Indian Retailing and Shopping Challenges: Spatial Myopia versus Asset Hyperopia

Indian retailing industry is one of the most important pillars of the Indian economy, together with agriculture, manufacturing and infrastructure. Without retailing, what is produced or value added can never reach consumers. Indian retailing sector is one of the largest in the world, and is estimated at USD 500 billion annually, together with its mainstay of logistics. It is also one of the most unorganized sectors with over 95 percent of the shops being in owner-seller format, and dotted all over the urban and rural urban landscape. Most importantly, it is one of the most valuable employment generators, providing jobs for as many as 40 million Indians. Over the last couple of decades, supermarkets and large format markets and shopping malls have made an increasing presence felt but it is unclear whether they are any more planned and futuristic than the unorganized ones, as this blog post brings out.

What is retailing for sellers is shopping for buyers. Shopping can be classified into two types; the essential daily needs and the lifestyle needs. It can also be classified as planned and impulsive. Availability of appropriate shopping formats is essential for generation of consumer interest and conversion of interest into actual purchase. The shopping and retailing process is so complex that it requires the best of management processes, from supply chain management to customer relationship management, with data analytics thrown in. While retailing is a growth engine for India with more purchasing power being placed in the hands of the burgeoning middle class, with cascade down to the indigent sections too, flux and mortality in the retailing sector are a matter of concern. There is a need for a relevant hybrid model of retailing and shopping in India. This blog post discusses a few issues and proposes a few approaches based on certain examples from the Chennai retailing and shopping space.

Off the mark  

Several years ago, Landmark was the most popular bookstore in Chennai. Its first and most favoured store in Nungambakkam, a downtown shopping district was truly a landmark. Landmark no longer is a store there. Landmark’s other two outlets in Spencer’s Plaza and City Centre have also disappeared. Many would attribute Landmark’s disappearance to the emergence of online reading habits on one hand and the departure of original promoters and indifference of the new investors on the other hand. Part of the truth is that Landmark’s decline also corresponded with the decline of the host-malls. Many book lovers of Chennai feel sad about the disappearance of Landmark. Yet, a new bookstore called Starmark (of Emami Group), established in Chennai’s premier and now popular shopping multiplex, Express Avenue has become quite a favoured place for book lovers. This seems to be a case of brand ceding importance to location.

Viveks had, for decades, a flourishing retail business in whitegoods and electronic goods in Chennai, located strategically in important traffic intersections. Once famous for its store expansion and thronging crowds for New Year sales, Viveks seems to be scaling down its operations due to lower customer visits. Tata Group has its Croma chain of electronics stores in all major cities. Of all the stores in Chennai, it appears that the one located in Nungambakkam has the least footfalls. In contrast, Croma stores in Mumbai airport seem to have the highest footfalls. Landmark, Viveks, Croma and such other brands continue to be well known with high recall. Some of them are also well located. The declining consumer interest is, therefore, more than a matter of ordinary concern.  These trends are not company or retailer specific but are symptomatic of an emerging urban shopping crisis.

Urban constraints

Surprising it may seem, Indian cities are not planned for an expansive retailing and comfortable shopping experience. Indian cities and towns are essentially mixed use districts with residential, office and commercial entities located jowl to jowl. The concept, as in America, of segregated shopping districts, residential communities and business districts does not simply exist in Indian cities. The shopping districts in USA provide for huge parking areas that can cater to parking of several hundred cars. In contrast, old age shopping pioneers like Viveks have practically no parking space while the newer ones like Reliance, Croma and Girias have very limited parking space just for a few cars. Shops located in shopping complexes such as Express Avenue and Phoenix Shopping Mall have general parking space of the respective malls but it is all paid parking space. In other words, most standalone city retail shopping places are designed only for walk-in shoppers while in respect of newer shopping malls even window shopping would cost something!

While this restriction and bottleneck has not caused any specific migration from physical shopping to digital shopping, the potential for exploiting full shopping potential and enhancing shopping ease is completely compromised. Logically, this restriction should lead to construction of more shopping malls with adequate parking slots and the conversion of standalone shopping spaces into residential or building spaces. Possibly, shops located on roads with high parking space (like those in Pondy Bazar) may be able to still manage but shops in arterial roads with non-stop traffic (example, Anna Salai) or in traffic intersections (like Viveks) have little hope. As several thousand jobs and lives are dependent on continued prosperity of vintage shopping spaces, urban constraints need to be addressed. Radical it may seem, firms like Viveks may gain business if they convert their ground floors into parking lots and move businesses upstairs!

Penny wise, …?  

The Indian urban shopping crisis is symptomatic of lack of ‘design thinking’ in planning and setting up social utilities. When Viveks acquired additional land space in one of the showrooms, it has chosen to use it for product storage and display rather than for parking. One of the leading hospitals has been planned in Chennai with the least possible parking space causing enormous hardships to doctors, hospital staff, patients and caretakers, besides vendors. Even when a new hospital was set up by the same group several years later, lessons of parking insufficiency were not incorporated. The way facilities are planned in India, the premise is simple but not wise: land is considered premium, to be utilized to the last centimetre to create business assets. This is indeed a myopic view of business which does not put people first.    

The purpose of business, depending on its nature, tends to be one or more of the following, illustratively: caring, diagnosing, curing, entertaining, provisioning and educating. People are core and central to all of these activities. Unless people are able to enter the premises comfortably, leave their vehicles securely and circulate purposefully, people would be diffident to enter unless essential. In trying to maximize space for business assets firms are only sub-optimizing their own business potential.  Indian service providers as well as service receivers believe in ‘touch and feel’ physical form of buying and selling. With India set to increase its dependence on personal transportation vehicles, the pressure on parking space is only likely to increase. This characteristic can only be protected by better spatial planning that balances people and assets.   

Shopping districts

Fundamentally, India should come up with its own native concepts of shopping districts where roads are out of bounds for vehicles and are dedicated for pedestrians. Chennai’s Pondy Bazar is an ideal example of a potential shopping district. More such districts are possible with some innovative thinking on creating parallel vehicular ways, having elevated ways, mass parking lots and comfortable connecting paths. This will not only reduce vehicular transportation, congestion and pollution but also provide a clean shopping experience to citizens. In addition, all large format shops should be asked to create free parking spaces at land level and move the business up (both literally and figuratively). New malls and supermarkets should, of course, come with either ample basement parking or supplemental vertical parking.

