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Tag: Nokia India

  • D Shivakumar, who was managing director at Nokia India before taking over as the handset maker's senior vice-president for India, Middle East and Africa in 2011, is PepsiCo India's first outsider CEO since Rajeev Bakshi who led the firm from 2001 to 2006.

    Ex-Nokia MD D Shivakumar is Pepsi’s India region CEO

    By A Correspondent

     

    D Shivakumar

    US food and beverage maker PepsiCo on Monday named former Nokia executive D Shivakumar as its chairman and CEO for India region, a position lying vacant since Manu Anand quit in June.

     

    Mr Shivakumar – who was managing director at Nokia India before taking over as the handset maker’s senior vice-president for India, Middle East and Africa in 2011 – is PepsiCo India’s first outsider CEO since Rajeev Bakshi, who led the firm from 2001 to 2006.

     

    “Shiv has a proven ability to take billion-dollar businesses to the next level by maximising innovation, execution and collaboration,” Ms Indra Nooyi, chairman and CEO at PepsiCo, said in a statement. He takes charge with immediate effect. ET NOW business channel broke the news before the official announcement.

     

    PepsiCo on Monday also announced promotion of Gautham Mukkavilli, currently general manager of its beverages business in India, as senior vice-president, business transformation, for the Asia-Middle East-Africa (AMEA) region. He will oversee strategic initiatives in foods and beverages across the region with effect from March 1, 2014.

     

    Both Messrs Shivakumar and Mukkavilli will report to Sanjeev Chadha, CEO of PepsiCo AMEA. “Shiv and Gautham will be playing key roles in driving PepsiCo’s business forward in the region,” Mr Chadha said.

     

    PepsiCo India has been operating without a country head since Manu Anand quit dramatically in June to join foods company Cadbury Kraft. Since then, Mukkavilli and foods division head Praveen Someshwar have been reporting to Mr Chadha.

     

    An engineer from IIT Chennai and an MBA from IIM Calcutta, Mr Shivakumar’s appointment has come as a surprise to many as his immediate predecessors Manu Anand (India head from 2010 to 2013) and Mr Chadha (2006 to 2010) were chosen from PepsiCo’s internal talent pool.

     

    Mr Bakshi was the last outsider CEO of PepsiCo India, brought in from Cadbury. Mr Shivakumar’s immediate mandate at the firm will be to accelerate consumption of colas and snacks in an environment when growth has slowed down significantly.

     

    Growth of soft drinks has slowed down to single digits as early rains cut short last summer on top of weakening consumer sentiment. PepsiCo’s snacks business is facing increasing competition from national rivals, such as ITC and Parle, as well as local players.

     

    “PepsiCo is in a challenging phase and will test Shiv’s abilities to the hilt,” said Vibhav Dhawan, managing partner at search firm Positive Moves Consulting, said.

     

    Mr Dhawan, who knows Mr Shivakumar well and has tracked his career, said he is a good choice to lead PepsiCo in India. “Shiv is a rare marketer who has worked both in traditional consumer and new generation mobile consumer sectors. His marketing prowess makes him a great choice for a brand like PepsiCo which targets the youth,” he said.

     

    Mr Shivakumar, who spent eight years at Nokia, quit the firm in June this year. Before joining Nokia, he worked with consumer electronics maker Philips and top consumer goods firm Hindustan Unilever.

     

    During his tenure, Nokia’s user base jumped from 80 million to about 900 million but its market share declined from over 70% to about 25% as Chinese manufacturers and some homegrown brands like Micromax and Karbonn eroded its market share in the entry level segment, while Samsung and Apple ate into its share in the smartphone segment.

     

    Nokia’s biggest failure under Mr Shivakumar was missing out the dual-SIM revolution, which accounted for as much as 50% of handset sales in India between 2009 and 2010.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2013, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

    Licensed to republish

     

  • Across India Inc, Twitter has fast transformed from an individual tool into a key platform to create and sustain brand buzz

    Nokia, Reckitt etc outsource @Twitter to woo consumers

    By Shelley Singh

     

    Abhishek Roy, a 25-year-old commerce graduate from Delhi University and a diehard believer in social media, has more than 100 followers to his Twitter account. But that’s not the only account the heavy-metal addict operates on the social networking and micro-blogging service. Mr Roy also tweets for a living.

     

    As an employee of Bloggers Mind, a social media-focused start-up that promises to ‘multiply your brand buzz’, Mr Roy spends his working day putting out tweets that typically promote products and services of companies. One of the companies that keeps Mr Roy busy is Nokia, which has outsourced its Twitter handle to Bloggers Mind.

     

    “A great app to become an amazing cook! bit.ly/zo6bvd. Here’s a review of the app from @mynokiablog,” is just one of Mr Roy’s tweets that go out to some 15,000 followers of Nokia India.

     

    In Mumbai, 26-year-old Upasana Sanyal’s typical day is no different. Ms Sanyal, who joined technology services provider Mahindra Satyam six months ago, sends out 300-400 tweets a month. A recent one was on the company’s quarterly results.

     

    Q3, Re dip gains mixed; volatility high,” was the cryptic but crisp message to the twitterati following the company. “Tweets spike around results time or key announcements. It’s a good deviation from the mundane,” said Ms Sanyal, a consultant with Mahindra Satyam.

     

    At Dell India, Suyesh Shankar, 39, a marketing manager for consumer and small- and mid-sized businesses, spearheads the US firm’s social media agenda, which comprises a Twitter team that sits out of the company’s Bangalore-based Social Media Command Centre.

     

    Roy, Sanyal and Shankar are the communicators with the mandate to capture consumer attention in 140 characters. While Mr Roy is with a specialist social media services provider, the latter two are key members of in-house Twitter teams.

     

    Across India Inc, Twitter has fast transformed from an individual tool into a key platform to create and sustain brand buzz. The communications range from customer feedback and new jobs announcements to customer grievances and no-holds barred promotional blitzes.

     

    While companies such as Nokia India, Kotak Securities, Reliance Digital, Reckitt Benckiser and TripAdvisor outsource their Twitter handles, others such as ICICI Bank, Dell, IBM and Flipkart manage it in-house. Other agencies, such as Bloggers Mind, that provide third-party tweets include Convonix, Interactive Avenues and OgilvyOne.

     

    Twitter for most corporates is one link in an integrated marketing chain. “Our Twitter team is an extension of our ‘khayaal aapka’ effort and brings to life our commitment to be where our customers are,” said Anita Pai, senior general manager, ICICI Bank. In a typical month, ICICI Bank monitors 200,000 social media mentions, out of which 70,000 are tweets.

     

    Handset major Nokia India manages between 400 and 700 tweets a month via Bloggers Mind. “We use Twitter to engage with consumers on a real-time basis, share tips, information and address feedback or queries,” said Viral Oza, director (marketing), Nokia India. Bloggers Mind has a nine-member team for Nokia and four for Reckitt Benckiser.

     

    Aditya Vaidyanathan, account director for Nokia at Bloggers Mind, said: “We have a weekly planner with clients as to what messages to send out and how to address queries.” This includes promotional trivia such as: “Did you know that 360,500 text messages are sent out from Nokia phones every second”; or answering queries like: “How do I add new dictionary words to Nokia Lumia?”