Ideas

TED Talks

We have witnessed phenomenal rise in popularity of the TED talks. There are enough number of people who have already analyzed the reasons behind their enormous popularity.  The questions that I want to ask are: Are they still as relevant as they were about a couple of years ago?   Considering them to be a successful business, is there an upstart who can challenge and beat them at their own? If so, will they also follow the classic route to displace category leaders – Identify a niche and go after it; once done, repeat again with a different niche?  Or have […]

Customer Engagement

Why are rewards programs so boring?

Today, I have been a loyal customer for HSBC credit cards and over the past sometime accumulated some 3000 points on their customer loyalty program. I wanted to redeem the points and so logged into the program site to explore the options that I had. I was not impressed by what I saw. They still have an option to redeem my points for a Kodak Film. Who uses a Kodak film anymore!! Maybe someone forgot to remove this from the list (that is if someone is reviewing this list at all). Then the collection of gifts is un-imaginative. There is […]

Business Model

Disrupting Hollywood and Bollywood

Technology has already disrupted the media (print and TV) and music industries. I think that not too far from now, the movie industry will also go through such a disruptive phase. I think that the trends that could disrupt the movie industry are: Availability of high speed bandwidth in the developed nations and getting increasingly available in the other developing nations. This will enable the Youtube’s and the Netflixs’ of the world to bring in movies in the digital form right to your PC or TV on-demand 24x7x365. The number of people who will watch movies streaming online will see […]

Business Model

Cry for help from a movie buff

I like watching a lot of movies as soon as they release and in a movie hall. However, of late I have a feeling that watching movie in a multiplex immediately after release has now become very expensive, if not inhibitive. So, as much I miss going to the cinema, I have still stopped going to the multiplexes and started to wait for these movies to be available as home video or screened on television. If I am to believe what my friends have to say, this number is only growing. This got me thinking. I wanted to think and […]

Sales

Selling real estate (Homes)

I have been out house hunting for some time now and am appalled at the quality of sales people and sales processes that are being used by the best in the industry. The current sales process works as follows: Prospecting: Use advertisements (traditional & new age), road shows, email campaigns, etc to create awareness and interest in the project. Prospects who are interested in the property contact the builder. Qualification: The prospect is maintained in some system, CRM or otherwise, for future follow-ups. The only qualification question that is asked are the following: Type of apartment is the prospect interested […]