Cover Story
- The only one with the coveted family name to be heading a group business, Noel N. Tata is seen as one of the more likely candidates to step into Ratan Tata's shoes. But has he done enough?
- Trent has plodded on for a decade to crawl up to sales of a little under Rs 1,000 crore. But Noel Tata's two crucial decisions-with regard to profitability and private labels- ensure it is the most viable model in organised retailing today.
- Noel N. Tata has been one of the most reclusive business honchos in India. And he insists that it's his nature that makes him that way-and not a desire to keep a low profile. To our pleasant surprise, we found Tata an extremely engaging conversationalist, as he went about debunking common theories and wisdom about organised retail- a business he lives and breathes. Excerpts from his first full-length interview:
- Along with Ratan Tata, a string of Tata Group heavyweights is set to hang up its boots over the next few years. The good news is that there's a robust second line in place.
From the Editor
If the term one-man industry were to apply to anyone in corporate India, it would most appropriately be Ratan Tata. The parachute brigade
Marico is an Indian multinational with a difference—it is powering its overseas business by becoming a part of life in West Asia, Africa and even Bangladesh. A series of high profile labour strikes is tarnishing Tamil Nadu’s well cultivated investor-friendly image. Finance jobs are back
The first and worst hit by the downturn, the financial services sector has started to grow and hire. Healthcare, IT and ITES also get into the hiring mode. Help’s at hand to beat those daytime blues. Challenges of Merger Integration
The real challenge for any deal of this magnitude will always remain its ability to overcome regulatory and sovereign obstacles. The consumer decision journey
Consumers are moving outside the purchasing funnel— changing the way they research and buy your products. If your marketing hasn’t changed in response, it should, says a McKinsey study. At a time when the economy was hit by a global slowdown, there are some who have clambered up on top of the game: As the country’s best marketers. What challenges did they have to overcome? And what was the outcome of their strategies? Africa's Explanation
The termination of the proposed Bharti-MTN deal had more to do with the protectionist attitude of the South African government and a sneaking suspicion that India wasn’t playing clean.Jignesh Shah's financial ecosystem
The Co-founder of Financial Technologies wants to create a global network of exchanges that cuts across asset classes. At the same time, he is chasing upstream and downstream opportunities that range from depositories and payment gateways to information vending. Is Shah biting off more than he can chew? For a group that has been in the mobile telecom service since 1996, it’s only now beginning to show that it has understood—and can even shake up—the telecom market. Tata DoCoMo's aggressive pricing has rocked the market. And the regulator adds to the fear factor. Wim Elfrink wants to radically transform Cisco’s business and thinks India can lead the way in this makeover.
e-Choupal version 3.0
ITC is prototyping a new script for its e-Choupal initiative to take engagement with farmers to the next level-co-creating with farmers and harnessing their entrepreneurship. Money from nothing
The digital era is decimating old businesses and inventing new ones, says Anderson, who expertly navigates us through the world of “free”, but can’t figure out the future.
Who will decide CEO salaries?
The shareholders, of course. The government can help by enforcing greater disclosure on the part of companies and higher literacy among shareholders. It must not dictate the salary, though. If you are looking for an independent assessment of a company’s equity shares before investing, then rating firm Crisil may have a solution for you. LinkedIn members in India will soon have a platform where they can physically meet up. Jeff Weiner, CEO of the online networking site, revealed this and a lot more on a recent visit to India. Imagine opening a website, keying in a few search terms and presto! You are on the page of a rival website. In its annual policy in April 2009, the RBI had admitted that the system of Benchmark Prime Lending Rate (BPLR) has lost its relevance as a meaningful reference rate as the bulk of loans is priced below BPLR. Shah Rukh Khan CEO, Red Chillies Entertainment says Brand building stands for basic truth that your grandma told you: work hard, be simple, keep it simple, have fun and make the organisation feel it was value for money. $167 mn: The estimated worth of Indian gaming industry in 2008. This is expected to touch $830 million by 2012, according to NASSCOM. Lisette Spaanbroek, Managing Director, Listing, NYSE Euronext, speaks to Rishi Joshi on why the group is now aggressively courting Indian companies, including the SMEs.'Small businesses are most underserved'
Dell's chief of small and medium business unit Steve Felice tells Rahul Sachitanand that small businesses may offer the company plenty of growth opportunities. The markets saw a strong recovery in September. But there has been a stronger recovery of sorts in the mergers and acquisition arena prior to that. Many of us may have misread that as a sign of fishing in the waters of the downturn. Yet another Indian agri business company has turned solution provider. Coromandel Fertilisers, the biggest contributor to the Murugappa Group’s annual turnover, has just reinvented itself as one, even undergoing a re-branding exercise to drive home the point. In 1997, Singapore took a small step for mobile users and a giant leap for the global telecom industry when the country became the first to implement mobile number portability (MNP), which allows mobile phone customers to maintain the same phone number even if they switch service providers. 