There must be special arrangements for direct to consumer sales by setting up farmers’ markets and small and medium manufacturers’ markets in major halls, public grounds and stadiums in urban areas. This would enable a significant level of disintermediation and give fillip to niche producers, for example of organic products and handicrafts. As new highways and industrial corridors get constructed, it should be part of the planning agenda to construct integrated mini shopping malls and food courts alongside the highways at critical points. Planned purchase and impulse purchases could be fully exploited with such spatial planning. Taking a more conservative approach on shelf space and planning more circulation and stay space for consumers and their vehicles, retailers can create a win-win for themselves and their customers.

Rural planning

Shopping should not be solely for elite consumer needs in urban areas. Rural areas require significant retailing and shopping emphasis. In fact, rural areas offer considerable potential for creating exchange platforms and shopping districts. As development is sought to be brought to rural doorstep with adoption of villages, it makes sense to allocate certain amount of expenditure to create producer cum marketing yards and retailing cum shopping platforms.  This again would enhance urban-rural connectivity. It is today considered appropriate to create bypasses that skirt villages and towns. This actually is cutting them off from the highway of development. To mitigate the situation, recanalization of highways to the newly proposed yards would be helpful.

One of the many ironies of life is that space is not usually where demand is. Yet, human habitats have grown as much horizontally (moving demand to where space is) as vertically (creating space where demand is). What is applicable for human living is applicable for retailing and shopping too. Any new construction in city should provide for excellent parking avenues. Creation of multi-brand retail stores in outskirts and earmarking a space in all gated communities for shopping malls that meet captive and external needs are some needed measures. A few decades down the road, existing urban areas will connect with the existing rural areas. That should not be through existing unplanned urban chaos, exploiting every square inch of space; rather, it should be through a more scientific expansive spatial planning that puts people first. 

Posted by Dr CB Rao on May 16, 2016    

Last to Market but Smart to Grow: Five principles of Late but Latest Entry

As the mid-year approaches, rumours of Samsung trying to be a month ahead of Apple with the respective new smartphones have started doing the rounds. Samsung is reportedly bracing to launch its latest generation Note 6 phablet ahead of Apple launching Apple 7 Plus phablet. First-to-market is a time tested strategy; it helps a firm capture market as it gets formed and take market share when no competitor is around. If the product is indeed a pioneering product and captures user imagination, it could become a monopoly and create formidable entry barriers to other manufacturers. On the other hand, if the product is poorly engineered it could help the follow-on players to improve upon their products and excel even more.

Being the first-to-market is not an easy task; it requires advanced engineering, smart manufacturing and agile marketing. The DNA of such firms tends to be unique. Over time, however, as technology becomes relatively more accessible, the market starts becoming more populated with several follow-on players. As market expands and firms are able to segment their markets based on unique features and combinations, the first-to-market concept could morph into first-to-market-segment concept. Not surprisingly, in a free market economy there would be firms wanting to enter an industry at all times. While it is easy to appreciate that the first-to-market company, and early followers will have the bulk of market share, what motivates firms to enter an industry despite being the last or near-last to enter is inexplicable.

Last-to-market

Being the first-to-market is measurable and understandable as a well merited aspiration. Being the last-to-market, however, is less measurable as it is difficult to forecast who else will join the late party. Being the last-to-market is also less understandable and tends to be arbitrary. For example, any share less than 1 percent could be one measure in one industry but even 5 percent may not be the right one for being the last company in the race. Any production level less than the minimum economical production quantity could be another measure. As costs keep coming down, the sustainable minimal production quantity and minimal viable market share could be coming down. Still, it could beat one’s imagination as to why a firm should, in a manner of speaking, be the 100^th firm to enter a market when the same effort could be expended to be in the first group of entrants in another field. There are, of course, valid reasons for the last-to-enter firms.   

For example, the industry itself could be so fragmented that there may not be much difference between the first-to-market and the last-to-market. Secondly, the entry barriers could be so low that there is enough scope for even marginal players to make an entry. Thirdly, there could so much outsourcing and contract manufacturing occurring in the industry that being the 100^th manufacturer could be infinitely easy. Fourthly, certain firms have resources that can be marginally deployed in easy-to-enter industries without big expectations. Fifthly, managerial mind-sets of operating in highly established market segments prompt such late stage entries. There are many examples with varied technological and marketing characteristics that confirm to the above criteria.  Examples are Indian formulations market, global smartphone market, Indian processed food market, and so on.

Turning the tables

Admittedly, a pioneering company has many strategic advantages which can be further sharpened to snuff out completion from late entrants. These include lowering of prices, cross-subsidization, differentiation, geographical expansion, locking up distribution channels, buying up retail spaces, aggressive advertising, product extensions, product innovations, market segmenting, sales discounts, service offerings, aggressive advertising and so on. As a result, the later one enters a market the smaller one’s market share could be, empirically. A 1995 study by Gurumurthy Kalyanaram and others in Marketing Science suggested that the new entrant’s forecasted market share divided by the first entrant’s market share equals, very roughly, one divided by the square root of order of entry of the new entrant. It is evident as a market gets crowded, the last entrant would have miniscule market share. Yet, empiricism may not always be the only guidepost.

In normal social life, we have countless stories of backbenchers in schools and colleges becoming top rankers as well as the poor and underprivileged reaching top careers. A combination of aspiration and optimism, diligence and commitment, grit and energy, knowledge and application, positioning and a bit of luck helps in such amazing accomplishments. Late entrants to industries and markets similarly have opportunities to prove their mettle and turn the tables on the incumbents. Admittedly, whatever ‘magic’ late entrants can spin the incumbents can also carry out with their superior resources and manage to maintain or expand their lead. However, performance is not always only a function of increasing size and scale. Incumbency also leads to complacency of invincibility while late entry is backed by the passion of the underdog to upstage the favourite!   

Late entrants

Late entrants are of two types. The first type is a well-endowed corporation which has decided to make a belated entry into an industry which is already catered to by the existing players. Entry of Reliance Jio into telecommunication services is an example. They have all the resources to use any of the pioneering advantages despite the late entry, and secure a market space. Such firms are not a subject of this blog post. The second type is a more humble entity or individual with just the necessary resources to make a modest entry. They may not have the resources to claim any of the advantages that large late entrants have but are skillful in securing a market hold. They typically would adopt the following five principles.

