aiming to take this to about 10% in medium term. We have approval from the RBI for expansion in another 5 international centers - Frankfurt (Germany), Sao Paulo (Brazil), Tokyo (Japan), Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and Jakarta (Indonesia), which shall be explored for expansion.

What are the technology transformation

tasks the bank has on hand at the moment?

Canara Bank has always been proactive in implementation of technology in

Canara Bank, is in the midst of an organizational transformation. Rakesh Sharma, MD & CEO, explains the roadmap and progress:

Rakesh Sharma is aiming to make Canara Bank a knowledge based bank by converting heterogeneous data into information

CAnArA BAnk

Canara Bank Future ready


various areas of its operations and offering the latest digital services to its customers. It has been a constant endeavor for us to harness new technology breakthroughs and digital solutions for improving productivity, efficiency, security and customer and employee satisfaction.

We are a future ready bank having our own detailed digital strategy with reliable and scalable infrastructure in place. Our CBS version upgradation process is in progress. We are in the process of opening hi-tech self-service branches, equipped with complete banking solutions through digital devices, aiming to provide end-to end digital experience to customers. We are also in readiness to be part of the Unified Payment Interface. We propose to provide geo-mapping facility for our customers, wherein the customers can locate the nearest branches/ATMs/eLounges and other specified locations in map with an option for suggested direction routes to reach the desired location. As part of our green initiative, a new digital document management system is also proposed. Many other digital initiatives like eSign, eLearning, payment hub, etc, are also in the pipeline.

Which are the core areas that you focus in

this technology transformation?

The aim of digitization is to improve organizational efficiency, secure data and provide customer delight with banking services provided at their fingertips. Many of our new tech initiatives like mSecure, eInfobook, new versions of

mWallet, internet and mobile banking have propelled our digital transactions growth to 57% yoy. As part of making our customer centric digital packages popular, we have ensured that these are device compatible in all major technology platforms and mobile devices.

Where do you see the bank say in 5

years from now in terms of technology

induction? Will this usher in a paperless

bank ultimately?

With more digitization of banking services happening, the future will be for paperless banking. Our vision is to establish an information, communication and technology infrastructure, which is the best in the industry and to transform the bank into knowledge based bank for bringing customer delight, improving operational efficiency, enabling automated, integrated and reliable and real time decision support system for all our stakeholders. We will leverage the massive heterogeneous data across all systems for converting it into information and transform the bank into a knowledge based bank. We will also aim to have a multi-pronged approach to IT involving people, process and technology with empowered and efficient IT governance framework in place. As part of our green initiatives we are moving towards digitization of documents and also providing eKYC portals to our branches.

Do you think it is relevant to initiate

technology projects keeping in mind

the fact that ultimately it is the mobile

that is going to be preferred medium of

transactions?

Mobile is already a preferred medium of transaction and going forward it will be more prominent. The mobile phone is one of the widely accepted channels for communication and getting information on your fingertips. The mobile phone reach is phenomenal with over 100 crore mobile connections in India, and there is further scope as only 10% of the market is tapped. The mobile will play a key role in reaching the rural mass and in implementation of financial inclusion plans of our government so that the banking services are readily available to the entire nation. We have revamped and released the latest version of mobile, internet banking, and mWallet recently with enhanced customer friendly features, which is on par with industry standards.

What are the plans for mobile money?

Do you intent to launch a mobile wallet?

Have your customers expressed desire to

have P2P fund transfer facility provided

by the bank?

Mobile wallet (mWallet) and P2P fund transfer facility are already in place. The first phase in mobile banking was to provide basic banking transactions like balance enquiry, mini statements, funds transfer etc. The future will be mobile commerce where in customers can make purchases/payments through mobile commerce. With high mobile penetration, mobile will be the preferred channel for urban as well as rural customers.

[email protected]

lifestyle


Anita: Please define your target audience

for Allen Solly Woman?

Sooraj: Allen Solly Womenswear collection is branded as ‘Solly’ by Allen Solly. The brand offers relaxed work wear. Our target audience are SEC A urban females. They are upwardly mobile and in the age group of 20–35 yrs.

What is your presence in terms of number

of stores and cities?

Solly is widely distributed across the country at over 70 exclusive stores, 100 department stores and leading multi-brand stores. Solly has presence in all metros, state capitals and tier 1 cities. We are looking to grow our women’s wear distribution at approximately 10% on an annual basis.

What media are you present on?

We operate largely through the digital medium. We have in place our Customer Relationship Management Program through which we engage our customers across multiple media.

What is your pricing strategy?

Solly prices its products competitively in the market. Our relaxed work wear is competitively priced. The range starts from `899. It aims to provide superior value to its discerning consumers.

Is Allen Solly doing anything innovative in

terms of advertising, branding, marketing

and promotions?

Solly has espoused the cause of bringing the best in work wear and everyday casual fashion to the Indian female on a regular basis. To this end, the brand regularly

communicates the different occasions that its merchandise caters to and variety in the range through print advertisements and online too. As far as our branding activity goes, the Solly brand releases videos on the web. Also, we release videos at our store windows wherein we show how to put together distinctive looks for various occasions. One of the key focus for the Solly relaxed work wear brand is to make every day office wear interesting and fashionable and add value to the office-going experience.

What are your expansion plans in the

coming 5 years?

Solly’s distribution is planned to grow at about 15% on an annual basis. This strategy of growth is planned across exclusive stores, department stores and our multi-brand outlets. Our primary target audience continues to be the working woman in India’s metro cities. However, we have received tremendous response from outlets at tier 1 cities. We believe tier 1 cities will continue to be growth drivers for our business.

Share briefly your insights and forecast

for trends to watch for in the women’s

wear industry.

We expect fashion to be more and more influenced by everyday styles and functionality. Globally, consumer needs and consumer trends will drive fashion more than the runway. The consumer in India, already far savvier and discerning in her choice of apparel and style, will be increasingly open to experimentation. Additionally, one of the largest and a very meaningful long term trend that has begun impacting the fashion industry today is the growth of the CONSCIOUS CONSUMER. There is a huge and perceptible shift in the consumer’s attitude towards her environment and also her relationship with it. She is, in present times, far more aware of her environmental challenges and consequences. The woman of today feels far more involved and responsible for her choices and the decisions she makes in every aspect of the fast-paced life she leads. She is consequently very conscious about how her lifestyle and purchases impact the environment she inhabits. This is further impacting her purchase decision in every sphere of her life, including apparel and accessories.

[email protected]

Premium work wear brands Allen Solly and Louis Phillipe are looking beyond metros and targeting 15% annual growth in distribution, learns Anita Rege in conversation with Sooraj Bhat, COO for Louis Phillipe & Allen Solly:

Sooraj Bhat sees the brand Solly as making every day office wear interesting and fashionable and adding value to the office-going experience

Wooing the Conscious Consumer

lifestyle


KNOWLEDGE@WHARTON

Online shoppers won’t find a price list or an ‘add to cart’ button when they visit the website of

iconic watchmaker Patek Philippe. The most prominent visual on the home page is not a limited edition timepiece but a commercial featuring a father congratulating his young son for winning a cricket match. The ad ends with the slogan: “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.”

Patek Philippe’s online store, where customers can look but not purchase, is certainly atypical of most shopping websites. But that’s kind of the point, Wharton marketing experts say. It’s also an excellent example of how some high-end retailers are dealing with a dilemma born of the digital age. How does a luxury brand retain its extravagant feel while catering to the growing horde of consumers who love to shop online?

“ L u x u r y i s a b o u t s c a r c i t y,

exclusivity. The internet is about mass and reducing those boundaries, and so it’s a real conflict,” said Barbara Kahn, a Wharton marketing professor. “But of course, if people are shopping online, luxury is going to have to go in that direction. ”

Despite the rising tide of online shopping, research shows that only 10% of luxury sales in that market happen online. The Baker Center recently held a conference highlighted 7 aspects of online luxury retailing, including pricing, brand strategy, in-store experience and even counterfeiting, which is rampant online.

Kahn said the research starts with the distinction between premium brands, such as Michael Kors or Tory Burch, which are prevalent in the United States, and true luxury brands, such as Hermes or Chanel, which originate in Europe. Luxury brands have a story to share, a legacy to maintain and an experience for the customer. That’s why many of them often don’t sell their products online or offer only a curated number of items for

online purchase. Instead, they use their websites as a digital extension of the

customer experience.“If you do a good job

online, you can actually use that channel to enhance

the brand, and then you can have the

luxur y in-s tore experience going on in the physical s t o r e ,” K a h n explains.

