Forbes India has announced the Forbes India Leadership Awards 2012 to be held in Mumbai on September 28. Celebrating transformational leadership, this year Forbes India will honour outstanding leaders who have epitomized success in their fields and are the visionary champions in creating sustainable future.
The theme for the evening this year is ‘Seeing What Next’ – the one common feature that most leaders showcase. It’s their ability to see what’s coming ahead, react to it before everyone else that makes them the visionary. The Forbes India team has invited some of the leading business and thought leaders of the country to present their thoughts in precisely 3 minutes on “The one thing that will change everything for people in this room, except that they haven’t heard of it”. These speakers will then be rated real time by the audience on their thoughts and ideas. The list speakers for the evening include names like Adil Zainulbhai – MD, McKinsey & Co India, Kumar Mangalam Birla – Chairman, Aditya Birla Group, N Chandrasekharan – CEO, TCS, Akhil Gupta – Chairman, Blackstone India, Karl Slym – MD and CEO Tata Motors, William Bissell – MD, Fabindia, Nitin Paranjpe – CEO & MD, Hindustan Unilever and Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice – Chairman, Cognizant.
The nominees have been chosen by a jury panel that includes Jury Chairman KV Kamath, Non-Executive Chairman, ICICI Bank & Chairman, Infosys; Dr. J.J Irani, Former Director, Tata Sons; Adil Zaniulbhai, Chairman, McKinsey India; Akhil Gupta, Chairman, Blackstone Advisors India; Zia Mody, Founder AZB Partners and Raghav Bahl, Founder & MD, Network 18 Group. These jury members along with knowledge partners KPMG, through a rigorous and exhaustive process, chose five nominees in each of the ten categories, and 10 winners were selected from the list of 50.
The categories for the awards are:
Outstanding Start-up
NextGen Entrepreneur for the Year
Best CEO – Public Sector
Best CEO – Private Sector
Best CEO – Multinational
Woman Leader for the Year
Entrepreneur with Social Impact
Entrepreneur for the Year
Lifetime Achievement
Conscious Capitalist for the Year
More details on the awards and nominees are at forbesindia.com/leadershipawards/index.html.
Jaldi 5 with Shashi Sinha: “The idea is not to emerge as the only Ad Club in India”
Anil Thakraney: Delhi ad guys less cynical than Mumbai frat
At first it may not sound like a big deal. What’s in a name? And what’s in just the shedding of a part of the name? A lot, we think. For, in the context of the Advertising Club Bombay dropping the Bombay from the name, it’s indicative of the changing times.
The attempt  to be more all-inclusive is a welcome sign no doubt. But as the Club’s president told MxMIndia: “Delhi is a key market for the advertising industry with big agencies being housed there and also some big clients too based there. This is definitely one of the main reasons for us bringing Delhi under our purview.”
So is this move a firm indicator that Delhi is emerging as a more challenging player than Mumbai in Advertising and Marketing?
Rahul Kishore
According to Rahul Kishore, Senior VP – Priority Projects at Mogae Media, does not believe in this creative demarcation and would rather see Delhi (“Gurgaon actually”) and Mumbai sharing an equal pedestal.
Mr Kishore said, “I am totally against this Delhi v/s Bombay tussle that keeps happening on and off. It should just be The Advertising Club. As I said there are agencies that are present all across the country but just because a few are headquartered in Mumbai it doesn’t give Bombay to be the leader of sorts. I don’t think that’s a true representation; I think there’s a lot more business that happens out of North India. I can tell you that in North India.”
Satbir Singh
Satbir Singh, Managing Partner & Chief Creative Officer: Euro RSCG India, echoes this view. He believes that Delhi has an edge over Mumbai especially when it comes to clients. He said, “The rate of growth that Delhi has had over Mumbai has been phenomenal, especially over the last four-five years. Delhi has largest spenders: whether it is auto sector, telecom or large scale FMCGs like Reckitt Benckiser, Dabur, Pepsi, Coke etc.”
“Mumbai still scores with financial sector and the fact that large-spending media clients like GECs are based out of Mumbai. One spender that can perhaps tip scales in favour of Mumbai is Hindustan Lever since it equals the large spenders that Delhi has,” Mr Singh added. “But that apart, the sheer number and concentration of large spenders is very heavy in Delhi and this will continue for a long time. Earlier, most of the senior people were based out of Mumbai. But increasingly we see more senior people either based out of Delhi or flying to the capital for meetings and decisions.”