Smart outsourcing

Every company needs design, manufacturing and marketing capabilities to put a product into the market place. Typically, each of these takes 25 to 30 percent of total investment, aggregating to 75 to 90 percent, leaving 10 to 25 percent of the investment for other activities. A late entrant deploys smart outsourcing in as many areas as possible to reduce the typical investment to just a small proportion of what an integrated corporation would need. The smartest outsourcer would outsource all operations, close to 90 percent, and focus only on strategy and oversight. The typical outsourcer, however, may choose to invest in one of the three key areas, be it development, manufacturing or marketing, and strategy. Smart outsourcing requires smart selection of the outsourcing partner, and providing a compelling value creation to the partner to break into the market together.

Smart costing

It is not so well recognised that costing, and consequently pricing, can make or mar a product. Purist accountants who fully burden a product with all the functional, site and corporate overheads and management inefficiencies literally kill the new product. In a pioneering or first batch entry, there could be scope for recovery prior to market growth but for late entrants to mature markets, fully burdened costing is a sure way to defeat the very objective of entry. Strategists must realize that market toehold and market expansion are the fundamental requirements for a product to survive. It is necessary to secure an entry and expansion, even at a loss, to be able to recover later. Smart late entrants focus on smart costing and smart pricing, and in most cases carry their outsourcing partners along in this strategy.    

Smart differentiation

Differentiation is more common today than envisaged. Differentiation is confused with having variety. Having just a few products does not lessen differentiation (eg., as in the case of Apple) nor would a profusion of products provide differentiation (as in the case of Xiaomi, Huawei and Meizu). Oppo’s selfie phone with industry leading 16 MP front camera is an example of focused differentiation. Leveraging the scientific validation of Indian herbs and spices, a late entrant to the Indian masala product market could create new formulae for differentiation. An ice cream maker may capitalize on seasonality of fruits to develop seasonal special entries. Late entrants would need to focus on micro differentiation to make a smart entry.

Smart communication

While incumbents, pioneers or fast followers, may focus on aggressive advertisement, late entrants must focus on smart communication to be seen as providers of products which are qualitatively feature-rich, affordable and differentiated. Outsourcing helps the late entrants to assimilate the best of breed product features, from ingredients to packaging, and deliver them through multiple channels. Brand recall can be maximized with smart communication rather than just aggressive advertising. Out of several advertising campaigns, one normally recalls only those which convey a central message in a creative fashion. Airtel 4G advertisement, for example, says a lot without saying anything explicitly about the widest cellular coverage.

Smart organisation

In all cases, organization is important to secure and sustain market superiority. Late entrants, however, can bridge a lot of gap with an organization that is agile, flexible and adaptive with the right culture. Managers of a smart organization will have a first-hand feel for marketplace as well as manufacturing base. They should have a keen understanding of what makes customers switch brands and select outsourcing partnerships that provide such advantages. Smart organisation tends to be lean and non-corporate in structure and systems. Their relationships with product partners and retailing channels help the late entrants secure competitive advantage for the firm as a whole.

Scaling up

Late entrants certainly have a chance to enter a crowded market, and grow up with the smart formula discussed above. However, such firms have to contend with the fact that the incumbents are bound to hit back after experiencing the initial disequilibrium while even later entrants would try to replicate the success of the (earlier) late entrants. The challenge for reasonably successful late entrants is how they can move up to the next trajectory; solutions could emerge from external support systems rather than persist with the same success formula.

Simple successes lead to industry and private equity community taking notice. They are brought into a higher trajectory through mergers and acquisitions and/or external financing. The typical late entrant may thus gain huge power based on the late entry success but could become a typical incumbent through the step-up process. That would be a bit unfortunate for the firm but for the ecosystem it would be a benefit; as late entrants turn incumbents, new late entrants join the industry, keeping the ecosystem rich and bright.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on March 15, 2016

Un-parking of Tata Nano Car: From Parking Spaces to Electric Mobility!

Every time one travels in the crowded traffic on the Indian roads one cannot but notice the sight of small families (husband and wife with their two children) navigating dangerously. Rattan Tata’s vision of providing such families a safe, comfortable and economical transportation mode in terms of Tata Nano car has unfortunately translated itself into a muted reality. The failure of Tata Nano to fulfil the dream is seen by the company as a technical and marketing issue. As a result there have been sincere and consistent efforts to upgrade the car and also reposition it as a vehicle for the young Generation Next. These moves have also not set the sales graph soaring. The changes made indeed are significant given the fact that Nano with its micro-compact form factor is already an engineering marvel.

The new 2015 Nano GenX car comes with an expanded product line up, covering three manual and two automated transmission variants. Apart from cosmetic changes like improved bumpers and smoked headlamps, the range comes with two key enhancements: automated manual transmission (with enhanced fuel economy) and hatchback opening for accessible boot space. At a higher ex-showroom price of Rs 215,000 to Rs 300,000, Nano car is now positioned as a car for the well-to-do young people, a major departure from the original positioning as the world’s lowest priced small car (at Rs 100,000) for the needy. Clearly, the repositioning of Nano as a peppy car for the college going students and young executives is underway. That leaves the fans of Nano’s original concept as a unique affordable car for the bottom of the income pyramid quite disappointed.

Space-constrained

Indian transportation scenario is woefully space constrained. India’s population density per kilometre of metalled road is one of the highest in the world even as the per capita vehicle ownership is one of the lowest in the world (200 million registered motor vehicles, 5 million kilometre roads, and 1.2 billion population). The car density per kilometre of metalled roads at 40,000 (approximately) is also one of the highest. To compound the misery, annually 22 million vehicles are being manufactured for use in Indian roads, aggravating the problem beyond imagination. Most metros and upcoming cities suffer from hours of traffic gridlocks. Habitats are built with inadequate parking space. Even modern day offices have poor parking space. A study of office development shows that for every 100 employees in an office only around 10 car parking slots and around 40 two wheeler parking slots are likely to be available. The situation in shopping districts is no better; a 100 store shopping mall (with a multiplex additionally thrown in) or a hi-street of retail and pavement shopping, each of which sees 5000 shoppers daily has no more than 300 car parking slots and strangely just the same number of two wheeler parking slots!

