Charles Andersen: Covering rural India

Charles Andersen, MD (Financial Services-Asia), Aviva, thinks it's possible to push insurance to villages. He recently explained how to BT's Roshni Jayakar. Excerpts:

Is rural India on Aviva's radar?

We have recently launched a rural product Gram Suraksha that will offer life insurance cover and money back at a low premium of Rs 500. In Hyderabad, through micro institutions we have sold 2,500 policies for groups of women involved in self-help organisations. Using bancassurance and micro-outfits we can get into new markets, including rural.

Will the recent bancassurance deal with Canara Bank help?

It is a good opportunity to push the distribution deeper into India. Canara Bank has 2,200 branches. Through its management process and the training that we can give to the management and staff, we can create a sales operation for us in each of the branch.

Will that be your preferred strategy?

We are a multiple distribution company globally. We think it is dangerous to be focused on one particular channel. In India, half of the income will come from bancassurance relationships and half through traditional sales force.

EXTRAA
More Of The Chaebol
Samsung is gearing up to enter the watches market. Competitors beware.

Deepak Malhotra: Brand power

First came the refrigerators and CTVs, then the mobile phones, and now watches. Having tasted success in India, the Korean chaebol Samsung is getting ready for a foray into the Rs 1,500-crore watches market. Says Deepak Malhotra, CMD of Samsung Watches India: ''The Samsung name has a good brand equity in the Indian market and we want to exploit it.''

Beginning this April, the company plans to introduce 50 different models in the analog quartz watch segment, 35 of which have been developed for India. Priced at between Rs 2,400 and Rs 6,500, the watches will take the market leader Titan Industries head on. In the first year, Malhotra hopes to rake in $8 million (Rs 38.40 crore) in revenue. Its planned spend in year one: $1 million, or Rs 4.80 crore.

Bhaskar Bhat, Managing Director of Titan, says he isn't too worried. ''We have taken them on in the Middle East and to some extent in Europe. Though we respect our competitors we do not feel that they can make an major impact on the Indian market.'' Bhat adds that he is not only confident of holding on to the marketshare, but also of increasing it. And neither is the other big rival, HMT, breaking into sweat. ''Given the price points at which they are entering, it will be difficult for them to make a dent,'' says an HMT official.

Malhotra, however, is confident that the strategies that enabled Samsung to gain share in the consumer durables markets will work in this industry too. Let the battle begin.

-Venkatesha Babu

HEIR-SAY
Could This Be It?
Noel Tata's expanded role gets rumour mills grinding in corporate India.

Noel tata: Will he, won't her?

It was a two-line notice to the Bombay Stock Exchange, but some Tata group watchers are reading its future in it. On January 27, 2003, Group Chairman Ratan Tata's (RNT) half-brother, Noel Tata, was appointed as an additional director on the board of group company Voltas. Until then, the younger Tata's role was limited to overseeing its retail venture, Trent. With Chairman Tata due to retire in another five years, succession is the biggest issue facing the group. In the past, RNT has gone on record to say that he would like the next chairman to be relatively young. On that count, the 45-year-old Noel Tata fits the bill perfectly.

Scepticsdimiss the hoopla. Just the same, the move is reminiscent of the way RNT was plucked out of relative obscurity to succeed J.R.D Tata. RNT started at Nelco and later at Tata Industries led the foray into new businesses such as telecom. Noel Tata began as gm in charge of Tata International, moved to Lakmé where his mother Simone Tata was the Chairman, and then on to retail at Trent. Is history repeating itself?

-E. Kumar Sharma

REALITY BYTES
Run Through The Jungle
A pic about tech layoffs and difficult parents has all the makings of an unlikely blockbuster.

Belawadi's Stumble: A sure-footed creation

Contemporary, commercial thrillers-you'll realise why we've resorted to two qualifying adjectives in a moment-don't get any much more contemporary or commercial than Stumble. The 124-minute Inglish (that's Indian English, duh!) feature written and directed by Prakash Belawadi has it all: a father who makes a packet from his voluntary retirement scheme only to lose it in the markets, a techie-son who loses his job in the US, a techie-daughter who does hers in India, a crooked entrepreneur and stockmarket shenanigans. The Bangalore audience is lapping it all up: Stumble, made at a cost of Rs 74 lakh has managed a decent showing at the box-O, "despite the World Cup," claims Belawadi. And the motion PIC that goes national in April has struck a chord with the techie-on-the-street. "When I was laid off from Wipro, much like the son (in Stumble), I couldn't face my family,'' says V. Prashant, a code-jock at the city's Base Systems. Now, Belawadi, wants to take Stumble to the US. Which clearly goes to show that upturn or down, it is the people who chronicle it who gain the most.

-Venkatesha Babu

PUFF
Costly Smoke
ITC targets the super-premium segment with a new brand of smokes.

It's a cigarette. It's called wills insignia (that should tell you who owns IT-ITC, of course). It is 93 mm long , exactly the same as a Cartier or a JPS. It is ITC's first attempt at a new product since the disaster that was Hero-an experimental low-priced smoke that was expected to take on beedis. And it retails at Rs 100 for a pack of 20. The luxury segment was the last great frontier for ITC. ''Our master blenders have put together a truly international quality luxury product,'' gushes S.M. Ahmad, Executive Vice President, itc. It's still a smoke.

-Debojyoti Chatterjee

A-Z
Cracking The Alphabet Ceiling
The Zee Telefilms scrip redefines the word volatility.

The channel has no presence in the top 50 programmes on satellite television (according to tam ratings for week-ending March 1, 2003). And the scrip of the company that owns the channel is headed South. The first week of March saw the Zee Telefilm's scrip touch Rs 72, a 52-week low. No one is quite sure why. One theory ascribes the fall to the slump in ratings. Another puts it down to imminent competition in cable, a Zee mainstay. A Zee spokesperson claims: "Zee's beta (a quantitative measure of a scrip's volatility) has always been higher. So when the markets pick up, we expect it to rise faster.'' Only, the markets don't look like doing that anytime soon. ''Now that Zee has breached its 52-week low it is quite possible that it might test its two-to-three-year lows,'' says Rohit Srivastava, a market strategist at brokerage sski Sharekhan. That won't make Zee Chairman Subhash Chandra happy.

-Abir Pal