Satyamonline vs Mantraonline vs VSNL. ICICI vs hsbc. AirTel vs Hutchison. Rediff vs Indiatimes. Musicworld vs Planet M.

The combatants are easy to identify. Prominent absentees from the real brand-wars will be the classic adversaries from the soaps, detergents, and other FMCG markets. For, the fight for the customer's attention in 2000 will mostly be about service-in areas ranging from ISPs to phone services, from portals to hotel chains, from mega-retailers to music. Predicts Arvind Mahajan, 41, Executive Director (Strategic Change Consulting), PricewaterhouseCoopers: ''The emerging area is that of service brands.'' Echoes Jagdeep Kapoor, 39, CEO, Samsika Marketing Consultants: ''It's going to be the year of fast-moving marketing services.'' Packaged and sold like consumer products, these branded services will wage bitter war with one another, using lower price, more freebies, and-most important-high-decibel advertising as their weapons. Since many of them will be new, 2000 will be the year for gaining marketshare, not profits. So, value, and not margins, will be the cornerstone of their offerings. The parameters of success? Acceptance, affordability, and availability.

But what of BPL vs LG vs Samsung? Ford Ikon vs Fiat Siena vs Opel Corsa.

Oh, consumer product brands will slog it out, too, especially in the field of durables. However, even here the focus will be more on the service component-spanning information, delivery, and after-sales support-than on the primary products. Explains Sanjay Naik, 42, President, TBWA Anthem: ''Open markets are ensuring product parity in most areas. The only scope for innovation is in service. That's what the brand wars will mean in 2000.'' And, make no mistake, these will be fought not in the strategy rooms, but in the trenches-real and virtual.

-Sanjiv Rana

ADVERTISING  2000
The return of the Big Spenders

As the new millennium unfolds, there's more hope than hype in India's advertising industry. After 2 years of sluggish growth, the silver lining is finally visible. Still, it's way too early to celebrate. According to projections made by ssc&b-Lintas, the Rs 7,687-crore industry is expected to grow by 17 per cent in 2000. That's hardly a number that will make agency CEOs yelp with joy. After all, thanks to the heady mid-1990s, they have been used to growth rates more in the 20-25 per cent range. But the past 2 years have been humbling. With the economy in the grips of a terrible recession, clients slashed their ad budgets. In 1999, total adspend grew by just 13 per cent-down from 19 per cent in 1998.

But now, it looks like the beginning of a bounce-back. It may be too early to tell, but on India's Madison Avenue, the mood is certainly upbeat. Says Madhukar Kamath, 44, managing director, Bates: ''The current indicators all point to a good year. While you have newer industries that need to advertise, there are also segments like automobiles, which will continue with its intensified spends.'' Adds Nirvik Singh, 34, CEO, Trikaya Grey: ''The dot-com sector will bring in new advertising business. The primary market is also opening up. Over and above that FMCG spending is going to continue growing.''

If SSC&B Lintas' projections are right, total adspend could rise to Rs 8,988 crore in 2000-an addition of a neat Rs 1,200 crore. New sectors like hyperactive dot-com businesses will certainly be contributing to this increased spend. As will the newly-opened up insurance and healthcare industries. Car-makers and financial services firms are also expected to shell out more on advertising-thanks to the growing competition in their businesses. And, of course, with the economic upswing, existing players will maintain-if not increase-their ad budgets.

In fact, the good times started rolling towards the end of 1999. The fact that the newly-elected Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government was perceived as a stable one helped in no small measure. Says Ajay Chandwani, 44, CEO, SSC&B-lintas:''We got political stability only in October last year. And, ever since, we have seen the stockmarket booming and real estate prices picking up. Clients sitting on the fence are thinking of spending now.''

He could be right. With many sectors coming out of the recession, bottomlines are expected to improve. No wonder SSC&B-Lintas has projected a robust 20 per cent growth for both television and print media. Other media are expected to grow at 15 per cent.

Mind you, these are forecasts just for above-the-line advertising. A lot of money will go into below-the-line promotions too. Predicts Trikaya's Singh: ''Companies are also going to look at how to stretch the advertising rupee by focusing on untapped tools of communications.'' Agrees Bates' Kamath: ''Marketers will consider spending more on customer relationship management, corporate communications, public relations, and promotions more seriously.'' According to market-researchers done by ORG-MARG, below-the-line spends will grow between 22 and 28 per cent in 2000.

So, if you happen to see ad agency CEOs looking cheerier than they have been in recent times, don't be surprised. They're really hoping that happy days will be here again.

-Chhaya

COMPENSATION  2000
Pay-hikes Cheque out Again

It is just refusing to rise-to any bait. The recession may be over, but paymasters don't plan to loosen their purse-strings just yet. Other than sectors with obvious demand-supply imbalance in terms of quality people-read: infotech and e-biz-the pay hikes for the junior, middle, and senior citizens of corporate India are going to be flatter than ever.

Flatter even than the 15 per cent bestowed on middle and senior managers-10 per cent on the junior cadre-in 1999? Yes! Concludes Dhruv Prakash, 41, Senior Associate, Noble & Hewitt: "If the recovery gathers pace at all, it will be reflected in salaries only in the second half of the year." But that is the average. In select cases, increments will be higher. That's because hikes will mostly be in the performance-related component of pay-packets, which could account for up to 75 per cent of the total package.

A sectoral scan of salaries reveals that infotech, services, and consumer products will lead the increment brigade-with average pay-hikes ranging between 20 and 25 per cent-followed by financial services, banking, and infrastructure. Not only are these historically better paymasters, they are more dependent on people than the traditional manufacturing industries. Adds A. Rabindranath, 32, Senior Consultant, William M. Mercer: "These are the sectors that have always been strongly performance-driven, which rewards high performers better and inevitably figure in the higher compensation percentiles."

