Four Eyes and Two Lenses

We read several articles written by businesses on the best practices to communicate to customers during an adverse situation or a pandemic. But we saw only a few businesses walking the talk, that they preached earlier, during the recent COVID-19 situation. It showed us the reality of many businesses and their character beyond the P/L statement to help humanity and literally act as humans for humans. In all of this comes a human, who is popularly known to play villain roles in Indian cinema, who is now making businesses take notes on how to share the pain of customers and convert the whole situation into a positive one just by compassion and communication. Mr. Sonu Sood needs no introduction to you as his actions, in real life, not only have given a new meaning to hope but also have shown that how a single person can bring the change. His response, by helping people in times of crisis, teaches us the very basics of business communication and personal branding that many busi...

The famous 8 PM speeches of our PM, Mr. Narendra Modi, have always excited us and put us on the edge of our seats. We are excited because he tells us a story (more like a fairytale) and we are nervous because we do not know what surprise he carries every time. His speeches although never contain any promises from his side but they certainly bring a sense of positivity for most of the citizens. He portrays citizens as national heroes who have contributed to nation-building and this portrayal provides them a sense of pride and loyalty for their nation. He requests, inspires, and motivates citizens through his speeches. Earlier in the past, we have seen how people religiously followed his requests, accepted his decisions, and believed in his actions. Our PM has created an aura around him that is so strong that many people start to justify even when he is wrong. Being a good orator, he reads the pulse of the public and comes up with a strong pitch that can sell or buy anything. ...

“Moody’s cuts India’s GDP growth outlook in 2020 to 2.5% amid coronavirus outbreak.” This news came after a few days when India went under a 21-day lockdown, which began on March 25, to contain the spread of coronavirus. Rating agencies saw this as a potential brake on the economic activity that would adversely affect the growth of the country, which is already on a downward trajectory for the past few quarters. Although the move, for a lockdown, from the government was necessary in order to safeguard public health and protect the economy from getting worse from this pandemic. The lockdown, categorically, will put several liquidity constraints on the business environment and will affect the overall growth across sectors. The impact will be seen more in the first quarter of the financial year 2021, which began on April 1. Anticipating this, Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, announced a 23$ billion package aimed at cushioning the disruption coronavirus outbreak mi...

A few days back I was challenged to assess the Mahashivratri festival and write about it in terms of its Marketing significance. On first thought, it looks like a bizarre combo and a headline, but on second thought one can actually realize that marketing is such a domain to which one can relate to everything. Marketing, itself, is a broader term that holds several concepts and thoughts at different walks of life of a human. Be it awareness, or consideration, or be it choice, marketing influences everything. So is religion. For many, religion is one such area that is untouched by what I am trying to put my words here, i.e. marketing. But if we closely look, from time immemorial, religion or spirituality has always gone through, what we know today as, the Marketing Funnel (Awareness-Interest-Evaluation-Trial-Adoption) . On another note, we can also see that marketing and religion both serve the same purpose of fulfilling the needs of a person. Though the needs can sometimes ...

Below was my response to a LinkedIn post where the author was asking people to pay $15 as an upfront cost to access the course only to get it refunded at the end of the course (If they cover at least 80% of the course). The author had an intention to get full participation from the ones who are accessing the course and not to leave the course in between. Though this strategy would certainly clear the junk participation unless the content is good, the strategy might backfire in the future. Below is my response. "1. Those who are interested in doing the course will only be applying for it. The junk will be out. (Though there is no guarantee of 100% participation) 2. Looking back at the earlier scenario, people must have their reasons for leaving the course midway. (The quality, of course, can be one among them.) 3. Now, even if those who are interested in the course, give $15, access the course but realize that the course is not worth investing the time, would lose $15. 4. So, ...

“To start an article with a quote looks quite cool” Indeed! The mantra to make a reader stick to the article is to start your article with some catchy phrase and build a story on it. Although this may sound unreal, readers do follow the catchy phrase. This style of practicing your forte is not limited to the field of writing; businesses have used it to make an early impact on the minds of their customers. Athletes use this to get an initial edge over their competitors. Racers use the acceleration of their cars to jump off a little over their competitors. A famous quote also says, “An early impact is half work done”. And after that, it is your vigor that plays the card for you. Enthusiasm and dedication have always been the driving factors to achieve any goal. Reliance Jio started off with their free service. This was their catchy phrase. They made the impact initially and now they are on par with their competitors, leaving behind a few as well. When Jio came into the market...

"Me vs Everyone" While reading one of the articles, I came across this question put up by a student to one of the business leaders. The latter aptly answered the question giving various inputs on introspection, skill-building, and prioritizing one’s goals, to the former. One thing that he said that perfectly summed up the answer was: “It is the fear of being judged and fear of failure that holds one back from trying out new things and going out of the box.” Though the student’s question looks simple in terms of one’s urge to compete in this sharp-edged competitive world, it puts light on the behavioral attitude of the millennials that psychologists term as ‘FOMO’. Fear of missing out or FOMO is a tendency where one constantly compares oneself with others and wants to be everywhere with a fear that he/she might miss something important, and thus make him/her feel left out from the rest. Although this attitude is good to some extent, if kept for long, would neg...

Advancement in AI- a Business Perspective Back in the 1800s, when the industrial revolution happened, many speculated of losing their jobs due to automation, that is, the assembly line. Yes, many lost their jobs but eventually, many more jobs came up. And it certainly gave businesses a chance to flourish under this new bandwagon and so did our society. Fast forward to the 1900s, when the computer revolution happened, people again feared losing their jobs because of the ease of computational work a computer could do . What happened then was we saw a whole new world of opportunities where everyone contributed as per his/her capabilities and thus we see a connected world today. Again businesses, using this shift, helped to better our society. Advancement in AI (Artificial Intelligence), in the present world, has got the similar properties to what the industrial revolution and computer revolution had back then. People have already made a notion that their jobs are under threat due to...