An attractive, engaging website and a well-fed s o c i a l m e d i a a c c o u n t c a n

add dimension

that draws more potential customers to a brand. Chanel’s website, for example, features video clips from its runway shows, celebrities and legendary designer Karl Lagerfeld. More online customers mean more data can be collected, which can help hone a marketing strategy, Dahlhoff notes.

One downside for luxury brands trying to sell opulence online is price transparency. It’s more difficult for the companies to post different prices for the same item in different countries when everyone can comparison shop. Chanel solved this problem by standardizing its prices, Dahlhoff said. For others, posting prices is not part of the luxury experience.

“When you think about luxury pricing, you’re supposed to think about it like art,” Kahn said. “You can’t compare; you can’t put a price on it.” After all, customers don’t buy a $50,000 Patek Philippe watch only because it tells time accurately. “A Swatch watch would tell time just as well as a luxury watch,” she said.

Digital outlets also provide an important avenue for luxury brands to snag younger customers and build a loyal following with them. But that’s proving to be tough with the under-30 crowd.

“The other issue is whether or not millennials and Generation Z really respect the luxury brands in the way the older generation did,” Kahn said. “You’re seeing a real shift in the generations to more sustainability, to more of this online, to more of this tech, so it’s not clear the millennials will relate to the luxury brands the same way the past generations have.”

Wharton experts contend luxury manufacturers must adapt to the fast-changing digital era if they want to survive in the next generation. The ideas and the drive are there, and the strategy will continue to be a work in progress.

Selling Luxury: How High-end Brands Are Embracing the InternetExcerpts of a Knowledge@Wharton’s article with the same title:


KNOWLEDGE@WHARTON

Myntra, India’s leading fashion e-tailer, had announced in May of last year that it was going the

app-only route. It claimed to be the first big web-based e-tailer, not just in India but globally, to adopt an app-only model. However, now Myntra has reversed that decision and on June 1, it relaunched its desktop website.

When the company announced its app-only strategy last year, nearly 90% of traffic and 70% of the company’s business was happening through its app, and Myntra seemed convinced that was the way ahead. However, a few months later, it brought back its mobile (phone and tablet) website. Myntra insisted that this was not a roll-back of its app-only strategy.

Myntra had two primary reasons for going app-only. One, because they are personal devices, mobile phones enable a personalized experience. Two, mobile phones are the future of computing devices. Both premises continue to be true. So what sparked the return to the desktop?

The biggest reason is the feedback from consumers, especially women. Women customers want to have the option of shopping across channels. In addition, Myntra is also launching home furnishing and jewelry items, where viewing intricate patterns on larger screens leads to better purchase decisions.” While it is still true that the mobile experience is far superior to the web, we have recognized that some consumers still want the option to shop on the web.”

A WorthWhile experiment?Rishikesh Krishnan, director of IIM Indore, questions what Myntra achieved through its app-only experiment. “Cutting

off a channel doesn’t make sense unless the channel costs were exceeding benefits or the use of that channel was resulting in wrong positioning. Myntra’s app-only strategy certainly got them some media attention, but doesn’t seem to have served a business purpose.”

Kartik Hosanagar, Wharton professor of operations, information and decisions who wrote a case study on Myntra two years ago, believes there could be some potential side benefit from the app-only experiment: It would have helped inculcate a mobile-only mindset in the firm. “Even if the mobile-only strategy didn’t work, I suspect that mobile-first is still the way to go. So the changes in the company culture and mobile product will continue to be beneficial even if the strategy wasn’t the best one. Further, mobile commerce is associated with lower

average order value,” he says.Harminder Sahni, founder and

managing director of management consultancy firm Wazir Advisors, says: “As far as I understand, the reason to go app-only was based on the belief that consumers were moving to smart phones so fast that there was no point in keeping the website on. Additionally, the cost of keeping the website and app both technically up-to-date for giving seamless and same-quality experience is quite expensive. The trend towards smart phones is only becoming stronger.”

Having lost momentum, Myntra may be wanting to bring back some of the consumers they lost due to closure of the website. But I believe that it may not help much as the issue lies elsewhere, adds Sahani.

Meanwhile, Myntra has company. Food startup Faasos, for instance, which went app-only last year, reintroduced the desktop channel a few months ago. In a media interview, Revant Bhate, head of marketing at Faasos, said: “Over the past 3-4 months, we found that users were not using m obiles alone to place orders; they were also using desktops and tablets. We did not want to isolate our loyal use-rs who used the Windows platform. We have now enabled a Windows-based mobile site, which can also be used on all the periphery devices such as tablets and desktops. Technically, our str ategy cannot be called app-only now.” And fashion e-tailer Voonik, which launched as app-only in 2014, added a desktop website in November last year to cater to a larger consumer base.

Clearly, in the age of the smart phone, desktop continues to have its own place.

Why India’s leading fashion e-tailer abandoned its App-only StrategyExcerpts of a Knowledge@Wharton’s article with the same title:

cinema


Anita: By end 2014, Carnival Cinemas had

cruised its way into the top 4 in the multi-

theatres business in India. Please share

details of the acquisitions.

Kunal: In the year 2014-15, we have acquired HDIL Broadway (33 screens), Stargaze Glitz Cinemas (30 screens) & Reliance Big Cinemas, which came with a whopping 257 screens. Currently, we are having in our kitty, a wealth of solid 325 screens at 118 locations, and a presence across 88 cities in the country. We are confident of crossing 1000+ numbers of screens by 2020.

In terms of number of locations across

India, where are you present?

In terms of cities presence, we are the largest multiplex chain in India. We are present in numbers of cities across India. We are expanding across India, which is an interesting mix of Tier 1, 2 & 3.

Do you have any renovation plans for

your cinemas?

We have already completed renovation of many of our cinemas across multiple locations. The entire renovation is planned in phase-wise format. We should complete the renovation of all numbers of our cinemas by end of March 2017.

What is your approach when it comes to

F&B offerings? Do you have any menu

expansion plans?

We focus a lot on food & beverages. We have already started looking beyond the traditional popcorn & cola (which by the way, is still the most preferred snack

combo). But, customers are changing faster and sooner than expected. Carnival Cinemas has a variety of other offerings such as pasta, baked nachos, kebabs, salads, wraps and other items. In 75 of our cinemas across India, we have a kitchen setup. We make fresh sandwiches, burgers, fries and other savouries. We also hold food festival celebrations at our cinemas across the country, wherein we are giving all the history that is there about the products that the cine-goer is lapping up when visiting us.

What is your revenue mix from tickets

sales vis-a-vis food sales?

23% of our revenue comes from food & beverages, while 70% comes from ticket sale.

Do you have any expansion plans outside

India? Share details.

No comments.

What is your strategy and approach in tier

2 & 3 cities?

We are the largest spread cinema chain in India. We already have a considerable number of cinemas in tier 2&3 towns. At these places, which are very price-sensitive, we target to achieve higher occupancy by employing strategy of lowering the ticket price. Our focus, however, remains on local area sales and our F&B. We budget our expenses accordingly. The maximum use of available resources is the formula we use. We offer safety and quality at affordable price.

Please share your insights on the Indian

multiplex scene.

Most will acknowledge that India lacks good quality cinemas. We are growing, but, not at the pace at which say, China has grown. Despite being the highest in the world with respect to the number of admissions in cinemas, the screens available for the Indian population is still relatively low as compared with other countries. With low screen density and rising ATP, there is a need for urgent and rapid infrastructure growth in multiplex screens. With major cities already covered,

Kunal Sawhney, Vice President – Operations and F&B at Carnival Cinemas tells Anita Rege that not only is garnering customer insights an unceasing exercise at Carnival, but, they are confident of crossing 1000+ screens by 2020:

Kunal Sawhney has observed that regional movies are helping the cinema exhibition business to attract crowds at smaller cities

Carnival’s Growth formula: Smaller cities + F&B


India’s smaller cities are the key to growth. There are, for that matter, many cities with a population of 5 lakhs plus that are still untapped when it comes to quality multiplexes.

What is your analysis of the seeming shift

from national to regional markets?

It isn’t a paradigm shift from national to regional. Undoubtedly, metros dominate the collections and footfalls at first place. But, slowly and steadily, this pattern is changing. Good regional movies are helping the exhibition business to attract the crowd at smaller cities, where English content doesn’t give much returns. There are a lot of new projects coming up at tier 2 & 3 cities identifying the underlying potential. Retail market and real estate industry are exponentially growing here. It is basically the shifting of the old, single-screen model to multiplex model.