The fact that approximately 77 percent of the output of 22 million units of automobiles in India is contributed by two wheelers indicates the tremendous need for mobility and also the attractive potential for switch to passenger car mode (right now, 15 percent of the output at 3 million units is in passenger car segment).  The Indian automobile industry is the sixth largest in the world and is poised to grow to be the third largest in the world by 2020. The relentless march of automobile congestion on Indian roads is likely to only intensify in future. While part of this may be mitigated by greater expansion in rural markets (where practically no roads exist) the inevitability of an overall space constrained transportation scenario in a growth oriented India is easy to imagine. The challenge for Tata Motors is whether this represents an opportunity but only with reference to other larger cars and countless two wheelers on the roads. No extent of technical upgradation or market repositioning would help Nano achieve its full potential for two reasons: (a) it is optimally developed already for the purpose and (b) the optionality of Nano is parking space related and not specification related.

Logistics challenge

As mentioned earlier, Nano has been innovatively designed vis-à-vis contemporary small cars and appropriately positioned in the huge potential market space. The challenge in driving up Nano sales to its full potential is neither a product nor market challenge, therefore. It is simply a logistics challenge that is two fold: (a) identifying target users who have adequate parking space but need to be weaned to Nano concept and (b) reaching out to natural Nano customers and finding a parking space for them. This strategy has to be city and habitat specific. If Tata Motors is serious about realizing the full potential of Nano nothing short of a user-parking census would be required. Depending on the resources the company is willing to commit, the project could be taken up as a regional project or a national project.

In this Nano paradigm, Tata Motors may find collaborative stakeholders who may seem unlikely collaborators at the first go. Real estate developers are the first stakeholder group. Tata Motors as an entity, and Tata Group as a whole, may carry out some introspection in this regard. Tata is a major player in the real estate sector covering both luxury and affordable home sectors (the latter with Tata Value Homes). There is no evidence at all that Tata Motors has any coordinated strategy to link up with Tata Value Homes whose customers are also likely to be Nano customers. Similarly, coordination with high-rise developers and gated community developers as well as urban planners in each city would develop pathways to identify customer groups who would have usage overlaps.  It is necessary for Tata Motors to deploy such logistics analytics to map out the workable market.

Value propositions

Once the seriously inclined target customer pools are identified, the next challenge would be to develop value propositions that would make them the buyers of Nano cars. While the high fuel economy of 26 kmpl is, in itself, a major value proposition, more relevant and customised value propositions would be needed. Tata Motors may tie up with Tata Value Homes to offer Nano cars instead of cash discounts. With other developers more arm’s length promotional deals can be considered. There could be other options like reducing lifecycle ownership through subsidized sales, mobile dealer and servicing units, especially near target communities, bundled offers with other cars and assured buybacks. Nano may also be positioned as a call-taxi, specially customized for lady drivers and lady customers with GPS tracking and other safety features.

Tata Nano is one of the most complex consummate product-market challenges ever borne. An elegant design and expansive market ought to have made for perpetual value. On the other hand, the product and market failed to discover even the basic value. Nano’s issue and the discussion in this blog post on rediscovering the potential point to an immutable but underexploited law of marketing that some products are not just products but are fundamental concepts. Xerox copying, Kodak film and Sony Walkman of yesteryears and Apple iPad, iPhone and Watch of current times are such concepts. Nano car is also nothing less than that. It is unfortunate that its introduction as any other car erased the value of the fundamentally differentiated concept of what Nano would have been. It is not too late, however.

Electric mobility

Nano’s future does not merely lie in rediscovering its potential as discussed herein. It would lie in taking it to the next logical technological horizon, which is its transformation into an electric car. Nano, in terms of its lightweight and cute-looking design is an ideal platform for conversion into an electric car. Nano Electric would be an ideal concept in terms of environmental sensitivity and lifestyle complementarity. The stakeholders discussed in this blog post would be more than delighted to tie up with Tata Motors to provide exclusive charging points and parking spaces to Tata Nano. Even the urban planners and city space developers would be happy to provide exclusive and preferential parking lots in public spaces for Nano Electric.

Tata Motors could perch Nano motors as an electric self-driving car in this quest for newer technological horizons. Tata should forge a multi-entity collaboration with firms committed to clean transportation such as Google and Tesla to take Nano to the next higher level. Philosophically, some products need not be products of individual firms adding numbers to their annual income statements. They have an amazing potential to evolve as global heritage products, transforming the way certain conventional activities are performed. Tata Motors can continue to treat Nano as a unique product in its large portfolio or release it for a futuristic global evolution. Nano could be a perfect example of a product concept innovated in India, designed, developed and manufactured in India and scaled up and transformed for an astounding global sweep!

Posted by Dr CB Rao on June 20, 2015       

 

The Bitter-Sweet Truth of ‘Positional Monopoly’: Ten Management Lessons from the Curious but Educative Case of SKS Airport Sweet Stall

Positional monopoly occurs when a retailer is exclusively present in a geographically defined marketplace. The classic case is that of Higginbothams, the famous heritage book store that has its book stalls in several railway stations of India. While books can be purchased anywhere and anytime, the exclusive positioning of the bookstalls without any competition and the impulse buying by passengers to spend time in long journeys create positional monopoly for such bookstalls. Food catering by the sole catering agent of the Indian Railways, IRCTC, in railway trains is another example. The same can be said of sole selling shops that are situated in isolated areas, say a ‘kirana’ shop in the Himalayas!

Positional monopoly occurs at a product level too. Certain retailers may choose to stock only one brand of a particular class of products forcing customers to buy that product as part of a larger bundle of products from that retailer. Similarly, certain manufacturers may choose to retail their products only through certain channels (including only e-platforms). Positional monopoly makes customers forsake their brand loyalty in favour of purchasing convenience or inevitability. Positional monopoly gets reinforced when the demand for a product is a natural and integral part of living/social culture and the demand can migrate from one brand to another easily. Positional monopoly does not, however, mean that there would be unbounded demand. This blog post attempts a study of positional monopoly through the case optics of a famous sweet shop of Chennai, and develop some key management insights.

Sweet tooth

Most Indians have a sweet tooth. They also have a fascination for ‘branded sweets’ and ‘signature sweets’. In Chennai, famous sweet houses such as Aggarwal, The Grand Sweets & Snacks (GSS), Sri Krishna Sweets (SKS), Archana Sweets and Adyar Ananda Bhavan (AAB) are some of the branded sweet houses, with an amazing array of mouth-watering sweets. All these houses have their signature sweets, Aggarwal’s Jangri, Grand’s Fruit Halwa, SKS’ Mysorepa,  Archana’s Badam Halwa and AAB’s Sonepapdi are some such signature sweets. Of course, in each case, the formidable range of sweets is accompanied by an equally tasty set of snacks. In this respect, GSS probably is the best known brand. Like geographic indicators, the sweet houses have their locational niches in important shopping districts, with distinctive taste profiles.

