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GOVERNANCE From Bureaucracy To e-Reaucracy The Naidu Administration launches yet another e-governance initiative. This one's user-friendly.
Ever heard of a government that sets out to delight the customer? Predictably, it's the state government of Andhra Pradesh again. In January, 2000, it unveiled the results of a Rs 90-lakh pilot project going under the innocuous abbreviation of twins (Twin Cities Information Services): a sparkling new Integrated Citizen Service Centre (IISs) that integrates the services of 6 government departments: the Revenue office, the Inspector-General of Registration and Stamps, the State Transport Authority, the Andhra Pradesh Transmission Corporation, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply & Sewerage Board, and the Municipal Corporation Of Hyderabad. Thus, all data relevant to the functioning of these departments, and pertaining to the 15 middle- and high-income neighbourhoods in Hyderabad that the pilot project set out to cover, has been cleansed and fed into a master database. Close to 100,000 people from these neighbourhoods in Hyderabad can use the IISC to avail of 18 government services ranging from the issue of driving-licences and the payment of electricity-bills to the registration of property and the payment of property-taxes. If the experiment works, the Andhra Pradesh Government plans to set up IISCs across the state capital by July, 2000, in all major districts of the state by July, 2001, and in the rural hinterland thereafter. With the software developed and debugged, the government expects the incremental cost involved in setting up each centre-primarily, the costs involved in hardware and in creating the database-to be between Rs 55 lakh and Rs 60 lakh. The upgrades planned: services like the filing of passport-applications, the payment of telephone-bills, and the flexibility of making-payments on-line by July, 2000. The immediate benefit: an increase in the efficiency of the delivery-mechanism. Explains K. Madhusudhan Rao, 41, Project Director, twins: ''At the IISC, it takes less than 30 minutes for a driving-licence to be issued if the papers are in order.'' Given the low penetration of PCs in smaller towns and rural areas, networked kiosks, like the IISC, could well be the ideal beginning for governments and companies to offer their services on-line. Only, given the fact that the effective functioning of such initiatives requires the digitisation of a vast amount of data from dusty archives, this is one transition that will last-and last. -E.K. Sharma COMPETITION It was a 4gone conclusion. Only, it's happening now. TVS-Suzuki has just launched a 4-stroke bike, the 150-cc Fiero, and proposes to launch 6 more by the end of the next year. LML is ready with three 100-cc 4-stroke motorcycles that are to be launched in March this year-the TW Sport, the TW Grand, and the TW Original-and has two 125-cc 4-stroke ones in its pipeline. And Kinetic Engineering will launch an indigenously-developed 100-cc,4-stroke motorcycle, the Challenger, in February, 2000, and follow it up with a 125-cc, 4-stroke one, the gf-15, which has been developed with technological inputs from the South Korean major, Hyosung. There's a reason for this sudden interest. More motorcycles are sold in the country than scooters: 13.87 lakh versus 13.15 lakh in 1998-99. In an industry that is growing at 12 per cent, the mobike section is screaming up by 25 per cent. Explains A.N. Ravichandran, 45, Vice-President (Business & Product Development), Bajaj Auto: ''If you aren't making motorcycles, there's no point in calling yourself a 2-wheeler manufacturer.'' And 4-stroke is where the next round of growth will come from. But how do these companies plan to differentiate their offerings from those of established companies like Hero Honda and Bajaj? The USPs-of-the-season seem to be style and power. Says Jayant Bakshi, 49, Executive Director (Marketing & Sales), LML: ''Our selling-platform will be style and performance; ours will be the most powerful 100-cc bike.'' Echoes R. Chandramouli, 44, Vice-President (Business Planning), TVS-Suzuki: ''Our desire is to leverage the twin platforms of power and fuel-efficiency.'' Do these new launches spell danger for Hero Honda and Bajaj? Not quite. Explains Atul Sobti, 45, Senior Vice-President (Marketing & Sales), Hero Honda: ''What they will do is force more customers to look at bikes as opposed to scooters.'' And with companies like LML and Kinetic themselves content with using these launches to ramp up their supply chains, and slowly make an impact on the Indian market, they are unlikely to threaten the 3-way hegemony of Hero Honda, Bajaj, and TVS Suzuki in the immediate future. Even so, unless the market-leaders can establish their authority over the emerging segment quickly, they could just end up losing their 2-stroke balance. -Ranju Sarkar USPs He is redesigning his success as a car-designer in his new role of car-manufacturer. At the 5th Auto Expo held in January, 2000, the Mumbai-based car-designer, Dilip Chhabria, unveiled the Li'l, a 3-seater, 4-wheel-drive car priced at Rs 1.60 lakh. And, in a logical move in this era of venture capitalism, Chhabria proposes to tie up with a venture capital firm, and manufacture the car-himself. An investment of Rs 100 crore, he predicts, should see him ready to roll out 50,000 cars a year by 2002. With a 500-cc petrol-engine, or a 600-cc diesel-engine, the Li'l will occupy the slot