Once upon a time, India had 18,000 single screens, which have now, come down to 10,000. From a rare phenomenon of 50-60 multiplex screens, we are now looking at more than 1800 multiplex screens. The real estate value has escalated to a high. It, therefore, gives no visible benefit or returns for single-screen owners to continue as stand-alone theatres. China, on the other hand, has been witnessing substantial and sizeable real estate growth. Whereas, in India, the infrastructure development isn’t growing at as fast a pace as anticipated.

Content has never been a problem for the

multiplex industry. The lacuna appears to

exist in the exhibition space. What are

your views ?

Agree, undisputedly!! Though content has never been a problem, BUT, there is always a scarcity of good content. To cater to this, we do have an option of alternate content during these slack periods, where we give our cinema space for holding conferences or meetings. We also organize special screenings of movies and host film festivals.

One must note that India has approximately only 12,000 screens, as

compared to whopping 31,000 screens in China and 40,000 screens in USA. Another very interesting concern is the tussle for maximum number of screens between two or more big films releasing on the same day. A classic example of an upcoming clash of screens is one between the Ashutosh Gowarikar-directed period movie, ‘Mohenjo Daro’ (starring Hrithik Roshan) versus the Akshay Kumar-starrer, based upon an erstwhile Navy official’s much-talked about legal controversy movie ‘Rustom’, slated for release on 12th August. Also, a little ahead, a conflict is already heating up between the much awaited and talked about SRK-starrer ‘Raees’ and yet-again, Hrithik Roshan-starrer ‘Kaabil in January 2017.

This scenario adversely impacts a) advertisement revenue, b) SPH and c) very importantly, the footfalls for every single exhibitor. The same day release of ‘Dilwale’ and ‘Bajirao Mastani’ on 18th December in 2015 already witnessed this catastrophe. Amongst all this hullabaloo, however, Carnival’s aim is crystal clear: To reach out to the maximum number of cinema goers with the best of the facilities and service standards in the given industry.

How are you gathering customer

insights? What interesting insights have

you gathered recently?

Enhancing customer experience is an integral aspect at Carnival Cinemas. We are in a service industry where customers are at its epitome. Gathering customer feedback is an unceasing exercise for us. Suggestions or feedbacks are mustered via various mediums, say, for instance, online customer satisfaction surveys, support portals, physical feedback forms at our cinemas, mystery audits focusing on customer service parameters and internal corporate programs that garner reviews from our employees. All of these channels are synthesised into a process, mapping and analysing the potential strengths that lie beneath it all, ultimately to advance and enhance the customer experience.

How are you implemeting these insights ?

User-friendly and fast paced online execution, requisitions for regional releases, benefits of continued patronage (loyalty programmes), international standard sound & technology, and, not to forget, our multifarious food offerings are few such insights that birthed and have been corollary with our various sections that succour its implementation. Consumer insights redefine our marketing collaterals aiding ‘What you see is What you Get!’

[email protected]

Carnival Cinema offers a variety of delightful snacks at its kitchen set up outlets at theatres


cover story

Rural India has been going through a lot of stress lately thanks to a combination of factors ranging

from poor rains and crop failure to low farm incomes. A Crisil report shows that for the last 5 years, inflation in rural India is higher than urban India. Specifically, in the 24 months to June 2016, while urban inflation fell from 9% to 5.3% (compared with 2 years prior), rural inflation declined from 10.1% to 6.2%. In fiscal 2016, rural core inflation was 6.7% compared with

4.8% in urban areas. Fuel inflation in rural areas was 6.8%, more than twice the 2.7% in urban areas.

SLOW GROWTH, STRATEGY Mahindra & Mahindra’s rural penetration levels are 40% now and the company plans to increase this to 45% by the end of this fiscal. Pravin Shah, President and Chief Executive, Mahindra & Mahindra, outlines the rural strategy: “Bolero, being my king of rural and semi-urban markets,

was impacted in these markets. Yet, things are a lot better this fiscal with the monsoon on time and the prospects for rural India brightening as a result. We have a robust rural strategy in place and we are a lot more ahead (of rivals). We are also moving at a brisk pace and others will take time to catch up with us.”

Compared to ASEAN countries, penetration of 2-wheelers in rural regions is still low in India; they account for 100 2-wheelers per 1000 population compared

The inflation rate in rural India is reportedly higher than in urban India. In a study on the business scenario in rural markets, Dr Ravi Lalwani traces the sales and marketing initiatives of different brands to have strong presence in rural markets:

cover story

Rural customers take brands on a roller coaster ride… brands on a roller coaster ride…


to 300-400 2-wheelers per 1000 in the ASEAN. Yamaha has sold 60,000 units which it claims is as per its target. In the last two months, the recently launched Saluto RX 110cc has sold 13,000 units averaging sales of 7000-8000 bikes a month. Sanjiv Paul, VP (Manufacturing), India Yamaha Motor, shares his views on low sales in the rural market: “We hope to continue with these numbers. With the monsoon improving, we are bullish about increasing sales in rural India. During the past 2 years, the monsoon was not too good and the rural markets experienced slow growth. Now at the macro level, the situation is improving and we plan to capitalize on it.”

He also spoke about the sales promotion campaigns: “In line with this growth strategy, we plan to expand our reach in rural areas in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh with various sales promotion campaigns including teaching safe riding skills. With an expanded reach, we are optimistic of garnering a larger chunk of Saluto bike sales.”

MARKET FOR BEVERAGESManpasand Beverages primarily focuses on mango-based drinks. Mango Sip, launched in 1997, is the company’s flagship product, contributing 80% to the revenues in FY16. Mango Sip is strategically focused on semi-urban and rural markets; the company derives 55% of its revenues from rural areas, and remaining 20-22% from railways and urban areas.

Says Dhirendra Singh, CMD, Manpasand Beverages: “In terms of strategies, the rural consumers are not very different from urban consumers and with the rising incomes, the gap is slowly diminishing. Keeping this in mind, Manpasand offers fruit drinks in small tetra packs (also known as tetra classic aseptic) of 80-100 ml and pet bottle and tetra pack of 160 ml. The company also invests a lot in maintaining a good relationship with the distributors, who play an important role in promoting the products in the rural and semi-rural markets. We provide

various schemes for the distributors and retailers, in which they are given company visi-coolers and ice boxes for product marketing. Our pricing is also affordable

to our target customers, and that helps us in acquiring customers and retaining them at a lower price point.”

MOTORCYCLES TO SCOOTERS In the recent years, there has been major shift in the 2-wheeler market in rural India. Customers there prefer scooters compared to motorcycles. So there is diversification of sales in the overall rural automobile market of India.

Industry representatives admit that there is some substitution happening in the entry segment. Y.S. Guleria, Senior Vice President – Sales and Marketing, Honda Motorcycle & Scooters India says: “The trend is visible. It is not only higher powered-bikes, but also improving penetration of automatic scooters, which is a reason for reducing contribution of entry-level bikes. Due to limited disposable incomes, families in rural areas can’t afford multiple vehicles. Hence, an automatic scooter fits well for both male and female members of the family. Also, improving education levels among women and better motorable roads are driving the penetration of scooters in rural areas. However, the rural youth is increasingly looking for stylish and powerful bikes and may shift from 100cc bikes to 125cc or 150cc bikes.”

Eric Vas, President-Motorcycles, Bajaj Auto, also acknowledges that some substitution is happening in the entry segment. But, it is incorrect to say that it is due to scooters. According to him, they do not compete with entry-level bikes. “100-cc bikes sell mostly in a particular rural market. Since that market has been under stress, it has impacted the sales of entry-level bikes.”

Subrata Ray, ICRA’s Group Vice-President, points out that the shift from 75-110cc segment to 110-125cc category is mainly in the urban canters: “The same has not been significant enough to cause demand pressure in the entry segment which continues to be hurt by weakness in rural demand.”

Pradeep Thampy, Commercial Director at Michelin Tyres India, comments on the

Sameer Malhotra advocates direct marketing channels to reach rural customers

Ashish Agarwal outlines the company’s emphasis on special products to tap the rural market


cover story

change in demand of the rural customers: “In the initial years, there was huge demand for motor cycle tyres in the rural parts of India due to the large presence of motor cycles in the rural market. But this has changed now, due to the good road conditions. There has been rise in demand for scooters and consequently for scooter tyres.” He is of the view that the picture of rural India is changing because of the prosperity of agriculturists. He says the company is strengthening its distribution channels in the rural markets.

It is to be seen whether the positive impact of monsoon and new product launches will help revive the segment. Else, a clear signal may emerge on the shift.

