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T E C H N O L O G Y An ex prez, a CEO, and oodles of hype Oracle's hi-profile e-biz do in New Orleans was just like its CEO: a hard-seller.
While Oracle executives may have puffed up with pride at that, those kudos for Ellison, of course, also fanned the already raging speculation that Oracle was courting Clinton to join the company's board. (Later, however, when mediapersons asked Ellison whether that was true, he replied in the negative.) Neither was Clinton's charismatic speech tarnished by the presence of megaphone and banner wielding (Sample: ''Oral Apps World'') protesters (including one poster-clad dog) outside the convention centre. On the other hand, Clinton set the tone for the conference when, in an obvious reference to the uncertain future of the new economy, Clinton illustrated his point by citing how Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, when looking ahead at a bend in the Mississippi river, saw not uncertainty but an exciting future. The rest of the show was Oracle's, as it was meant to be. From Big Larry down, senior executives of the aggressive database software giant turned e-business solutions purveyor, made the by-now-familiar pitch on how superior its integrated suite approach (an integrated software solution that embraces every aspect of a business) was over the kit or ''best-of-breed'' solution (where a company goes for an array of customised software). Last November, when the big story was about how Oracle Corporation used its own integrated business software, the i11, to save $1 billion, a US magazine wanted Ellison to pose for a photograph, pretending to eat a can of dog food. The logic: dog food maker eats own dog food. The consummate show-off that he is, Ellison readily agreed. But that picture never got taken because one of his key aides advised him against posing with a can of dog food. No sweat. Because photograph or not, Ellison and his senior colleagues at Oracle rarely miss an opportunity to rub it in: we saved a billion using our own e-biz solution. So why don't you? It's a sales pitch really for Oracle's integrated e-business suite. For the record, this year Ellison has set for his company a savings target of $2 billion. And what of the i11 suite's inability to deliver all of the functionality that customers wanted? Surprisingly, Ellison requested the hundreds of Oracle customers gathered at the jamboree that they should expect only 80 per cent of the functionality from i11. In return, he promised cheaper implementation and, therefore, quicker return on investment than if users tried to integrate Oracle applications with so-called best-of-breed applications from other vendors. ''Expect less and you'll get more,'' said Ellison. -A BT Correspondent S O L I T U
D E It's all about a man marooned on an island, but here are some reasons why Castaway is certainly part of the economic mainstream.
2. The movie's protaganist is Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) a systems engineer for FedEx. Hanks appears in several scenes wearing a FedEx cap; FedEx trucks form the backdrop of some scenes; and the company's part of the story. Now, how many other movies made these days have their main characters working for real companies. And FedEx didn't have to pay anything to have its name written into the script (screenwriter: William Broyles Jr.). In a quote displayed on the website of the movie (www.castawaymovie.com) Broyles explains why they chose FedEx: ''As a FedEx worker, the character would be dedicated to connecting people all over the world, just as his life would be run by time and his connections.'' A release put out by Federal Express' Indian ops insists that there is also a punchline match-FedEx' is We Live To Deliver; Castaway's On The Edge, The Journey Begins-although we really can't see any. 3. Just before the release of the pic in India, FedEx hosted a preview for its customers (existing, as well as prospective). The invites were in the form of coconuts (Hanks survives on coconuts in the film) and FedEx had a special treat in store for a lucky invitee, a two-day holiday at a virtually uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean. Similar screenings, minus the coconuts and the contest, accompanied the company's December-2000, US release. -Shamni Pande M A R K E T I N G Chocolate makers are trying out different recipes to crack newer segments in the market.
