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In December 1998 and January 1999, Indian Airlines lost a staggering Rs 6.47 crore due to delays and cancelled flights-courtesy fog. Last year, the weather god was more benevolent, and no significant losses were reported due to fog. But this winter could bring bad news for airline operators in India. The reason? One school of metereologist seems to think that the moisture content in the air is high enough to bring about dense fog. This view is corroborated by a private airline pilot, who says that visibility was poor even in the month of October-something unusual for that time of the year. Every time a 200-seater 737 takes off, it costs the airline an estimated Rs 1.25 lakh in costs, including salaries, airport taxes, and flight operation (excluding fixed costs). And every time it is delayed or the flight is cancelled, the loss can be as high as Rs 7 lakh (excluding fixed costs). Part of the problem at the Delhi airports is their antiquated landing systems. In the absence of equipment that can land a plane in poor visibility conditions, the traffic controllers have no choice but to turn the aircraft away. But now there is a glimmer of hope. A Category III landing system, which helps aircrafts land in low visibility conditions, is expected to be installed in Delhi shortly. Says Chaman Lal Gupta, Minister of State for Civil Aviation: ''We expect the new system to be installed at the Delhi airport by November 20.'' At an investment of Rs 43 crore, the Instrumentation Landing System (ILS) will put the Delhi airport on par with some of the better airports, as far as landing facilities are concerned. However, the September 2000 deadline for commissioning of the system has already been exceeded. When the system does get commissioned in November, it will be audited by a team from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the global industry watchdog. The new system will also have to undergo rigorous coordination and calibration tests with other airport instrumentation systems. All that means that the system may be commissioned, but not operational before the current threat of fog has sailed over. A word of advice: if you are flying this winter, take the afternoon flights. -Ashutosh Sinha O
R A L C A R E
It's bristling with activity. Soon after Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) launched Aim; and Colgate-Palmolive, Colgate Herbal, and Cibaca Top-all toothpastes aimed at the rural market-two brands of yesteryears, Promise and Forhans, are trying to get their act together after steadily losing marketshares over the years. While Geoffrey Manners has relaunched Forhans with a new packaging and new campaign, Balsara Hygiene Products has launched Promise Gel. And for good reason, too. Unlike the flat growth in the white segment, the gel category has been growing at 4 per annum. Going against convention, Balsara has positioned its new gel around freshness and protection (taazgi & suraksha) platform. Explains Sanjay Bhutiani, General Manager, Leo Burnett, which handles the Promise Gel account: ''This is aimed at people who perceive gels as non-protective and more of a fad.'' Similarly, Forhans, a market-leader in the 1960s, has been relaunched with a lot of below-the-line promotion. Amazingly enough, the brand has gone on without advertising for the last six years, and still enjoyed 1-1.5 per cent marketshare. Forhans comes with an astringent, which bonds gums and teeth. The new commercial juxtaposes familial bonding with the physical bonding the astringent provides. Says Diganta Barua, Account Director, Contract Advertising, which worked on the campaign: ''The whole idea was to position it on bonding.'' The new message: toothcare from gum care, which is a change from the old message that ''Forhans is good for your gums.'' While both Promise and Forhans may be strong brands, they will have to do a lot more to regain share from well-entrenched players like Colgate and HLL. -Ranju Sarkar S A L A R Y S U R V
E Y Hell, it is that time of the year again. Increments have to be announced, bonuses calculated, and letters be given out. And the aftermath has to be dealt with by us, the hapless hr folks. Not something we look forward to. However, things this year may not be that bad. Last year, that is in 1999-2000, average managerial salaries went up by a modest 15 per cent-something that did not quite gladden hearts here. But according to my friend Vinay Batra, Director, A.F. Ferguson, the increases this year may range between 15 to 18 per cent, and even higher in top-bracket industries like Infotech, FMCG (that's us), and telecom. Yet another friend, Vivek Shrivastava at hr consultancy, Watson Wyatt pegs the average increase specifically at 17.5 per cent. Both Batra and Shrivastava expect infotech and software, FMCGs, telecom, and pharmaceuticals to pay top-drawer salaries this year, as the performance of the sectors has been consistent. Here, the increases are expected to be 17 per cent and above. For consumer durables, banking, chemicals, and dotcom, salaries are expected to stabilise and grow around 15 per cent, while manufacturing and engineering are again expected to bring up the rear, with about 10 per cent. Level wise, I expect the senior managers to be paid more in tandem with their role and responsibility. In its survey covering 100 companies and 16 key sectors, Noble&Hewitt has pegged the increases at 16 per cent and above (18 to 20 per cent for high growth) for the generals, 15.5 per cent for the middle managers, and 15 per cent for the foot soldiers. Finally, growth would depend also on criticality of function. As Batra points out, in a software company, an e-commerce manager would get rewarded significantly higher than his marketing counterpart, and in a start-up situation like insurance, functions like hr and marketing will draw a premium over industry average. Thankfully, salary structuring has not got more complicated, although the variable pay component will increase in the future. The choice is clear: perform or perish. -Paroma Roy Chowdhury P
E R S O N A L T E C H N O L O G Y