While the sweet houses have their proprietary and distinctive tastes and flavours, they have no monopolistic power. They have their loyal customers but they are substitutable too. If one were to imagine a situation where only one of these sweet houses were to be present, it stands to reason that all the demand of the four brands would flow to the monopoly brand. That is the sweet pulling power of the four distinctive sweet houses! In recent years, SKS embarked on a store positioning drive that positioned SKS retail shops in traffic flow spots such as airports and fuel delivery stations. Of these, SKS sweet stalls in the Chennai airport are unique and distinctive, and strategically positioned with high visibility. The ideal situation of ‘positional monopoly’ has thus been secured by SKS. It thus offers an interesting case study to understand the nuances of positional monopoly.

Tested taste

SKS sweet stalls are situated, one each, in the arrival and departure halls of the Chennai domestic terminal (Kamaraj Terminal). They are small, compact stalls offering the full portfolio of sweets and snacks, in ready to carry boxes as well as in open trays for on-the-spot assorted selection and customized packing. SKS has also made special efforts to cater to the perceived unique needs of air travellers by offering special multi-product packs and ready to eat foods as well. Some of these custom packs are not available in downtown city stalls, presumably. All the products in the airport stalls are served in a hygienic manner by courteous staff. The stall also provides flexibility to have packs of just one or two sweets. Customers are even provided with a generous opportunity to test the taste of different products, a unique customer-friendly feature of SKS in all its locations!

Given the sweet tooth that passengers have, the special role sweets play as gifts by travelling public, the service atmosphere created, and the general demand portability for sweets across brands, the positional monopoly should have secured a demand of several thousands of packs to the SKS airport stalls. That is because the domestic terminal handles 9 million passengers approximately in a year, which works out to approximately 25,000 passengers per day. In marketing and sales management, brand recall and footfalls are considered essential to generate sales. SKS stalls which capture 100 percent eye falls and are grazed by thousands of walk pasts are ideally positioned for maximal footfalls and hence for maximal business, reaching up to as many passengers as handled by the airport, at least in a theoretical sense. 

Bitter-sweet position

In contrast to the above positive indicators of positional monopoly, however, not more than a couple of hundred packets are possibly sold in each of the SKS stalls in the airport on a daily basis. The high brand visibility and the excellent product range of SKS in a uniquely exclusive airport positioning is contrasted, unfortunately and surprisingly, by weak sales. Applying some general management and industrial engineering principles, certain factors can be identified for the bitter-sweet result. Firstly, strategic positioning for effective sales is more important than visible positioning for branding. The stall in the departure hall is located near the gates before the check-in counters and before the security area. Fundamentally, the departing (boarding) passengers would be in a preoccupation to take boarding passes and in a hurry to undergo security check rather than purchase sweets in a languid manner. Clearly, if the sweet stall in the departure hall is located in the pre-boarding waiting lounge there would be a greater possibility of relaxed purchase. 

Similar positioning issue affects the sweet stall in the arrival lounge too. The arrival sweet stall is located near the exit gates after the taxi booking counters. Here again, fundamentally the arriving (homebound) passengers would be in a preoccupation to get into their cabs once the cab booking is done rather than purchase sweets delaying the homecoming further. Clearly, if the sweet stall in the arrival hall is located in the baggage claim area, there would be a greater possibility of purchase while the passengers wait for their baggage. To aggravate the issue for the arrival lounge stall, the choice of sweets is decidedly inferior to what exists in the departure stall.  The arrival stall, on the contrary, should have a much better USP than either the pre-boarding departure stall or even the city stalls (as the homebound passenger could always think of the city alternative). The lesson here is that positional monopoly by itself does not confer any significant advantage unless it is strategically secured and creatively deployed to be effective.   

ML-PL-CL-AL business model

Every business (in fact, every human endeavour) would have a maximum level (driven largely by the total customer universe), a potential level (driven largely by customer demand preferences), a constrained level (in fact, most times self-constrained by infrastructure and organization!), and an achievable level (which may work best when it is also aspirational). The case of SKS sweet stall illustrates the point tellingly. Given that 25,000 passengers pass through the Chennai domestic airport daily, the potential for SKS is to sell as many as 25,000 packs at least. However, demand preferences and perceptions on time trade-offs as discussed above set a potential business level which can be quantified only by consistent consumer research. This can lead to a figure higher or lower than the magical 25,000 mark. Let us assume in this case that it would lead to a potentially lower level of 12, 500 (50 percent of the maximum). Here comes the catch; most businesses and organizations are not set up to capture even the potential business; they are self-constrained by their own infrastructural, operational and organizational templates!  

Take the case of the airport sweet stall. Combining both the departure and arrival stalls, it has four dispensing and billing customer sale points. The stall itself can accommodate only two queue lines, keep in mind also that every customer would have luggage with him or her, making the queue lines complex and making it difficult for more people to join. Each selection by the customer from the look to delivery through all the steps of iterative choice, communication, packing, billing and payment takes on an average five minutes. As a result, every five minutes four packs can be delivered (because we have four customer points in the aggregate). Assuming that the stalls are run round the clock 24 hours (which is not a reality, and also is not relevant as domestic flights do not operate round the clock), we have 288 slots of five minutes each. Given the delivery rate of four packs every five minutes, the feasible number of packs that can be delivered on any day is only 1152, which is 9.2 percent of the potential daily business and just 4.6 percent of the maximal daily business.

Various other logistical and behavioural issues would determine if even the constrained business of 1152 packs can, in fact, be achieved. This could relate to queue lines not accommodating more than a handful of passengers, mismatch between flight times and wait times, bunching of flight and people arrivals and departures, mismatch between customer wants and sweet availability, and the need for sales personnel to have rest times and breaks. The achievable business would be clearly lower than 1152 packs, and it is not, therefore, surprising that the sweet stall manages to sell no more than half of even the self-constrained demand. Clearly, there could be limitations (imposed by the airport authorities or the leasing charges) in terms of owning a larger space that accommodates additional display space, more queue lines and more billing points. But, the ML-PL-CL-AL Business Model illustrates how the typical businesses are planned to inherently operate hugely below their maximum potential and what can be done to bridge such huge gaps.