Delhi has the edge, no doubt. Mumbai, though, still has a dominant edge when it comes to creativity – in areas like advertising films etc thanks to the presence of Bollywood and the best post production facilities – but here too the gap is narrowing.
Lloyd Mathias
Lloyd Mathias, Director, GreenBean Ventures, Former President & CMO, Tata Teleservices is originally from Mumbai, but has worked extensively in Delhi and for a bit in recent years in Mumbai too. “I would not say dominant, but Delhi is rapidly moving to equal Mumbai in the advertising and marketing space,” he said. “In certain sectors, such as mobile phones, consumer durables and automobiles, Delhi has already pulled ahead of Mumbai. Given Mumbai’s historical dominance as India’s commercial centre it had the edge with a more professional approach to work; but the with the emergence of MNC’s over the last decade in the Gurgaon/Delhi/NCR region , the gap has narrowed down to a large extent,”  he added.
An industry analyst with a leading consulting firm who did not wish to be named, said, “There has been a massive increase in Delhi , definitely. Delhi team is more efficient at negotiation, is the finding. The Delhi team thinks bigger. They do not approach clients as space-vendors; rather they go as concept-sellers and are able to get higher rates from advertiser.”
Sathyamurthy NP
What has possibly helped Delhi is the increasing professionalism and an improved work ethic. The industry analyst further said, “What has become a norm is that the foreigners come and set up base in Delhi. An MNC set-up brings in systems and processes of evolved advertising markets to Delhi . When you sell to those guys, you sell fancier ideas. All that gets a premium. Advertisers in Delhi are savvy, wherein Mumbai guys are more focused on bottom lines and rates. That is why we also think of servicing a client out of Delhi , for the Delhi team can present better concepts and thus, crack better deals.”
Prathap Suthan
Sathyamurthy NP, President & Head – DDB MudraMax reasoned that we should not be making too much of the move by the Advertising Club. “Though Mumbai will continue to be the advertising hub of India, it’s time we hear the voice of Delhi too,” he told MxMIndia, adding:Â “When it comes to being professional, Delhi is as good as Mumbai.”
The move by the Advertising Club to be more inclusive is decidedly in the right direction. But will it help the industry to keep politics aside and show more participation, only time can tell. Meanwhile, the Mumbai v/s Delhi debate is endless. And, as veteran adman Prathap Suthan told MxMIndia, “intercity rivalry is healthy, positive and must be sustained”.
According to IAMAI’s (Internet & Mobile Association of India) Internet Economy Watch Report for the month of August 2012, the e-tailing category namely designer labels and spa/restaurant segment received a growth of 18 per cent y-o-y respectively when compared with the numbers of the corresponding month last year. Designer labels category registered 2.60 million visits in August 2012 as compared to 2.20 million visits in August 2011. The spa/restaurant segment witnessed 0.84 million user visits in August 2012 as compared to 0.71 million in the corresponding month last year.
Data captured from e-tailing sites reveals a significant growth in online user visit to mobile phone segment with 5.05 million hits in August 2012 as compared to 4.92 million in August 2011. Online user visit for books on the other hand recorded 57 per cent growth in July 2012, and witnessed 1.60 million user visits in August 2012 as compared to 1.39 million in August 2011, a 14 per cent y-o-y growth.
E-Commerce Sites:
Source: IAMAI/e-Commerce sites
Online Travel Portals:
While irctc.com registered 48 per cent growth in the e-ticketing segment, air tickets booked online in August 2012 were 1.49 million as compared to 1.19 million in August 2011, a 26 per cent y-o-y growth.
Source: IAMAI/ Online Travel Portals
Vertical Classified:
The monthly tracker reveals that the number of resume uploads has gone down to 1.99 million in August 2012 from 2.60 million in August 2011, whereas, the number of profile uploads on matrimonial websites has witnessed a marginal growth of six per cent in August 2012. Profile uploads on matrimonial sites is 2.18 million in August 2012 as compared to 2.05 million in the corresponding month last year.
Source: IAMAI/ Vertical Classifieds
The monthly internet tracker by IAMAI is based on absolute numbers captured from various relevant sites, and encapsulates online usage for E-tailing, Online Travel and Vertical Classifieds.
Continuing its innovation of involving viewers in its soap stars’ lives, Star Plus has now called for congratulatory messages for Ek Hazaaron Mein Meri Behna Hai couple Maanvi and Viraat, as they prepare to get married.
Viewers across India are invited to send the couple their best wishes, and the best messages selected by Maanvi get a chance to be a part of the wedding. The channel has chalked out a 13-city on-ground activity plan during which wedding floats will travel around collecting wishes for the couple.