BENIFICAL COVERS Bajaj Allianz General Insurance mainly offers crop and livestock insurance

products in the rural market. The crop

insurance portfolio h a s g r o w n significantly in the last 3 years , whi le the livestock

p o r t f o l i o i s quite stable. The

company has been successfully fulfilling

the rural and social sector obligations as per IRDA regulations. Ashish Agarwal, Head - Agri Business at Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, says: “In FY 2015-16, we covered over 5 lakh social sector members against the obligation of 55,000. As far as rural business is concerned, the premium generated through it was 7.26% of the total business generated by the company, as against the minimum obligation of 7%.”

The company is also participating in the newly-launched crop insurance scheme of the central government - the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana - and aims to insure 5 million farmers this year. “We are making farmers aware about the new crop insurance product through personal meetings and print media, radio, hoardings,

street plays and local announcements. This would help increase our sales in the rural market apart from ensuring that a large section of farmers is brought under the ambit of insurance” he said.

DEMAND & PREFERENCES Shriram Automall, since its inception in 2011, has focused on rural India. With its extensive presence in rural areas, it receives more than 20% of its business from tier 2 & 3 cities. It generates a major chunk of its business in cities like Trichy, Madurai, Pondicherry, Salem, Tirunelveli, Coimbatore, Vijayawada, Warangal, Visakhapatnam, Hubli, Nellore, Patancheru and Rajahmundry. There is good demand for agricultural equipment, passenger vehicles and 2-wheelers in these cities.

Says Sameer Malhotra, CEO, Shriram Automall: “Customers from the rural areas or tier 2 & 3 cities are more rigid on the choice of vehicle they want. They prefer to communicate in their regional language and take time in deciding the vehicle of their choice. They consider price as one of the most important factors before buying a

vehicle. Majority of vehicles they demand are tractors and passenger vehicles.”

According to him, direct marketing is one of the most successful ways of reaching people in the rural areas. “Calling them to inform about a bidding event is often a rewarding experience. Our other marketing activities include distribution of company handbills through local newspapers, company promotion through canopy at major markets. Details of the events are communicated through SMS and e-mail to the customers.”

According to Kamal Nandi, Executive Vice President at Godrej Appliances, the offtake of premium products will be more this year as purchasing power of consumers is expected to grow. “While the rural market will see consumption of necessities after 2 years of drought, urban areas will see consumption for lifestyle enhancement,” says he.

MOBILE ACTIVE CUSTOMERS According to NSSO data, people of rural India spend most on the use of mobile phones and telephones among all services, accounting for 25.33%. This is followed by beauty services at 11.07% and other services, including TV and radio services,

tailoring, repair and maintenance, etc. Rural domestic households

also spend 44.71% of their overall expenditure on

consumer durables or vehicles.

In terms of Monthly Per Capita Expenditure ( M P C E ) a l s o , t h e

highest amount went to communication services -

`36.35 in rural and `102.46 in urban areas. The rural-urban gap has

closed when it comes to communication services. While people in the villages spend about 25.33% of their budget on this, urban families are marginally ahead at 26.33%. So brands in India should focus on mobility channels to reach out their customers in rural areas. It will provide them better reach to target their customers.

[email protected]

Kamal Nandi reveals the need for necessities and lifestyle enhancement

Pravin Shah, President and Chie

f Exe

cutiv

e, M

ah

ind

ra &

Mah

indra

Pradeep Thampy, Commercial D

irect

or a

t M

ich

elin

Tyr

es

Indi

a

Mutual Funds


Indian mutual funds’ assets under management (AUM) decreased from a record high of `14.22 trillion in April

2016 to `13.82 trillion in May 2016, registering a decline of 2.8%, according to data from AMFI. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company is one of the largest AMCs in the country with AUM of `1.79 trillion and contrary to market trends, it has witnessed substantial growth in scale - from 2 locations and 6 employees at the inception of the joint venture in 1998, to the current strength of around 1100 employees with a reach across 140 locations reaching out to an investor base of more than 3 million.

Managing money in fiduciary capacity is a huge responsibility and a fund house doing well is bound to attract more investments. Nimesh Shah, MD & CEO of ICICI Prudential AMC, feels it is important to create a long term track record to ensure trust of investors and distributors. “In fact, we call it trust record rather than track record,” he articulates.

Consistently beating benChmarksThe asset base of equity mutual funds of the industry increased 14% yoy to `3.7 lakh crore at the end of May 2016 as retail investors chose to put their money into these schemes. In May, equity and equity-linked saving schemes saw fund infusion of `4471 crore, the highest in 6 months. In April 2016, the asset base of equity MFs stood at `3.57 lakh crore. What sets ICICI Prudential AMC apart is the consistency it has shown in beating benchmarks. All its equity schemes under management have beaten the respective benchmarks across various time frames. Claims Shah: “In fact, we are the first ones to launch clearly defined defensive suite of products which are impacted less when equity markets fall. Such products have been well received by distributors and advisors.”

right thingsICICI Prudential AMC has consistently offered the right products at the right time, making right macro calls and helping investors allocate to asset classes which are expected to do well whenever there is a major shift in the macro-economy. Here are some examples:

In 2011-12, it was observed that India’s current account deficit and fiscal deficit were significantly high and that the US dollar would strengthen against other currencies. “This placed tremendous stress on rupee-dollar exchange which meant export-oriented and import substitution companies would do well,” says Shah. “We, therefore, turned overweight on these sectors in 2011. Correspondingly, we reduced exposure to banking sector because a weak rupee tightens liquidity conditions thereby affecting banking sector. The strategy didn’t work well initially, but played out during the later part of 2011-12.”

Again, in October 2013, equities presented a good opportunity because valuations were at a level 12-14 times PE of one-year forward earnings. Shah explains: “With stock markets, particularly midcaps turning quite inexpensive, we launched Value Fund Series. This conviction paid off well as they were well received and helped retail investors look at equities as an asset class favourably once again.” The ICICI Prudential Balanced Advantage Fund from our stable has seen the corpus surge from ̀ 250 crore in 2013 to `11,465.64 crore in 2016.”

long termShah says the need of the hour is to move away from selecting products based on short-term performance and look at important parameters like fund house pedigree, consistent long-term performance and risk management. “We are making a sincere effort to move investors towards right funds at right time. Retail investors often tend to look at the past performance. While past performance is only a threshold for selecting funds, concept selling drives investors to the right product for next 2-3 years,” he avers.

Core teamICICI Prudential AMC has aligned the strategies of funds to the investing styles of fund managers. Shah explains: “For instance, while executive director, Sankaran Naren’s style is top-down, contrarian and value oriented, deputy CIO, Equity, Manish Gunwani’s is growth style and focus on management and numbers, while deputy CIO, Equity, Mrinal Singh insists on less concentration, diverse portfolio and capability to pick value stocks. With this process, they have ensured sharper and focused investment products that cover all the different shades of the market.”

[email protected]

Right products at right timeNimesh Shah, MD & CEO, ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company, spells out the success mantra of the company:

nimesh shah asserts that the need of the hour is to move away from selecting products based on short-term performance

Case study


Myntra is a leading fashion and lifestyle e-tailer, now owned by Flipkart. Last year Myntra

shut its desktop and mobile websites and attempted to sell merchandise only through its app. However, it realised that customers were using multiple devices. So it relaunched its website, though it remains a mobile-first company. App and mobile web contribute 85 percent of Myntra’s revenue.

When Myntra launched its app, it faced the typical challenges: users downloaded the app, browsed the store but did not purchase anything. And there were users who purchased once but did not buy anything after that – or did not use the app. These are what are known as “dormant” users. Myntra also wanted to up-sell and cross-sell products to existing customers. In addition, users were turning off push notifications from the app. Driving discovery for apps is also a major challenge and it relies heavily on (in-app) advertising; heaps of marketing dollars are spent on advertising, yet the ROAS (Return on Advertisement Spending) can be low. ROAS is a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) used to determine media effectiveness for e-commerce companies and measures how many dollars you get back on each dollar spent on advertising.

INCREMENTAL SALES There were 2 main business goals:

reactivate dormant users who had not made a purchase in the last 7 days. And secondly, re-target all mobile users based on previous shopping behavior. This would drive incremental sales from app users across shopping seasons.

Myntra turned to the InMobi remarketing platform to achieve these goals.

InMobi is a global mobile advertising and discovery platform. The platform

combines the power of big data analytics, creative design and powerful back-end integrations to deliver personalized shopping experiences on mobile apps. The remarketing platform also helps advertisers activate users by nudging them to make their first purchase, re-target existing users to drive incremental sales and to re-activate dormant mobile users. The solution also extends itself seamlessly to support other mobile-first businesses such as on-demand services, travel, news and entertainment apps, to maximize engagement and revenues.