Ten management lessons

The objective of the blogpost (and the embedded case study) is not to discuss SKS Sweets per se, a respected and efficient entrepreneurial institution in its industry, which is run on professional lines but is to develop certain insights as to how businesses are unknowingly planned, established and operated not to reach their full potential (and, in some cases, even to fail!). For all we know, SKS airport sweet stalls may have been established just to establish brand visibility and not with business economics in mind. Again, as with all case studies, quantitative or qualitative factors are less important than the concepts and insights such analysis brings out. There are several management lessons that can be gleaned from the case study. Firstly, as illustrated by the study of positional monopoly, monopoly by itself does not guarantee a maximized business. Several strategic and operational positioning initiatives are required to achieve the full potential of even a monopoly.

Secondly, the total market ecosystem should be thoroughly studied to determine the maximum as well as other demand levels. The ML-PL-CL-AL Business Model suggested in this blog post provides a powerful tool for the study. It could be a real eye opener in terms of what can be achieved.

Thirdly, it is important to realize that even apparently well-established or well-run operational models tend to have significant unseen and unknown constraints that severely limit business realization. Industrial engineering and business management principles must be utilized for an introspective analysis and improvement actions. Fourthly, customer connect is a vital factor, whether for physical or virtual businesses. In this case, for example, a simple repositioning of stalls could provide higher customer connect and better business while signature packs, advertised in advance for their features, could minimize the transaction times. Fifthly, there would always be additional lateral solutions even if constraints cannot be avoided in toto. For example, the sweet stall can be a part of an SKS restaurant in the airport. Or, SKS may enter into alliances with select other food points in other strategic locations of the airport to display and sell at least the signature SKS packs. 

Sixthly, ‘silence’ even in respect of known institutions and visible brands is not an acceptable marketing option; active marketing, including market research, is essential for all types of firms and all kinds of brands. Seventhly, in today’s context, a networked business can provide a huge competitive advantage. For example, a departing passenger can be facilitated to log in his product requirement ahead of his travel which is delivered fresh at the airport neatly packaged as desired at the time of departure; or, an arriving passenger in a hurry may be encouraged to leave his request at the arrival sweet stall which is delivered at his home by one of the city branches nearer to the customer home. Eighthly, a business maximization approach needs, more than numbers, the right business and operational insights. As can be seen from this case study, a simple retail outlet can throw up valuable management lessons.  Ninthly, the right business insights would never develop from complex boardroom models; they result from simple ‘gemba’ (real place) observations by open minds. And finally, there can never be a limit to improvement; it is a continuous and perpetual process (‘kaizen’)!

The author feels grateful to Sri Krishna Sweets that their progressive gesture of a presence in the Chennai airport has inspired the author to develop a novel approach to study of monopolies, customer connect and business development, with an integrated and holistic model and present important management lessons.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on April 4, 2015

Product Renewal through Technological Resurgence: When Past is the Future and Legacy is the Discovery!

It is generally believed that new technology not only makes older technologies inefficient and inappropriate but also makes whole product lines obsolete. There have been many case studies of products that have become obsolete by the sheer march of technology. Mechanical watches by quartz watches, ink jet printers by laser jet printers, fountain pens by ball point pens, hand telephones, calculators, cameras and navigation systems, all by cellular phones, physical publishing by digital publishing, corner bookstore by online bookstore, telex by fax, mail and fax by Internet, and so on. Almost all of these have been driven by revolutions in electronics, telecommunications and software technologies. If such changes have not been more universal (for example, X Ray not getting edged out still by CT Scan), the costs alone could be the deterrent.   

The upcoming Apple Watch is another perfect example of a disruptive technology in wearable computers that could change the way smartphones and health devices are positioned in future. Interestingly, this technological trend may not leave even very traditional and mature products such as automobiles untouched.   The fascinating point in all this technological revolution and product obsolescence is that the basic needs that were fulfilled by the earlier generation products continued to be required. Things like timekeeping, printing, writing, voice communication, photography, navigation, book reading, mail communication, other non-voice communication, and medical diagnosis are still required. Technology’s ability to converge more applications into one device or one medium has contributed to this transformation.

Technological resurgence

Established technologies, and hence established products, may be overtaken by newer ones; however, nothing prevents them from staging a comeback. The case of Seiko Epson, the famous Japanese printer group is a case in point. The company, under the stewardship of Minoru Usui san, took a bold step in 2006 to refocus on ink jet printers despite the likely advent of a paperless digital office. Not only did he focus on ink jet printers, in preference to laser printers that are considered to be technically superior, but also shifted focus from consumer markets to business markets. This has been made possible by a technological stride in print head technology patented by Seiko Epson that enabled high accuracy in firing the ink droplets and thus securing higher print quality. This was also accompanied by a different bundling strategy for the marketplace that enabled his high cost printers featuring big tanks accept cheaper inks from any brand.

Similar technological resurgence has been behind the Swiss watch industry, which recovered from the shock of piezoelectric quartz watch technology by a refocus on its precision design and manufacturing capability on one hand and by integrating multiple drive options from mechanical to quartz to light powered and radio powered movements in watch design and manufacture. This was also accompanied by redesign of watches to appeal to customers belonging to different demographics and professions, including youngsters, students, sportsmen, professionals and seniors. There has also been a very successful effort to position watch as a luxury product, with an additional ornamental value for the ladies watches. The case of the fountain pen is also one of similar comeback, from a mass writing instrument to one which is rendered obsolete by ballpoint pen and which finally staged as a gallant comeback as a luxury writing instrument.

Basic needs

It is important to recognize that technologies may come and go but the basic objectives of all technological developments would be to fulfil certain basic needs in an ever better fashion.

As long as writing exists, the need for writing instrument exists. Many thought that personal computers have rendered typewriters irrelevant, and along with traditional typists. True, but typing itself has never gone out of need; in fact, typing has become a universally required skill and physical keys of a typewriter got replaced by a computer keyboard, followed by a BlackBerry keyboard, now followed by a virtual keyboard. The same type of product reinvention cycle can be seen across products. At the core of such renewal lies the relevance of technology in enhancing user experience even for basic established needs.