Even so, it won't be everyone in these sectors who will gain. On the contrary, the cream regarding pay-hikes will be reserved for the truly specialist functions. Says S. Chandrasekhar, 42, Vice-President (HR), NIIT: "Salaries in infotech will peak only for specialists in a areas like Web-design or datamining."

The compensation structuring, however, will see plenty of innovation. Stock options will, of course, become ubiquitous this year across sectors, both as a reward and as a retention tool. Since key managers at the middle and senior levels are most likely to leave for start-ups, companies will employ stock options liberally to hold them back-especially if the stockmarkets continue to boom.

Also on view this year will be flexibility in the structuring of benefits. As age and seniority continue to lose out to expertise and specialised knowledge, the attitude towards benefits is undergoing a sea-change. Explains Noble & Hewitt's Prakash: ''With multiple careers and cross-border mobility of talent on the rise, companies have to look at flexible benefits. Younger managers today often opt for higher performance-pay vis-a-vis generous retirement benefits.''

Oh yes, we can expect to see cleaner salary structures too-with no hidden perquisites. In 2000, it will certainly pay for pay-cheques to be tax-compliant.

-Paroma Roy Chowdhury

DISINVESTMENT  2000
How to Sell out on Privatisation

Time is running out for the privatisers. Many of the 240 Central public sector undertakings, in which the Government of India has invested Rs 90,000 crore over the past 53 years-Rs 2,00,000 crore including the loans-will become uncompetitive and go out of business in the increasingly integrated global economy. Unless, that is, the Department of Disinvestment under the Ministry of Industry, headed by Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Arun Jaitley, can live up to its name.

But will it?

Contends J. Rajagopal, 44, Managing Director (Consulting), KPMG: ''This move will give a little more focus to the whole effort of disinvestment. But more than departments, what's required is the political will to take tough decisions.'' Quite. And since every proposal will have to be cleared by the Prime Minister's Office, there will be no blanket policy guiding the process. Nor will there be a push from the bureaucracy. Says Pradeep Baijal, 45, Secretary, Department of Disinvestment: ''I would like to study the papers before discussing the issue.''

That rules out the possibility of much action in the first 3 months of the year, although only Rs 1,479 crore out of the Rs 10,000 crore targeted as disinvestment proceeds for 1999-2000 have materialised so far. However, if Jaitley can at least get around to implementing the disinvestment plans cleared by the Union Cabinet, expect issues of shares or Global Depository Receipts-or both-from Indian Oil Corp. (Rs 800 crore) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (Rs 350 crore).

Also in the pipeline will be strategic sales of Modern Foods (Rs 400 crore), Hindustan Teleprinters (Rs 300 crore), Madras Fertilisers (Rs 200 crore), Bharat Aluminium (Rs 200 crore), and Indian Petrochemicals (Rs 1,000 crore), the last through open bidding. There's also a distinct possibility of reviving the proposal to sell part of the National Thermal Power Corporation, as private sector LNG companies would love to have its gas-based power plants.

These may be followed, if the fiscal deficit really spins out of control, by sale of equity in the India Tourism Development Corporation and Kudremukh Iron Ore. And then will follow strategic sell-offs in 6 profit-making heavy-industry public sector units, where the government has decided to shed 26 per cent-Andrew Yule & Co, BHVP, Bridge & Roof, Scooters India, Hindustan Paper Corporation, and Tunghabhadra Steel Products-bringing in Rs 2,000 crore. Disinvestment, yes. But privatisation? Don't hold your breath.

-Ranju Sarkar

B-SCHOOLS  2000
Learning to Manage differently

The M-for-millennium MBA will be taught in a radically different style this year. Breaking with the 1990s, India's B-Schools will use 3 new techniques that will revolutionise management pedagogy:

» Case studies will shift from post-mortems to live analysis of ongoing development.

» The use of intranets, databases, and other forms of on-line education will gain ground.

» Course will be altered to cater primarily to students with work experience, not newbies.

The shift from academic analysis of events with known outcomes to real-time involvement with emerging development has been in the works for some time now. Exlains M.G. Korgaonker, 51, Director, IIT School Of Management, Mumbai: "Following the process as it unfolds is a better way of understanding strategy formulation than a post-mortem of events down the line." Korgaonker's institute has taken the lead by assigning each final year student to a corporation for 4 months as the end of the 20-months curriculum when she will work closely with senior managers on matters of strategic concern. That's an idea other B-Schools will pick up, too.

Networked teaching is in evidence at the Mumbai-based S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, which has launched a knowledge web, branded SPINX (S.P. Jain Information Exchange) to digitize the reading material and other data that the students require. Says A.K. Sengupta, 47, the Director of the B-School: "We have put knowledge at the fingertips of our students-and essential part of preparing the knowledge managers for tomorrow." With the Net also being put at the disposal of students, on-line knowledge will become the primary sources of learning for B-School students.

Simultaneously, B-Schools will shift their focus from fresh graduates to those who have couple of years of work under their belts. Explains Ramu P. Iyer, 60, Director, Indira Institute of Management, Pune: "This is what B-Schools in the US do." Naturally, that will mean a shift in course-content, too, as practicing managers who are looking for MBAs will have to be taught differently.

Two other radical changes will impact B-Schools this year. First, they will have to become financially self-supporting-the direct fall-out of which could be a huge jump in B-School education cost. Currently, the prpremier IIMs charge Rs 1.8 lakh for a 2-year course-about 7 per cent of the fee for an MBA at a middle-level US B-School. Obviously, the scope for a fee-increase in high.

The second change? The Indian School of Business, masterminded by McKinsey & Co. and India Inc., will open its door. So, B there, or Bsquare.

R. Chandrashekar

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