More details about the float schedule are at www.starplus.in and on Star Plus’ Facebook page.
Vizeum has announced their appointment as the media AoR for OML Entertainment Pvt Ltd – a music, live events and youth media company in India.
Only Much Louder (OML) plays at the intersection of three elements – alternative culture, youth and brands. It focuses on reaching the youth market in India through high quality entertainment properties including music festivals, television and web-based content.
Confirming the appointment of Vizeum, Vijay Nair, CEO, OML Entertainment, said, “One of our key goals is to effectively disseminate communication about our properties to our target audiences. We don’t believe in advertising for the sake of advertising and our partnership with Vizeum is aimed at designing and deploying communication through clutter-breaking, high-impact formats.”
Commenting on the win, S Yesudas, Managing Director – Indian Subcontinent, Vizeum said, “We have been investing our energies and resources behind turning our clients as our ambassadors by delivering tangible contributions to their business growth. And it gives immense satisfaction to know that it is paying back for us in terms of our clients referring us to others. This is another referral business, and will be handled out of our Mumbai office.”
Towards achieveing the goal of digitization, four National-level Multi System Operators (MSOs), DEN, Digi Cable, Hathway and WWIL, have announced rates for consumer packages for digital cable. As per TRAI’s stipulation, the Basic Service Tier (BST) consisting of at least 100 channels for Rs 100 has also been announced by some of them. The bouquet rates for pay channels is:
Name of the Package
No. of Channels
Rate in Rs. (exclusive of taxes)
Digicable
Basic
145
180
Gold
151
200
Premium
165
250
Hathway Cable and Datacom Ltd.
Basic
135
160
Medium
198
220
Premium
242
275
DEN
Pack 1
112
180
Pack 2
219
225
Pack 3
235
270
WWIL
Janta
118
100
Popular 1( Kolkata)
151
150
Popular 2( Mumbai)
153
150
Popular 3( Delhi)
142
150
Consumers will also be given the option of choosing channels from an a la carte list. The MSOs had earlier announced a combined promotional rate of STB for Rs 799. The MSOs have also announced a consumer care service wherein toll-free numbers including consumer charters have also been made available on the respective websites.
Ambika Soni, Minister for Information and Broadcasting, met the Chief Minister of NCT of Delhi, Shiela Dixit, to discuss the progress made towards cable TV digitization on Sunday. In the four metro cities of Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai, the cable TV digitization deadline is October 31. During discussions Ms Soni emphasized the importance of meeting the deadline and sought the support of the Delhi government. The Chief Minister of NCT of Delhi assured the Minister of Information and Broadcasting of the Delhi government’s full support for the digitization exercise. She also asked the Chief Secretary to ask all SDMs to convene meetings with stakeholders to achieve digitization roadmap well within the time.
The ministry has embarked on an aggressive public awareness campaign on the digitization deadline, on more than 200 television channels. Radio jingles, print advertisements and SMS campaigns have also enhanced public awareness about the digitization exercise. With all these efforts, digitization percentage in the four metro cities has gone to 73 percent.
Forbes India announced the names of the awardees at the second edition of the much awaited Forbes India Leadership Awards in Mumbai on the weekend. Celebrating transformational leadership, this year Forbes India honoured outstanding leaders who have epitomized success in their fields and are the visionary champions in creating a sustainable future.
After an exhaustive screening process, the shortlisted nominees were scrutinized by the jury panel comprising industry veterans like K V Kamath (chairman of the jury), Adil Zainulbhai, Zia Mody and other prominent business personalities. The award winners are:
Outstanding Start-up – Manish Khera / Rishi Gupta – FINO
NextGen Entrepreneur for the Year – Vinod Ramnani, Opto Circuits
Best CEO – Public Sector – M D Mallya, Bank of Baroda
Best CEO – Private Sector – N Chandrashekharan, TCS
Best CEO – Multinational -Nitin Paranjpe, HUL
Woman Leader for the Year -Mallika Srinivasan, TAFE
Entrepreneur with Social Impact -William Bissell, FabIndia
Entrepreneur for the Year – Kumar Mangalam Birla, Aditya Birla Group
Conscious Capitalist for the Year – Kamil Hamied, CIPLA
Lifetime Achievement – E Sreedharan, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation
The awards were given at a glittering ceremony attended by the who’s who of corporate India. One of the highlights of the evening was the three-minute talk given by some of the most illustrious names in the industry on the topic “The one thing that will change everything for people in this room, except that they haven’t heard of it.”