Successful technological resurgence would depend on multiple factors: the scope for the old generation technology to be upgraded, the opportunity to extract incremental value from the technology, the costs and benefits of breakthrough innovation vis-à-vis incremental innovation, the potential to integrate supportive technologies, the ability to re-segment the markets based on new technologies and products, the possibility to reposition and rebrand through ‘retro’ features, the adaptive nature relative to the Internet technologies, and so on. Not all later stage technology would result in more expensive products. For example, Swatch watch used inexpensive quartz technology to provide to youngsters inexpensive watches as fashion accessories. It is important, therefore, not to discard any product or banish legacy technology simply because a new technology has arrived. 

Market redefinition

The key to re-emergence of legacy technologies for renewing products lies in the ability to redefine markets. It also requires redefining competition. The relevant case is that of fountain pens. The industry possibly sold several hundred million units each year in the 1950s but by the 1970s the annual sales dwindled to a few million units due to the advent of the ballpoint pen. Today, possibly in unit volumes the same level is being maintained but in dollar value the turnover of the industry multiplied – the reason being that the fountain pens are now being marketed not as utilitarian writing instruments but as nostalgic luxury accessories. It is not that technology was passive in this process; from finely honed gold nibs to lacquer finish cases, new technology did give luxury touch to the renewed fountain pen drive.  As a result, fountain pens and ballpoint pens now operate in two distinct market segments. The same could happen to radios and record players.

The case of Seiko Epson also demonstrates how technological resurgence gives confidence to redefine markets. Given the lower print quality and lower price point relative to laser printers, ink jet printers were ideally positioned for the cost conscious consumer markets and the laser printers for the office market. However, on the back of energy efficiency and comparable print quality, Seiko Epson could do the contrary market positioning for its new series of ink jet printers focusing more on business users successfully. The likely future market definitions could be even more disruptive; from simple definition on the basis of a spectrum between mass consumption and luxury use, future products would have very novel redefinitions. For example, shoes in the past moved from being classified as business and casual shoes to application oriented shoes (running, jogging etc.). Tomorrow, if a smart chip can be embedded in the sole of a shoe, shoes may get stratified into health shoes and routine shoes!

Human factor

The temptation to discard legacy technologies could be easy to fall for executives and companies but the grit to re-develop and re-deploy legacy technologies requires strong human faculty. Fundamentally, it starts with the resolution of the apex business and function leaders to preserve the institutionalized value of technologies until the time comes to merge new technologies. This also requires preserving the technicians and workforce that grew with and lived in/with the legacy technology. There is an interesting anecdote on this. When Zenith, a Swiss watchmaker was buffeted by the quartz onslaught, it like many Swiss mechanical watchmakers decided to discard all its production tools, including critical molds and dies. However, a veteran employee who could not stand the idea of scrapping all the historical production tools hid them in a shed in the factory.  When, years later, the mechanical watch industry made a comeback and Zenith was at its wit’s end as to how to participate in the revival, the veteran employee returned to disclose the hidden treasures of historical tools and drawings, and led Zenith’s foray into mechanical watches.

There is a practical and compassionate element to the human factor too. It is easy to lay off people but difficult to retrain people. Companies which invest the time and effort to retrain people would combine the benefits of legacy knowledge and futuristic technology. Seiko Epson, for example, decided to retrain and redeploy its people on newer product lines. This, of course, requires not only a compassionately practical management but also a mature employee base which is not plagued by insecurity but is willing to learn new technologies as eager students with a faith in future. The third important factor is to focus on the customer as not merely as a user but more importantly as a human being who needs to be provided a better quality of life. The new slew of products, particularly the ones on the anvil, such as smart phone linked health watches are nothing but the stethoscopes, pedometers, electroencephalographs and diagnostic algorithms, all rolled into one.

When the customer is pampered and enthused as a human being, just with satisfaction of basic needs with resurgent technologies and renewed products, past tends to be future-perfect and legacy promises to be future-creative!  

Posted by Dr CB Rao on March 21, 2015  

Buying and Selling in a Digital World: From Instant Satisfaction to Distant Nirvana?

Economic and social development is based on exchange transactions; more specifically, buying and selling transactions. Every moment of our lives, we buy or sell something. Most times such buying and selling transactions cover tangible products and services but they also cover intangible factors such as goodwill and brand equity. Many times, buy-sell transactions get known under different nomenclatures such as deposits and loans, in the context of a banking transaction, for example; but a closer look will reveal the embedded buy-sell nature of even a banking transaction. In certain other times, the presence of intermediaries and channel partners obscures one from the realities of buy-sell transactions. From the very established situation of physical buying and selling that has been in vogue till recently in an exclusive manner, electronic commerce has brought in completely varied hues to buying and selling. Two ubiquitous variables, one an outcome variable called value and the other a process variable called bargaining, influence the arithmetic of buy-sell leading to either profit or loss.

The buy-sell transactions are a key aspect of human, organizational, social and national behaviour. Like a coin has two sides, all these entities have buying and selling as the two sides of their personalities. Resources, especially natural and financial resources, being finite it is impossible to specialize and excel only in buying or selling. One needs to be adept at both simultaneously. Organizations tend to believe that buyers and sellers have characteristics that are different and differentiated; rarely one does see a head of procurement becoming a head of sales, and vice versa! There are some who believe that the underlying characteristics are the same, the differences are caused by the respective universes that the buyers and sellers operate in; the buyers operate in a limited supply pool and the sellers operate in a huge market place. In respect of a bank as an example, the buyer of a fixed deposit has only a few banks to choose from while the bank has millions of customers to sell its deposits to.  

Buy-sell characteristics

Buyers do not exhibit homogeneity. A buyer who is part of an organization tends to be methodical seeking high quality for low cost. The same person as an individual tends to be less analytical and more emotional while exercising his or her buying decisions. An organizational buyer tends to operate within a budget while an individual buyer prefers to be influenced into purchasing with elastic budgets. An organizational buyer tends to be a responsible and held-accountable buyer while the individual buyer tends to be a responsive and self-empowered buyer. The organizational buyer is motivated to save costs and increase profits for his organization as part of an integrated organizational goal system. The individual buyer is inspired to fulfill needs and increase esteem as part of a diversified social aspiration system. Industrial buying and individual buying have completely different ecosystems and behavioural triggers even if the operating person is the same.