GOAL-1: REACTIvATE dORMANT uSERS InMobi targeted specific segments of dormant customers, created based on historic purchase behavior and user-product affinity. Shoppers were classified into various ‘shopper’ segments including apparel shoppers, footwear shoppers, accessory shoppers, merchandise shoppers, and also demographic segments. InMobi showcased curated collections for shopping seasons in full-screen interstitial, native, and floating banner formats, within the app. This helped in re-activating dormant Myntra app users on Android smartphones with dynamic propositions that brought the best of Myntra to them.

GOAL-2: dRIvE INCREMEN-TAL SALES fROM ExISTING

Retargeting helps Myntra grow transactions 3xInMobi’s solution helped Myntra bring back dormant users and increase transactions. A report:

Ananth Narayanan acknowledges the improvements in Myntra’s remarketing campaigns after deploying InMobi’s remarkeing platform


Arun Pattabhiraman wants InMobi’s remarketing platform to showcase a curated collection of products to users through their apps

CuSTOMERSInMobi re-targeted all Myntra app users on Android and iOS smartphones with highly personalized, curated product recommendations based on their previous shopping activity. This enabled Myntra to complete pending purchases, cross-sell and up-sell products based on specific actions such as: • Products and categories browsed• Add-to-Cart• Add-to-Wishlist

Users clicking on the ad were directly deep-linked into the product detail page within Myntra’s app. The re-targeting campaign was then consistently optimized for performance goals.

ELEMENTS Of RE-MARkETINGCommenting on the strength of the re-marketing solution, Arun Pattabhiraman, Global Head of Marketing at InMobi, said: “We understand a user’s preferences and behavior really well, as we see them multiple times in a day, across thousands of apps that are integrated with InMobi. InMobi’s remarketing platform leverages this understanding to showcase a curated collection of products to the user on apps that they spend the maximum time on. However, delivering an ad is only half of the challenge. Leveraging that opportunity to drive a transaction is more challenging.”

Arun revealed the way to do this: “To make this magic happen, the remarketing platform needs to get 3 elements of entire workflow right: Relevance (delivered through sharper targeting

and personalization), the ad experience (enabled through an engaging ad format such as video or native ads), and seamless transaction fulfillment (delivered through in-app deep links).”

To explain this, he gave an example: A user might be playing a game, and the Myntra ad could appear in between 2 levels of the game, showcasing a carousel of curated products that (s)he likes, along with a personalized discount to offer – all without interrupting the user’s in-game experience. When the user clicks the buy

button on the ad, the user is taken directly to the exact product detail page within the Myntra app through a deep-link, and can complete the transaction within a few clicks, as (s)he is already logged in.

Summing it up Arun said: “The idea is to create an ad experience that mimics the environment of the retailer’s app.”

SOARING TRANSACTIONSAfter deploying the remarketing solution, Myntra observed that the number of transactions via the shopping app increased to more than 1,000 a day, that’s a 3x growth in transactions, month-on-month. The average order value was $25 (approximately `1,675). Myntra also appreciated that the ROAS reached a factor of 7.

Arjun Choudhary, Associate Vice President - Head Growth & Sales, Myntra, said: “InMobi’s remarketing platform (powered by Miip), has delivered good results for Myntra’s mobile remarketing campaigns. The innovative creatives showcasing curated apparel collections for our customers have seen a positive impact on the ROI of the campaigns. The team has been instrumental in driving the improvements. We look forward to strengthening and scaling our relationship with InMobi as a strategic partner.”

Ananth Narayanan, Chief Executive Officer, Myntra said: “We have seen a real improvement in our re-marketing campaigns since leveraging InMobi’s re-marketing platform powered by Miip.”

[email protected]

PresentsFrontiers In Cooperative Banking Awards

FCBA2016

date : 17-18 September 2016venue : Pride Plaza Hotel, Aerocity, New Delhi

Over 40 topics, Over 50 speakers

Participants : Over 400 Chairmen, Directors, CEOs, GM and IT Heads of Cooperative Banks


retail business

Ravi: How is big-data helping Croma in

engaging with its customers?

Maneesh Mittal: The use of transactional consumer behavior and click-stream analytics have been evolving at Croma over the last couple of years. Today, we are able to micro-segment our customers, better than we have done in the past. We are able to provide much more personalized offers to our customers.

Our award winning ‘My Wish’ campaign for Diwali 2015 is a stellar example about the use of big-data for customer engagement. In ‘My Wish’ campaign we not only provided customized offers to our customers on their desire electronic products, but also engaged with them through a personalized and interactive digital catalogue.

How was the data about the customer’s

desires for the My Wish campaign

collected?

The data about the customer’s desires for the My Wish campaign was collected by asking earlier customers of Croma, as well as those of our strategic partners, to share their dream products for Diwali. The communication was done through emails and SMS, providing the recipients with a digital form on our website to provide their inputs. Based on their responses,

we created customized offers for each of the customers through our My Wish campaign.

How were the micro segments created?

We create segments through detailed insight analysis of the vast volumes of data

collected through our store transactions as well as the online click-stream data. The micro segments themselves vary based on the nature of insights. For instance, some of the micro segments are created around the nature of products and brands purchased by customers, others based on the latency between purchases, and still others based on the nature of activities on the website and in-store. For instance, visitors who land on Croma.com through product pages and spend time researching on products form part of one type of cluster (which is then divided further by category), while customers who land on the home page and start their research journey from there form an entirely different cluster.

At what level are you getting the most

meaningful output from big-data -

individual or store or city or state?

Our in-sighting process utilizes a wide set of data cuts, as different decisions require different types of data analysis. Aggregated analytics at geographical levels (city and store) are part of the operational decision making process for store assortment ranging and promotions, whereas overall assortment and pricing require a deeper analysis of product performance across the country. However, in recent efforts, we have also improved our

Big-data driving Croma towards ‘Segment of One’In a discussion with Dr. Ravi Lalwani, Maneesh Mittal Head - eCommerce & Big-Data at Infiniti Retail (Croma) speaks about the use of click-stream analysis, behavior segmentation of the customers and online sales:

Maneesh Mittal is delighted to see big data help Croma improve its ability to drill down to smaller customer segments that are unified by their behavioral patterns

retail business


ability to drill down to smaller customer segments, which are unified by their behavioral patterns, rather than only by demographic parameters. As we continue this journey, we endeavor to increase our focus on the ‘Segment of One’, where we are able to cater each individual customer uniquely.

What are the limitations of big-data in

giving meaningful results? How are you

managing those limitations?

When we had started our big-data journey, the first challenge we had faced was more organizational - differentiating between the roles of big-data and data analytics. While the former is an enabler of the latter, data analytics needs to be carried on by each function within the organization to deliver more meaningful outcomes.

Having clearly carved out the initial objectives of big-data, we then had to make an active choice between what elements of the big-data eco-system were to be outsourced and which capabilities created within the organization. We are currently deploying various pilots in specific areas in order to ensure that we can start building meaningful outcomes. The initial feed of historical data (from various systems, and hence in significantly varied structures) into big-data tools is a key limitation, that we are currently grappling with.

What have you done lately to fine tune

your big-data setup?

Our click-stream data is currently the most used part of the big-data set-up. During the recent migration of our eCommerce site (www.croma.com) to the Hybris platform, we have also brought in a lot more granularity to the click-stream implementation - creating a much larger

set of events, and tagging greater details of the consumer’s on-site behavior.

We have optimized the click-stream currently through Google Analytics, and are now in the process of doing the same for our IBM Digital Analytics tool. We are also on boarding IBM SilverPop as our email messaging tool, and are currently deploying a unified data exchange mechanism to ensure seamless flow of click-stream data, events and triggers across the various tools.

What is the size of your human team that

handles big-data? What change do you

expect in the next 12 months?

As we are in the initial stage for setting up the big-data set up in our organization, we have a dedicated person driving the initiative, supported by a large number of team-members from across different functions in the organization. The large number of team member helps the dedicated person in data handling and vendor evaluation activities. In the coming years, we will increase our team size to start our in-house data science capabilities for better leveraging the partner tools.

What is your approach towards

unstructured data, particularly social

media data?

Social media data serves as a source of rich profile data about our customers. Within the boundaries of what our customers permit us to access, we see great potential in further enriching customer experience through personalization based on data from such sources, in addition to our own inherent data.

Do you find sentiment analysis to be

useful? What sentiments have come up

that have led to business opportunities

and threats?

We still have not applied big-data to sentiment analysis. But we are currently using traditional analytics across our Net Promoter Score (NPS) responses, which tend to provide us some early sentiment analysis within our customer base. Over the last few months, this has allowed us to identify areas where our customers wanted to see Croma deliver better, and then track the impact of our change initiatives in the changing customer sentiment as our NPS scores continuously improved.