between the Maruti 800, priced at Rs 2.10 lakh, and the mass-market motorcycle, priced at Rs 55,000. Explains Chhabria, 48: ''Given this large a gap, I think there will be a huge market for the Li'l. Say, 500,000 units a year in 3-4 years.'' Will this strategy work? Theoretically, the Li'l should be able to attract first-time car-buyers: the Maruti 800 sells around 200,000 units. By contrast, close to 1.5 million motorcycles are sold in India every year. Even if a fraction of that were to upgrade to 4 wheels (read: to the Li'l), Chhabria should find it a going concern. But his isn't the first attempt at breaking the price-barrier. In 1998, Kinetic Engineering announced that it would launch the Citi at Rs 1.25 lakh, but, caught in a morass of excise-and production-problems, the car is yet to see the light of day. Thus, the competition isn't overly perturbed by the prospect of having to compete with the Li'l. Avers Abhishek Tiwari, 23, Research Analyst, First Global Finance: ''At Rs 1.60 lakh, the margins for the Li'l will be low. Thus the success of Chhabria's venture is dependant on volumes.'' The Li'l may work, but 2 years is a long time in the auto-mart. Besides, an organisation used to selling made-to-order cars may find the shift to large-scale marketing-and servicing-difficult to cope up with. If it doesn't, though, the Li'l will be just 1 more milestone in the effort to make customers say those 8 words that car-makers would love to hear: 2 wheels good; 4 wheels a Li'l better. -Chhaya MARKETING It's a category that leverages your sniffles to its benefit. The market for cold and headache medications is characterised by universal need, high penetration, strong brands, and a high degree of multi-brand loyalty. Not surprisingly, therefore, most brands in this market are heavy advertisers on TV: in just over 2 months-between October 4, 1999, and December 5, 1999-the 8 analgesic and cold-relief brands that advertised on TV notched up 2,208 spots between them. That works out to close to 40 spots a day-a significant number even given the number of channels received by a typical C&S household, which is 45. Although D'Cold Total-a relatively new entrant, whose aggression is evident in the 1,106 spots it aired in the 2 months in question-notched up the largest number of GRPs (398), there were regional variations as well. Thus, old war-horse Anacin registered the highest number of GRPs in Chennai, and towns with a population between 5 and 30 lakh in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, and Vicks Action 500 in Bangalore. While not related to regional marketshares in any way, the GRP-a function of the channel and the programme in which the ad is aired-is, in some way, indicative of the popularity of a brand in a given area. With people continuing to look for the perfect cure for colds-there isn't one yet-advertising intensity in this category is certain to boom. Aachoo! HUMAN
RESOURCES MANAGEMENT If you can manage your people well, why not get paid to manage your competitors' people too? Following that hotline to using hr for profits, Arvind Mills has become the second company with a successful people-management record to make its hr department a profit-centre (after Global Telesystems). The textiles major is setting up a fully-owned subsidiary, HRM Consulting Group, with an equity-capital base of Rs 1.50 crore. Spun off from the 7-year-old HRD division of Arvind Mills, the Mumbai-based company will offer hr-related services not only to Lalbhai Group companies but, more importantly, to corporates outside the group, even in other industries. ''We will cover the entire hr value-chain, offering a range of services end-to-end,'' says Ganesh Shermon, 37, till recently President (HRD) at Arvind Mills, who will now be heading a team of over 50 hr professionals in the group. ''That is how we will differentiate ourselves from transnational and Indian pure-play hr consulting-firms, most of whom are niche players in areas like recruitment, training, compensation, assessment, and appraisal.'' The trigger for the new move at Arvind Mills was provided by the success of hrfolks.com-its hr portal dedicated to issues and concerns pertaining to HRD. Launched in April, 1999, by Shermon and his team-and updated every fortnight-the site has articles on hr issues apart from providing on-line solutions to problems faced by hr practitioners. Preceded by 6 months of preparation, the launch was greeted with enthusiasm by the hr fraternity worldwide. ''We receive over 2,000 hits every day,'' says Vinayak Kamath, 29, till recently Manager (Knowledge Management Group) at Arvind Mills, ''and discovered the potential of creating-and sharing-a knowledge and information pool way beyond textiles.'' A more basic drive for the initiative was provided by the fact that the hrd Division at Arvind Mills had acquired the copyright for several hr products and services. Developed in-house, these were being practiced extensively in the company. They included I-Cap (Intellectual Capital management), Zero-Based Structures (ZBB), Individual Value Added (IVAK), Career Planning & Assessment Of Potential, Organisational Scan Score, and StarTrack 100. These modules were generic, and can be applied across industries. So, Shermon and his team convinced Arvind Mills' CEO Sanjay Lalbhai that the competence was being wasted by being applied only to company people. Score another victory for the hr heretics. -R. Chandrashekhar |
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