If you've been scaring your brat with stories of how eating too many chocolates isn't healthy and can cause cavities in teeth, be warned. Chocolate marketers have just the campaigns to counter that. Cadbury, for instance, launched its Milk Treat, a wafer chocolate covered with white chocolate, as a candy that has the goodness of milk and does not cause tooth decay. Arch rival Nestlé has a white version of its leading brand KitKat, which is similarly positioned. Both brands play on the peculiar Indian psyche that associates whiteness of milk with purity and goodness. It's ironical because the original colour of the cocoa butter from which chocolates are made is actually white. White or brown, both Cadbury and Nestlé have for sometime now been promoting their chocolate brands like KitKat, Munch, and Perk as nutritious convenient snack foods rather than as candies. With good reason. The 20,000-odd tonne-a-year (value: Rs 350-400 crore) market for chocolates in India has turned stubborn over the past three years, with year on year volume growth a mere 5 per cent. Says Nirav Sheth, analyst at SSKI, a brokerage firm: ''The propensity to consume is there. but the problem, so far, is that the products have not been right.'' Still, Indians eat far fewer chocolates than their counterparts elsewhere-per capita consumption is around 160 grams in urban areas as compared to 8-10 kg in the developed countries. In rural areas it is even lower. The moot issue: Indians perceive chocolates as a luxury that is expensive. That's exactly what chocolate marketers are trying to change. And apart from choosing the health plank for promotion, the other 'p' they're relying on is (you guessed right) price. Says Nestlé India's Chairman & Managing Director, Carlo Donati: ''Penetration through innovative products like Nestlé KitKat, Nestlé Munch, and Nestlé Bar One, and lower unit price points are helping the consumers to realise the food value and snacking convenience of chocolates.'' Marketers have been trying to crack the penetration problem with different price packs and by trying out new positioning for their products. Market leader Cadbury, which has a market share of 70 per cent, adopts a two-fold strategy: increase depth of consumption in larger towns by pushing products in the premium segment; widen consumption by offering different pack and, hence, price formats. Says Bharat Puri, Director (Sales and Marketing), Cadbury: ''Our recent launches of products like 'ChocoBix' (a biscuit) in states with low per capita consumption are an attempt to leverage the equity of other categories such as biscuits along with chocolates, thus, driving penetrations of chocolates in smaller markets.'' That's what you could call a sweet strategy. -Seema Shukla I N T E R N E T When the mouse gets a place next to the hookah, you know the internet has arrived. email is still the killer app on the internet, with the percentage of users who access email rising from 37 per cent in January 1998, to 50 per cent in June 2000, says a new org- marg and Media Research Users Council survey. Of the 741 towns, 2,475 villages and 2,10,000 people the survey covered over 10 months, it found that the average user spends 1.5 hours on the internet on weekends, and half of that on weekdays. More impressively, internet awareness has soared from 23.6 million individuals in 1998, to 65.02 million in June, 2000. South India-especially Chennai-seemed the most aware, and West the least. This wave looks unstoppable. -Ashutosh Sinha
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A quick
quiz question. ''I know a few dotcoms are failing, but don't kid yourself,
the internet is our future.'' Who do you think said that recently at a
high-profile gathering of the high-tech set in the US? If you're thinking
Amazon's Jeff Bezos or Yahoo's Jerry Yang or even eBay's Meg Whitman,
you're way off the mark. It's Bill Clinton. Yep, it was the former head
honcho of the White House who's clearly smitten with technology and the
internet. Last fortnight, the former US President wowed the 10,000-strong
high-tech set at Oracle Apps World, Oracle Corporation's first annual
e-business applications conference, at New Orleans. Clinton's speech was
peppered with allusions to how business was leveraging the internet to
gain significant benefits. If he went slightly overboard when he compared
Henry Ford to Oracle's flamboyant CEO Larry Ellison, the audience indulged
him. Both men, he said, understood that a simpler, standardised approach
to a product would serve customers better than customised products.
1. The movie has already raked in $307
million globally. It was released just a week ago in India-and its
distributors missed an opportunity to open screening on International
Robinson Crusoe Day (February 1, and so named to commemorate the rescue of
Alexander Selkirk, the man who inspired Defoe's Crusoe)-but Paramount, the
company distributing the film in India, expects it to do around Rs 3 crore.
That's big money for non-action English language pics in India. ''Films
with an Oscar nomination do well in India," explains Jacinto
Fernandes, the marketing manager of the company. Castaway has two
nominations, one for Tom Hanks for best actor and the other for best
sound; ergo, says Fernandes: ''It should do at least as well as American
Beauty.''