Croma is planning to expand its online

presence and sell its products across

leading marketplaces such as Flipkart,

Amazon and Snapdeal. Share some

details of your tie-ups with the e-tailers.

Currently what is your percentage of

online sales?

Market places serve as the digital equivalent of shopping malls. We have entered into a tie-up with SnapDeal, and now we are closely working with Amazon to range a wide set of products.

Strategically, our entire assortment is also available on TataCliq through a featured store front. As the first truly omni-channel retailer in India, we are also able to offer our online customers the best of both worlds, being able to discover and buy products online while experiencing or picking-up the product at our stores.

While our online sales are in single digit percentage of Croma’s overall sales, we aim to see online sales as one of the important contributor in the overall sales of the company. It will also help us to drive digitally influenced foot-falls to our brick and mortar stores.

[email protected]

emerging trend


Indian customers like to watch videos, they like information to be presented in a short and interesting way, so they

can watch it in their preferred screens. In March 2016, India’s online video viewership stood at 81.7 million viewers, while total time spent on videos was 23.3 billion minutes.

AnAlytiCs bAsed video mArketing Video analytics has been pioneer to the brands in the developed economies like US, UK and Australia. In India, analytics focused video marketing is still new. However, with the rapid growth in internet penetration in the country, companies have started to realize the importance of utilizing data and stats to reach a larger audience.

Vidooly, a Noida based start-up company, provides video analytics and marketing service to its clients, which helps them to understand their audience better and scale their video business. The company has a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) based business model that charges customers monthly subscription fees based on the number of channels they have. Subrat Kar, Co-founder and CEO, Vidooly Media Tech, commented: “We provide our services to media companies like T Series, India TV, Zee TV, etc, and new age tech startups like OLX, Myntra, etc. These companies are focusing on video marketing.”

He further commented on the video ads used by the Indian government: “Interestingly, the government of India has also started running video ads on Youtube. Most of the major departments have their own Youtube channels. I am happy to see that this government has right digital strategy.”

digitAl v/s trAditionAl video Ads Video advertising in digital channels is completely different from the traditional TV ads. But telecom majors like Airtel and many other brands of the country are still not giving enough attention to this aspect. Subrat shares his views on the comparison between digital and traditional video advertisements: “Most of the brands in the country use the same ads in TV and digital platforms; however it won’t help the brands to prosper. For example, if you measure the stats of Airtel’s ads on Youtube - most of them are disliked more than they’re liked. People just get pissed off when they see the same advertisement

on the internet. Google India’s latest ad on Bollywood is a great example of how a brand should actually run video ads on digital channels.”

WhAt brAnds expeCt There are many people connected via internet in India and some of the brands get confused by getting huge amount of customer behavior data. Subrat commented on the targeted visibility: “Targeted visibility is the main requirement by most of our clients. In simple words - showing the right video to the right person is necessary for companies to increase their brand presence. Brands can expect more eyeballs since people like watching videos these days. People don’t really have the patience to read a long article on a website; they prefer to watch a video.”

AdvAnCes in video AnAlytiCsFew years ago there were not many video focused platforms available for the marketers. Online videos were mainly dominated by Youtube, but now almost every social platform wants to focus more on videos for example Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. So nowadays there is more customer behavior data available for the marketers to understand the needs of the customers and plan their strategy accordingly. Live video streaming is another area that is picking steam. Subrat said: “Digital advertising will account for 12.7% of all ads spending in 2016, up from 9.9% in 2015. So there is a huge amount of money being invested in this segment. And internet connection in the country is also set to cross 400 million. That’s more than the entire population of the US, so there is good opportunity for video marketing in India.”

[email protected]

video advertising = tv advertisingThe estimated digital ad spending in India for 2016 is around `57,000 crore. In an interaction with Dr. Ravi Lalwani, Subrat Kar, Co-founder & CEO, Vidooly Media Tech shares the details about the video marketing and analytics market in India.

subrat kar gives a clear message that viewers do not want to see the same ads on the Internet that they see on TV

ReseaRch news - fitness bands


As per Mintel, sales of fitness bands shot up 118% in 2015 in Great Britain. Whilst smartwatch sales are set to soar in 2016, the fitness band was the most bought wearable

device in 2015, out-stripping smartwatches by almost 2:1. In 2015, 63% of wrist-worn wearable devices sold were fitness bands, compared to 37% for smartwatches. In 2014 smartwatches accounted for just 9% of sales, compared to fitness bands which made up 91% of unit sales. Currently, the number of consumers intending to purchase a smartwatch is nearly on par with fitness bands. 9% of Brits say they plan to buy or upgrade to a new fitness band within the next 12 months, compared to 8% who say the same of smartwatches. Technology analysts at Mintel say while fitness bands are, on average, less expensive than other wearables and have been on the market for relatively longer, higher adoption rates are also a reflection of the fact that wrist-worn devices offer a compelling practical benefit to active users.

Fitness bands sales in Great Britain up 118%

As per the International Data Corporation (IDC), India’s wearable market clocked just over 400,000 units in Q1 2016, largely driven by fitness bands with 87.7% market share

and Xiaomi and GoQii dominating the market. A rapid adoption in all categories of smart wearables is expected. The market is forecast to evolve on numerous parameters such as price, product features and target segments. Among vendors, Xiaomi was the topper in Q1 2016 with 27.1% market share, steered by the success of its affordable fitness tracker Mi Band. Xiaomi was followed by GoQii at 18.1% market share. GoQii’s fitness trackers sold well because of their unique access to a personal trainer with every band. Fitbit’s relatively higher prices have impacted its Indian market. This global leader enjoys the 3rd spot in India with 6.2% market share. The success of Gear S2 helped Samsung become the most successful smart wearable brand in India in Q1 2016 and gain overall 4th position with 2.5% market share.

Technology analysts NPD Group predict the fitness tracker industry to race at a CAGR of 27.05% and almost triple from $2 billion in 2014 to $5.4 billion by 2019. In 2013,

15 million people were already using health and fitness wearables. The number of users is expected to increase to almost 100 million in 2018. The most popular devices are exercise equipment with built-in app support and digital pedometers with wireless connectivity. In 2015, the unit sale of health and fitness trackers touched 4.9 million in Asia Pacific, while they grew from 4 million in 2014 to 7.1 million in 2015 in Western Europe. North America witnessed their unit sale expanding to 8.5 mn in 2015 from 4.1 mn in 2014. In the medical field, biomedical startups such as Ybrain, which makes wearables for Alzheimer’s patients or Soterix Medical, a specialist in non-invasive neuromodulation and brain stimulation technology, are competing for market share with their products.

Fitness bands drive 87.7% of Indian wearable market

By 2019, fitness trackers to triple jump to $5.4 billion

In a 2015 market research survey in the US, PwC found that 45% users own a fitness band, while only 12% of device owners possess smart clothing, a newer entry to the

wearables category. Smart watch ownership followed fitness bands at 27% of wearable device owners. An increase in purchases of smartwatches across the US is also predicted alongside the expected surge in ownership of fitness trackers. In a 2015 study, the Consumer Technology Association found that of the 74% of US internet users who intended to buy a fitness device in the next 12 months, the smart watch topped the to-purchase list at 35% over a fitness app, wearable fitness device and smart apparel. Fitness-band maker Jawbone and American Express plan to allow cardholders to buy goods using a future fitness band equipped with NFC.

Fitness bands are the top wearable in US

ReseaRch news - wateR


A Technavio report titled ‘Global Bottled Water Market 2015-2019’ says the still unflavored segment leads the market share by nearly

70%. The global bottled water consumption is expected to grow steadily at 7% CAGR during the forecast period. While the Americas have been dominating the global market since 2014, APAC is predicted to lead the bottled water market share by the end of the analysis period. In 2013, the global bottled water market by product was dominated by still bottled water at 64.9% of the overall share, followed by carbonated bottled water at 22.9% market share.

According to a TechSci Research report titled ‘Global Water Purifiers Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2020’, the global water purifiers market is projected to grow at more than 16%

CAGR during 2015-20. The rise in demand for water purifiers over the next 5 years is driven by deteriorating water quality and high amount of dissolved solids. Majority of the global demand for water purifiers emanates from Asia Pacific. On account of low pricing and satisfactory purification rate, media based water purifiers/filters are the most preferred. Growing health concerns and increasing disposable income are driving consumers to graduate towards membrane based water purifiers.