Sellers also do not exhibit homogeneity. A seller who is part of an organization tends to be methodical seeking high price despite low cost. The same person as an individual tends to be less analytical and more emotional while exercising his or her selling decisions. An organizational seller tends to operate within a budget while an individual seller prefers to be influenced into selling with a view to deleverage, save or buy something else. An organizational seller tends to be a responsible and held-accountable seller while the individual seller tends to be a maverick and self-compelled seller. The organizational seller is motivated to offer discounts and raise volumes or prices for given volumes with a view to increase profits for his organization as part of an integrated organizational goal system. The individual seller is inspired to fulfill needs through better buys later and increase esteem as part of a diversified social aspiration system. Industrial selling and individual selling have completely different ecosystems and behavioural triggers even if the operating person is the same.

Premium-discount-loyalty-volume mix

A trained organizational buyer and an experienced individual buyer have one common characteristic though. He or she invariably seeks premium at a discount. A trained organizational seller and an experienced individual seller have also one common characteristic in a similar manner. He or she invariably seeks volumes at a premium. Both premium and discount generate loyalty. Loyalty, in turn, generates volumes. The buyers and sellers have a convergence play in how premiums and discounts are structured for a given specification and quality level. The selling strategies of organizations and the buying strategies of individuals vary depending on how the premium-loyalty, discount-loyalty and loyalty-volume relationships are structured. It appears that within this convergence, a divergence is developing between physical stores and virtual stores (or brick & mortar sales and electronic sales). There are essentially two points of view; one from a premium repositioning angle and the other from a discount repositioning angle, both of which attempt to increase purchases and sales, without losing the premium tag or accruing discount scorn, respectively.

The premium repositioning hypothesis is that the higher the perceived premium in a product or service and the higher the discount obtained on such product or service the greater is the value (and the volume). Even entities and channels which wish to play on premium are therefore forced to simulate, if not exactly offer, discounts.  The increasing trend of same store gift or discount certificates of premium retailers (Lifestyle, Home Centre, Shoppers Stop) or the same channel loyalty points of premium corporations (Taj Hotels, Sheraton Hotels and Lufthansa) are designed to encourage long term repetitive buying behaviour on premium products without sacrificing the short run profitability that could have come with discounts on premium pricing. The discount repositioning hypothesis is that the lower the perceived premium and the higher the discount obtained on such product or service the greater is the value (and the volume). Even channels which wish to play on discounts are therefore forced to continuously enhance the discount experience. The increasing trend of flash discounts by e-commerce channels and Uber style cab services are designed to continuously refresh the value-volume equation even with discounts.

Close touch to virtual scan

Electronic commerce, including electronic auction, has redefined the buy-sell characteristics. The foundations of close look and trial performance of physically available goods that have been the solid foundations of physical buy-sell experience have been replaced with the 360 degree compasses of universal scan and analytical evaluation of endless arrays of portal-linked goods. The physical buyer has become a more focused and circumspect consumer while the digital buyer has become a more empowered and maverick consumer. The physical seller is challenged with the task of re-establishing the relevance of brick and mortar store while the digital seller is challenged with the task of delivering to promise of digital platform. The physical buyer and seller are in a state of rediscovery for the next level of interaction with the physical sellers attempting to find other value enhancements besides look-feel (digitized shopping follow-up, for example) and the digital buyers seeking to find other credibility alternatives besides direct interface (digital price matching, for example). The digital buyer and seller are in a state of evolution with the digital sellers attempting to find other value enhancements besides discounts (same day delivery, for example) and the digital buyers seeking to find other credibility alternatives besides discounts (reseller warranties, for example).

The big corporations and the small consumers in both physical and digital buy-sell relationships are thus in a state of evolving expectations. As the chairman of Hindustan Unilever, Harish Manwani, stated recently electronic commerce cannot be wished away. The physical sellers may decide or influence their channel partners to list what can be sold through digital channels; the long term success may, however, lie in supplementing and complementing rather than in competing and substituting one for the other. This could include own e-commerce sites or contractual tie-ups with independent e-commerce sites to make available what is not physically available. As the consumers of e-commerce sites recently experienced what is most sought after digitally is rarely available freely. The digital buyers may patronize the digital portals for instantaneous buying gratification; the long term satisfaction may, however, lie in bringing in some of the discipline and practices of physical buy-sell to digital platforms. This could include more voice-verification opportunities, product reservation facilities, cancellation options and product return policies. Both flash sales in digital platforms and progressive sales in physical platforms require media advertisements, a trend likely to continue for long time – until a time point is reached when buy-sell is as embedded and as contractual phenomenon as a family, school, college, club or job relationship is. A completely integrated buy-sell ecosystem is what the future evolution is likely to be, as Apple Pay and Google Wallet may indicate.

  

Digital nirvana

In the extended digital age of the future, buy-sell will undergo a major transformation. A few principles of buy-sell nirvana will determine the evolution. Firstly, all buyers will be sellers, and vice versa. Buying intentions will be to buy as now but only to use temporarily and sell eventually.  Selling intentions will be to sell as now but only to induce repetitive buying through a variety of means, including buyback. Secondly, all physical will be digital and all digital will be physical. Buyers will seek seamless transfer between digital and physical buying and selling. Sellers will redesign and throw open their call centres and warehouses to buyers (akin to factory outlets). Thirdly, modularity and scalability will be used to extend product lifecycles. Designers will be encouraged, or even required, to use as much portability as possible. Fourthly, value will be determined by neither premium nor discount; it will be determined by exchange feasibility. Fifthly, buyers and sellers will weave themselves into integrated ecosystems in which phones, tablets and computers with banks and telecommunication providers will connect the buyers and sellers. 

These principles could lead to a new ecological logjam. The more one buys the more one will sell, and vice versa. With digitization while paper and trees are saved more plastic, metal and rare earths are potentially being generated, consumed and wasted.  If this trend accelerates, as it looks to, the planet could be burdened with profligate consumption of resources and excessive hoarding of products of multiple generations. As buyers keep looking at the earliest points of sale and resale, rather than maximal points of use and extended use, and as sellers keep looking at the earliest points of purchase and repurchase, products will only multiply exponentially.  Accelerated buy-sell (of a range, from physical goods to financial instruments) which is seen today (and possibly for several years, and even decades to come,) as an inevitable driver of socio-economic development will be seen as a fit case for accepting some philosophical and spiritual caveats relating to the limitations of the planet. A buy-sell nirvana could be a theme that would encourage ‘optimum development-optimum conservation’ (if not, ‘minimum development-maximum conservation’). Nations would have ombudsmen, corporations would have offices, societies would have crusaders and families would have thinkers who will reflect the principles of a responsible universal digital age that focuses on design optimization and resource conservation.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on November 2, 2014