Thanks to this little item I write I'm considered an expert of sorts within the organisation on all things connected to technology. Nothing could be farther from the truth, but I've not really tried to dispel this impression. Hey, it does feel good to be considered a tech-freak. Anyway, this status means people often approach me with their problems. Not the ''I cannot get along with my spouse'' types, but the ''I cannot open this file'' ones. And so it was that someone, let's call him X, approached me with his problem: SPAM, and highly offensive SPAM at that. X told me that he had been receiving junk-mail messages for some time, but hadn't bothered to act till he started receiving messages titled Enlarge Your..... (you know what I mean). Picture this: a colleague comes to ask him whether he has a spare floppy disk at about the same time he is opening his web-mail, happens to look at his screen and sees a message titled... Get the picture? Now, even Net-newbies know web-mail comes with a block sender option. Still, if you've ever been at the receiving end of SPAM that says things like ''Do you like hot women?'' and has been sent from a UK-based domain you probably know that the sender varies. On Monday, you could block messages from Becky at the domain but on Wednesday you could get the same mail from someone called Linda at the same address (actually neither Becky nor Linda need exist; there are programmes that can create random mail addresses and SPAM you till eternity). However, what most people who use e-mail do not realise is that all web-mail comes equipped to handle this problem. For instance, if you are a hotmail user, all you need to do is click on the options menu and choose either filters or Inbox Protector. If you choose filters, you can use the if-then logic to direct mail to various folders. For instance, you can say, if subject/from name/from address contains enlarge then deliver to inbox/sent messages/drafts/refer/ trash can. Or, if you use the Inbox Protector, you will only receive mail that has your name in the to, or cc line, or mail from addresses/domains you choose. Yahoo! mail has an options menu that works more or less along the same lines. Final word: just because your mail-box is protected doesn't mean you should share your e-mail id indiscriminately (especially when you're on-line). Me, I'd protect it with my life if I had to. -R. Sukumar S
Y S T E M S First they wanted systems to manage their businesses better. Now, they want other systems to manage those systems. So, if Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) was intended to manage businesses of companies, Enterprise-wide Systems Management (ESM) is intended to manage their ERP. And other components of the back-end like databases, applications, networking, and storage. ''In terms of awareness and market growth, ESM is where ERP was some five years ago,'' says Sunil Jose, 30, Marketing Manager, Tivoli, the ESM product owned by IBM. While the US is a relatively mature market for ESM products, India is only now warming up to the concept. But the "Indian market will soon bridge the gap,'' says Amit Chatterjee, Country Sales Manager, hp Software Services Organisation. Besides Tivoli, Computer Associate's Unicentre and hp's Open View are gunning for the ESM market. Another emerging market area for ESM products is that of Application Service Providers and ISPs, where systems management, including database, storage, and security, becomes critical to the core business. "Other applications like ATMs and cola-vending machines also lend themselves to system management tools'', says K.P. Vinod of Computer Associates. -Pooja Garg S
U R V E Y Big-ticket investment in corporate India is coming to a grinding halt. A dipstick survey carried out by the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) reveals that 83 per cent of the corporates polled plan to put all future investments on hold. The rest are only interested in their existing ventures. The message? Investment confidence is rock-bottom. Says FICCI's President, G.P. Goenka: ''People are not confident that future demand growth will be enough to merit investments.'' The first signs of a slow down surfaced in April this year when the Bombay Sensitive Index, Sensex, fell from the 5,000 mark to about 4,200. Worrying investors was a bunch of issues, including the 2 per cent fall in agricultural production and its consequent impact on rural markets that account for more than half of FMCG purchases. Then, there was a softening in overall demand, made worse by increased imports of cheaper goods. As a result, industry's 5.9 per cent growth in the first half of 1999-2000 slipped to 5.4 per cent in the first half of current fiscal. What hurt bottomlines more (as is now evident from the second quarter results) was the fact that most industries had added capacities in the mid-90s ahead of the projected boom of the late 90s. As a result, with demand slowing down, companies were left saddled with excess capacity. In fact, according to the FICCI survey, 37 per cent of the respondents reported having excess levels of inventories. Says Dilip Chenoy, Senior Director, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII): ''There has been an over-estimation of capacity, as a result of which companies increased production. I see a shakeout in all sectors.'' Interestingly enough, it's the slow down in public investments that is hurting the corporate sector. In the first three years of the Ninth Plan (1997-2000), the actual public investment was 23 per cent less than the planned investment of Rs 4,04,276 crore. In contrast, the private sector invested 3.2 per cent more than its planned Rs 8,29,368 crore. FICCI in its recent presentation to the finance minister recommended that the government should invest in critical sectors to get a recovery process underway. Even if a few of the major infrastructure projects take off-as the government has been promising they will-the momentum will be enough to spur demand in the core sectors of cement, steel, metals, and automobiles. At the moment, though, companies are busy battling their growing inventories. -Seema Shukla and Aveek Banerjee
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