Still unflavored bottled water leads at 70%

According to a report from the Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting (GOIC), the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) bottled water market is set to

expand 50% to 21 million liters by 2020. The report suggests GCC producers will need to invest heavily in new facilities and new source of water to meet the rising demand, estimated at 6-7% a year until the end of the decade. It adds in 2013, GCC residents consumed around 14.1 billion liters of bottled water, of which around 98% was locally produced.

GCC bottled water market to expand 50% by 2020

According to a Technavio report titled ‘Global Bottled Water Market 2015-2019’, the sparkling flavored bottled water segment is expected

to grow fastest during 2015-2019. It estimates the bottled water market in APAC to grow at a CAGR of 12.21% and 9.46%, in terms of revenue and volume, over the forecast period. The global bottled water market has seen robust growth in recent years due to rise in concern for health and wellness coupled with new packaging initiatives, water flavors and vitamin rich water. China, India, Thailand, Indonesia and Japan are expected to be the chief contributors to this growth.

Sparkling flavored bottled water to grow fastest

Global water purifiers market to grow 16%

RESEARCH nEwS - LoCkS


In a report titled ‘Global Smart Lock Market 2016-2020’, Technavio analysts expect the global smart lock market to grow at a tremendous CAGR of 75.26% and reach $6217

million by 2020. The Americas are the largest market for smart locks with a market share of close to 54% and will continue to dominate the market over the next 4 years. Maximum growth is anticipated in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in India, China and Japan. The global market will expand at a stable rate in other regions of the world as a result of a decelerating worldwide economy in these regions. With advances in technology, commercial buildings are expected to prefer cost-efficient access control systems (including smart locks) to enhance physical security, ensuring easy accessibility for employees.

According to a Technavio report titled ‘Global Smart Lock Market 2016-2020’, the Americas are the largest market for smart locks with a market share of close to 54%

and will continue to dominate the global market over the next 4 years. The smart lock market in the Americas is booming primarily due to the high demand emerging from countries such as the US and Canada. North America is likely to experience demand from the non-residential customers such as the hospitality industry. For countries in Latin America, the demand for smart locks is expected to increase with economic liberalization, greater operation of foreign corporations, growth in the real-estate sector, and increased spending on security equipment, given a relatively high crime rate.

Smart lock market to unlock 75.26% CAGR

Americas to dominate, courtesy booming demand

The Technavio ‘Global Smart Lock Market 2016-2020’ report says highly developed industrialized nations in Western Europe are increasingly demanding smart locks.

Also, the smart lock market in Eastern Europe is expected to grow due to major changes in its economic system. Declining prices of devices will be responsible for driving the market growth. Many vendors are developing innovative and highly secure connected home devices that provide enhanced security for customer data and are also offering customized access and control systems to meet the specific needs of end-users. Despite the setback due to the Euro zone economic crisis, the demand for smart locks is gradually emerging from the real-estate sector in Europe and smart lock vendors are increasingly focusing on catering to these demands.

Technavio’s ‘Global Smart Lock Market 2016-2020’ report predicts the APAC region to post a whopping CAGR of over 82% by 2020. The region is still unexplored and

offers a substantial growth opportunity for the smart lock market. Demand for smart locks is mostly seen from China, Australia and South-East Asia, with China being the major contributor along with India, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Following the increased entry of tourists and the rise in start-ups that function as aggregators for rentals in APAC, the need for security has increased considerably. As the security provided by these monitoring solutions is strong and can prevent accidents at residences, the adoption rate of these smart locks in residences is high, especially in China and Japan. However, the market is still expected to pick up pace in India in due course.

Growing demand from industrialized Europe

APAC to post a CAGR of over 82%

ReseaRch news - BaBY caRe


As per an Infiniti Research report titled ‘Global Online Baby Products Retailing Market 2016-2020’ the APAC region is expected to witness the fastest growth

in online baby products retailing in 2016-2020 and continue its dominance until 2020. The report informs that in 2015, the APAC region dominated the online baby products retailing market owing to factors such as a rise in the number of internet users, growth in disposable income and increasing participation of women in the workforce. It adds that the majority of the total revenue of the online baby products retailing market emerges from seasonal sales and advises vendors to keep updating themselves with the latest fashion trends. It says further that pricing and alluring distribution strategies, along with effective service offerings by vendors will likely play a significant role in driving the growth of the market over the next 5 years. The report adds that however, intense competition and changes in consumer preferences constitute significant risks for vendors, which might curtail the growth of the market.

APAC to grow fastest in online baby products retailing

A Technavio research report titled ‘Global Baby Stroller and Pram Market 2016-2020’ predicts 3-wheeler baby strollers will grow fastest during 2016-2020.

According to the report, although 2015 witnessed the dominance of the comfort strollers segment with more than 37% share, the 3-wheeler strollers segment is gaining traction and will register fastest growth. It estimates the said growth will occur thanks to rising standards of product quality, changing lifestyles, rising demand for multifunctional and convenient baby travel gear and decreasing price amongst the target population.

A Technavio research report titled ‘Global Baby Car Seat Market 2016-2020’ reveals that the market will witness a huge demand for baby car seats from

China and Japan during 2016-2020 due to the growing initiatives taken by the respective governments of the countries in promoting safety regulations for babies. Technavio’s research analysts predict the global baby car seat market to grow at 5% CAGR during the forecast period. The report says the market in Europe and North America is developed, whereas, the baby car seat market in the APAC and Rest Of World (ROW) is still at the nascent stage, thus showing great potentiality for market growth. It further states that in the last decade, developing countries have witnessed rapid urbanization, leading to an increase in disposable income and dual earning. This growth in urbanization, both in developed and developing nations, is one major factor elevating the growth of the baby car seat market.

3-wheeler baby strollers to grow fastest during 2016-2020

Huge demand for baby car seats in Japan and China

According to an Infiniti Research report titled ‘Global Online Baby Products Retailing Market 2016-2020’, the car gear segment, which includes products such as car seats, strollers and

prams and walkers, was the largest revenue contributor to the online baby products retailing market in 2015. As per the report, of all the products, car seats are the most widely used product. This is because this market is driven by mandatory laws introduced by governments in countries such as the US, Germany, Italy, Australia, Austria, Canada, New Zealand, Spain and the UK, that require the mandatory use of car seats while traveling. The Infiniti report states the car gear segment is poised to witness consistent growth in the next 5 years.

Car gear for babies largest revenue contributor

newS - luxury market


An Assocham study says the Indian luxury market is poised to expand 5-fold in next 3 years and the number of millionaires

expected to multiply 3 times in another 5 years. Increasing brand awareness and growing purchasing power of the upper class in tier 2 & 3 Indian cities will enable the Indian luxury market to cross $18.3 billion by 2016 from the current $14.7 billion growing at a 25% CAGR. 5-star hotels, fine-dining, electronic gadgets, luxury personal care and jewelry performed well in 2015 and are predicted to grow by 30-35% by 2019. Luxury cars, mainly SUVs, will grow 18-20% driven by consumption in smaller towns and cities. Consumption of branded wine is expected to soar over 30% in the metro cities. PE investments in the luxury segment are also expected to increase. High internet penetration across tier-II & III cities and high disposable income shall lead to approx 100 million transactions on the internet by 2020, generating manifold luxury consumption.

Indian luxury market to expand 5 fold by 2019

IHS Automotive forecasts Luxury vehicle sales in India will more than double by 2020. In 2015, luxury vehicle sales in the country

grew 6.4% yoy and stood at 35,300 units. With significant volumes being added by both existing players and new entrants, 87,300 luxury vehicles are expected to be sold by 2020. The market will see a wider participation of luxury brands in the next 5 years, even though traditional leaders are expected to maintain their position. Important entrants will be Lexus, Infiniti and Genesis. Despite a wider participation by other luxury brands, the 3 German brands are expected to control more than 80% of the Indian luxury vehicle market in 2020, thanks to competitive advantage of increasing product localization.

Luxury car sales to double by 2020

A Transparency Market Research report titled ‘Global Luxury Goods Market - Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast -

2014 - 2020’ pegs the global luxury goods market to post a modest 3.4% CAGR through 2020. While the market was valued at $296.1 billion in 2013, it is forecast to stand at $374.85 billion by end 2020. Europe is the largest luxury goods market, trailed by North America. Europe’s leading position can be credited to its massive travel retail network and profusion of duty-free shops. While penetration of luxury brands is high in the developed countries, the same cannot be said of emerging nations in Asia-Pacific or the RoW. However, much of the growth seen in the global luxury goods market will come from the emerging countries. Countries that luxury goods brands are recommended to focus on include UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Thailand, South Africa, Brazil, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Global luxury goods market to post 3.4% CAGR to 2020

ReseaRch news - BcG


According to a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study, a powerful new tool - Street-Level Segmentation - makes targeting market segments at a street-by-

street level not only possible, but, much easier and potentially highly profitable. In developing economies, including some very large markets such as India and China, targeting small market segments is increasingly being adopted and proving to be a successful marketing strategy. In emerging markets, conventional city-by-city measures, such as population and per capita income, are becoming less important in identifying high-potential markets. The street-smart sales strategy, on the other hand, involves developing street-by-street insights. It aims to get inside India’s countless neighborhoods and determine what types of people live in each one, who visits every day for work or other purposes, what they are likely to buy and why and how well their needs are being met. Marketers found this kind of analysis a difficult challenge and street-level segmentation emerged as the popular and preferred marketing approach for businesses across verticals.