Adil Zainulbhai, MD, McKinsey & Co, India stated that all leaders need to consider humility as an important personality trait. He also mentioned that leaders must also remember other leaders who were unassuming enough to help them when required.
William Bissell, MD, FabIndia spoke about how we need new methods of measuring progress as conventional ones have failed. He also pointed out that what’s going to change in the future is how we define success and benefit.
Karl Slym, MD & CEO, Tata Motors spoke about the future of transportation. How about living in an age where smart cards actually drop you right at your doorstep? More greenery and more open space is the road ahead. He also stated that the speed of decision-making is the key for leadership.
More details on the awards, jury, winners and nominees are at http://forbesindia.com/leadershipawards/index.html
Speaking on the occasion, Gurmeet Singh, CEO, Forbes India said, “The response we have received for the second year of Forbes India Leadership Awards is tremendous and very encouraging. We are delighted with the wonderful and out-of-the-box ideas shared this evening and hope that this platform inspires new and more absorbing conversations to be taken forward.”
The presentation ceremony was concluded with a ‘fireside chat’ between Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, founder of the Isha Foundation, and K V Kamath, non-executive chairman, ICICI Bank and chairman, Infosys. In this chat anchored by Indrajit Gupta, Editor – Forbes India, the duo explored some of the key challenges facing Indian business leaders over the next five years. They also discussed how business leaders prepare themselves and their organisations for this journey.
Zee News Limited (ZNL) has announced that its CEO Barun Das has decided to move on after a successful 5-year stint, and is being replaced by Alok Agrawal.
Punit Goenka, Managing Director, Zee News Limited said, “Over the last five years Barun has contributed immensely to the growth of Zee News and taken the company to greater heights. We wish him the best for his future endeavour.”
Speaking on Mr Agrawal’s appointment, Mr Goenka said, “We welcome Alok into the Zee News family. His rich experience in the media domain will help us take Zee News to the next level of growth.”
Prior to joining Zee News Limited, Mr Agrawal worked with Cheil as Chief Operating Officer.
The Ministry of Communications & IT has decided to waive the spectrum fee for Community Radio Services (CRS). This follows requests received from National Advisory Council, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and the Community Radio Association for waiver of spectrum charges for Community Radio Services.
Keeping in mind that the Government’s role is to create an enabling environment for CRS, Kapil Sibal, Minister for Communications & IT has asked the Telecom Department to evolve detailed guidelines by October 12, to ensure that the spectrum is optimally used and the channels use these airwaves only to inform and empower the common man. It was felt that in the interest of inclusive and informed society, the government should provide the spectrum (airwaves) for CRS at zero cost. Although this may result in an opportunity cost of not more than Rs 25 lakh to the government, the cost is far outweighed by the benefit of informed, empowered and inclusive local communities and the nation.
Announcing this, a news release from the Press Information Bureau said that sustainability is the biggest challenge for CRS. Community radio focuses on low cost and low return pattern of operations. Donor funding is crucial for CRS. As most of the donors come from local communities, this financing option is inadequate and irregular for CRS operating in remote areas and for the marginalized sections of the society.
Community radio plays a vital role in building vibrant communities, in mobilizing groups to action by informing and empowering citizens, in giving voice to marginalized groups of society, and in bringing community needs to the attention of local and even national governments. CRS can prove to be an excellent tool for managing plurality in a society and for fostering democracy.
The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Mumbai on September 29 and appointed Man Jit Singh of MSM as President. Sunil Lulla of Times TV Network, Rajat Sharma of India TV and Punit Goenka of Zee News were appointed as Vice Presidents. Rahul Johri of Discovery will be the Treasurer of the Foundation. The IBF Board will now comprise three Vice Presidents, instead of one, as had been the practice since the Foundation’s inception in 1999. This has primarily been done for dealing with the growing challenges confronting the Industry and for better coordination across different Industry initiatives, be it digitization, regulatory, fiscal and content-related issues or matters pertaining to the industry as a whole.
The outgoing President of IBF, Uday Shankar thanked all Members for their support during his two-year term. “The last two years have been very important for the Broadcasting Industry with new changes and technology being ushered in. I have had the most eventful tenure as President as I witnessed all these changes happening right in front of me. Be it DAS or institutionalizing the self-regulating mechanism in the form of Broadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC),” Mr Shankar said.