BCG enumerates multiple advantages that Street level segmentation (SLS) enjoys over traditional marketing approach: 1) Companies can identify

high-potential markets rather than approaching each city as one large, homogenous market. 2) SLS facilitates more precise identification of target groups and aids in creating more accurate retail and distribution strategies. 3) SLS allows companies to distinguish highly competitive areas from those where competition is less intense. 4) SLS can also have a tangible impact on business development costs. 5) Marketers can employ multiple applications for many businesses. 6) Companies can allocate sales territories on a street-level basis, aligning targets with each territory’s potential and assigning relevant and achievable targets to sales representatives. 7) Companies can calculate the market potential by using relevant proxies. 8) Companies can determine the channel mix more precisely than at a citywide level. 9) SLS can show companies where to open stores and how many would be needed to penetrate high-potential areas. 10) Companies can decide which SKUs to push in different street-segmented markets based on more accurate predictions of what is likely to sell. 11) Just as digital technology allows companies to send targeted ads to specific consumers, street-segmented data enables companies to plan below-the-line marketing efforts.

BCG launches SLS

BCG enumerates advantages of SLS

BCG says a market segmented according to the street-level strategy is much more precise: it is a single area, typically about 2-3 square

km in size, with a demographically and economically homogeneous population. It may contain no catchment and neighborhood areas or it may contain several. Street-segmented markets generally fall into 3 categories: 1) Work-intensive areas that consist primarily of commercial and industrial facilities, 2) Residential-intensive areas that contain mostly housing, and 3) Shopping-intensive areas with a heavy retail presence. Within each type of market are concentrations of residents, regular visitors, or employees of interest to particular companies. A marketer of premium goods, such as fashion or high-end electronics, will find a street-segmented market of high-income residents attractive.

A company targeting younger consumers is likely to be intrigued by a concentration of cafés, bars and restaurants. Companies that cater to workers, such as restaurant chains and transportation businesses, will find work-intensive areas most promising.

BCG explains precision marketing tool

ReseaRch news - stationeRy


As per a Conlumino research report titled ‘Books, News and Stationery Retailing in Brazil’, specialist retailers are set to dominate other players in the Brazilian stationery market during 2009-2019, with a share of

52.8% of the overall books, news, and stationery retail market. The report predicts that Brazilian stationery retail sales will reach $2111 billion by 2019. The books, news and stationery segment in this Latin American nation is projected to witness a CAGR of 6.5% during the review period. The US will remain the largest contributor, but expected to expand at a nominal CAGR of 0.2%. Chile is expected to grow fastest at 6% CAGR, followed by Peru and Brazil. The share of online sales is forecast to grow to 27.1% in 2019, from 15% in 2014, growing at a CAGR of 20.6%.

The surge in the number of millionaires and an emerging middle class will make Brazil a major retail destination during 2009-19 according to a Conlumino research report titled ‘Books, News

and Stationery Retailing in Brazil - Market Summary and Forecasts’. Brazil, Chile and Mexico will fuel growth in the region on the back of rising demand for religious and regional language books. In Brazil, growing number of book fairs, festivals and conference will add to the demand for foreign language books. Online will continue to be the fastest growing channel at a CAGR of 8.1% during 2014-2019. Music, video, book, stationery and entertainment software specialists will dominate the regional sales with nearly 40% in sales. The said market in the Americas is expected to remain virtually flat over the next five years, struggling to achieve pre-recession level.

A Conlumino research report titled ‘Books, News and Stationery Retailing in Japan - Forecasts to 2019’ states that sales of books, news and stationery products in Japan

is expected to witness a decline over the next 5 years. Increasing demand for electronic devices is resulting in electronic consumption of books and news, thereby acting as major deterrents to the growth of physical sales of books. The increasing median age of the population and declining under 18 years population means less demand for general stationery, which is another threat to retailers. The sector is expected to witness a decline over the next 5 years at a CAGR of 0.9% in 2014-2019. Books, news and stationery segment is projected to witness a decline over the next few years and account for 2.8% of the total retail market by 2019.

Specialist retailers to dominate Brazilian stationery market

Brazil to emerge as major stationery retail destination

Stationery products in Japan to dip at a CAGR of 0.9%

A Conlumino research report titled ‘Books, News and Stationery Retailing in Japan - Forecasts to 2019’ states that the stationery market in Japan is expected to

recover because of an increase in shipments from Japan to other nations. The stationery and cards market in Japan is expected to grow at a CAGR of 0.37% over the period 2014-2019. After the declining trends that had lasted until 2013, the sales of writing instruments have contributed to the recovery of the Japanese market. The paper products and cards market is expected to remain the same because of the digitalization trend gaining momentum. Though the demand for stationery and cards is recovering in Japan, the market is expected to grow rapidly in APAC, with growth mainly driven by the emerging economies.

Exports to boost Japanese stationery market recovery

ReseaRch news - ResoRts


As per IBIS World, all-inclusive resorts are on the rise and all-inclusive vacation revenue will increase yoy 2.5% to $150 mn by 2017. This model dominates in

the Caribbean and Mexico and is making inroads into Central & South America, Asia and Africa. Major hotel groups are either adding all-inclusive resorts to their product lines or testing the waters with inclusive programs at existing properties. Hyatt embraced this business model and introduced 2 new all-inclusive brands – Hyatt Ziva and the adults-only Hyatt Zilara. In Jamaica, the Hyatt Ziva Rose Hall opened in 2014 after a multimillion dollar renovation. Spain-based chain Riu Hotels & Resorts, in addition to its inventory in Europe and beyond, has all-inclusives in Aruba, Bahamas, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Mexico.

According to the World Waterpark Association, there are 996 waterparks in the US, as of February 2016, up from 858 in March 2015. At 339 waterparks,

the Midwest region boasts the largest concentration of waterparks in the US. The waterpark industry continues to expand in North America, with more than $500 million of new investment in indoor and outdoor waterparks and related resorts in 2015. The number of US waterparks rose from 796 in April 2013 to 834 in March 2014, with majority being outdoor waterparks. Marriott and Hyatt hotels and Lake Rudolph camp ground added outdoor waterparks to their properties in 2013. Lake Rudolph Campground and RV Resort in Indiana also added 22 cabins along. Legoland California and Schlitterbahn Beach Resort added hotels to

existing waterparks. The waterpark industry is also showing growth in the number of slides and types of amenities.

All-inclusive resorts on the rise

As per the Knight Frank Prime Ski Property Index 2015, ski homes in Europe’s top resorts are on the same trajectory since 2008; no radical acceleration or

deceleration, just small single digit shifts. The French and Swiss Alps attract in excess of 80 million ski visits per annum and account for a third of the total number of ski resorts worldwide. By Spring 2016, the Swiss market is expected to be gaining traction. Around 55% of Knight Frank’s buyers are looking to rent out their ski home. Around 10% are buying solely for investment purposes; most want their apartment or chalet to be cost neutral.

Ski homes in European resorts on same trajectory

GWI estimates the UAE luxury resorts industry to double by 2017. MENA is the second fastest-growing market in the world for luxury resorts after sub-

Saharan Africa and UAE is leading spa tourism in this region, with revenues of $411 million recorded in 2015. Also, visitor numbers are set to double by 2017. By 2017, UAE is expected to top spa growth, with nearly a million wellness trips added and 17.9% annual growth. Its spa revenues are estimated to reach $495 million by 2019. Morocco is set to add 825,703 visits recording 14.7% annual growth. Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Algeria are forecast to witness double-digit growth in 2017.

UAE luxury resorts industry to double by 2017

Waterparks continue to expand in the US

FROM POSSIBILITY TO PERFECTIONMake business bloom with simple, global, secure eCommerce payments.

aciworldwide.com/ecommerce

®

R.N.I. NO. MAHENG/2012/47143

Documents

Rural customers take brands on a roller coaster ride…ride…€¦ · he Indian handset manufacturer Ziox Mobiles has recently launched 10 smartphones and 20 feature phones in India