“It is a moment of change and I would expect that the momentum that we have generated finds a new impetus after my presidency,” Mr Shankar said while pledging all support to his successor, Man Jit Singh. Mr Shankar advised the IBF members to be “well prepared for the implementation of digitization and plugging the loopholes, if any, before the deadline”. This sentiment found echo with the new President Mr Man Jit Singh, who said: “Digitization is the biggest challenge that stares at us currently and its timely and phased implementation is of prime concern. With very little time left for implementation, the IBF must take the lead on the issue.”
Chalking a new road map for IBF, the new President said, “As an industry body, the IBF must become a more robust and representative forum where every Broadcaster is encouraged to come up with innovative ideas to drive the industry forward.”
The Board further coopted the following Directors: Tripurari Sharan, Doordarshan, Ronnie Screwvala, UTV, and Markand Adhikari of Sri Adhikari Bros. The members who are part of UBF include: Uday Shankar, Star India; Punit Goenka, Zee News; Sunil Lulla, Times TV Network; Sudhanshu Vats, Viacom 18; N.P. Singh, Bangla Entertainment; K. Madhavan, Asianet Communications. Besides the above, the 12-Member Board comprises of: Man Jit Singh, MSM;Rajat Sharma,IndiaTV; I. Venkat, ETV; Jawahar Goel, Zee Network; K V L Narayan Rao, NDTV; Siddharth Jain, Turner India International.
Dwindling readership numbers for print players now seems to be a given as the just-released IRS 2012 Q2 numbers would suggest. If the Q1 readership numbers was about publications struggling to stay afloat, the trend hasn’t gotten any better for the second quarter with 7 of the top 10 publications reporting a marginal decline. But for Dainik Jagran, Hindustan and Lokmat that have shown a hike in readership, the other seven players that constitute the top 10 including Dainik Bhaskar, Malayala Manorama, Amar Ujala, The Times of India, Daily Thanthi, Rajasthan Patrika and Mathrubhumi have reported a downfall in their IRS numbers.
In the list of top 10 publications, that also constitutes the top 10 dailies, Hindi daily Dainik Jagran emerges the clear leader yet again with an IRS 2012 Q2 AIR of 16429. This is slightly better than what it had registered in the previous quarter with an AIR of 16412. Emerging runner-up yet again is Dainik Bhaskar that has reported an AIR of 14448 a slight fall over last quarter’s number of 14553. Hindi daily Hindustan is third on the list with an AIR of 12205 compared to last quarter’s 12157. Malayala Manorama is fourth with an AIR of 9710 followed by Amar Ujala with an AIR of 8608. English daily Times of India too failed to elicit a keen interest amongst readers as it reported an AIR of 7643 as against an AIR of 7652 last quarter. Marathi daily Lokmat emerged a winner with an AIR of 7507 as against an AIR of 7485. Tamil daily Daily Thanthi recorded an AIR of 7431 followed by Rajasthan Patrika at the ninth spot with an AIR of 6756. Mathrubhumi concluded the top 10 list by recording a downward AIR of 6493.
(AIR numbers; All figures in '000)
(AIR numbers; All figures in '000)
(AIR numbers; All figures in '000)
The magazines seem to be better placed compared to their newspaper counterparts with 4 out of ten magazines showing an upward growth. These include Pratiyogita Darpan, SamanyaGyan Darpan, Karmakshetra and General Knowledge Today. With an AIR of 2353 Malayalam magazine Vanitha leads the pack ahead of second-placed Pratiyogita Darpan that has recorded an AIR of 1918. At the third spot is SamanyaGyan Darpan with an AIR of 1664 followed by India Today with an AIR of 1554. Hindi mag Saras Salil is next with an AIR of 1548 followed by Meri Saheli with an AIR of 1192. Bengali mag Karmakshetra is next with an upward AIR of 1168. Cricket Samrat at 1135, Malayala Manorama at 1113 and General Knowledge Today with an AIR of 1087 wrap up the top-10 list for magazines.
Where the language dailies are concerned, the trend is somewhat similar to that of the top 10 dailies with 7 out of 10 dailies reporting a decline. Malayala Manorama is at the top spot with an AIR of 9710 followed by Marathi daily Lokmat at 7507. Daily Thanthi is next with an AIR of 7431 followed by Mathrubhumi with an AIR of 6493. Telegu daily Eenadu is next with an AIR of 5925 followed by Ananda Bazar Patrika with an AIR of 5859. Another Telegu daily Sakshi occupies the seventh spot with an AIR of 5306 followed by Gujarat Samachar at the eighth spot with an AIR of 5205. Tamil daily Dinakaran is ninth with an AIR of 4999 followed by Daily Sakal at tenth with an AIR of 4437.
