Thursday, 28 October 2010
Monday, 22 March 2010
Cheers - "They who drink beer will think beer" - Washington Irving
Just a month ago I was in a sports bar watching this high profile match between Atletico Madrid and Barcelona in Madrid, Spain. The bar tender was very friendly and he opened up the tap, couple of hours even before the match could start. You see, soccer and beer are two things that go hand in hand. Then, be it a Champions League night or a La Liga or a Serie A – bars are always full and the kegs keep getting empty. I was with random people chanting and trying to match them with Spanish songs. I couldn’t stop noticing how fast the bar tenders were re-fuelling the kegs. So I went upto the bar tender looking for Tapas and asking him about his beer business in general. While I started with his beer business in general, during the conversation, I was made aware about the value of beer industry in Europe, and as I held my pint, I realized that it had tremendous potential post 2010 particularly in the emerging market, as companies look to divest to re-capture their debts while acquiring and partnering with firms.
Everywhere in Europe I couldn’t fail noticing the top brands like Ab-Inbev, Heineken, SAB Miller, Carlsberg, Asahi, Molson Coors, Diageo, and couple of Indian brands. I just was curious to understand the market, and was quiet astonished that the global beer market was valued approximately at around USD 510 Billion in 2008-2009. Europe accounted for 49.1% of the global beer market, followed by APAC – 22.9%, South and Central America – 8.6%, and MEA – 1.8%. Consolidation in the beer industry has changed the leading company, with AB-InBev becoming the market leader based on sales in 2008, followed by Heineken, pushing SAB Miller down to the third rank. A recent report by market business insights, show that the largest alcohol category will continue to be beer, cider and flavoured alcoholic beverages category, which is projected to reach USD 393 Billion in Europe & US by end of 2010 resulting in an increase of 5% from 2006 to 2010.
Everywhere in Europe I couldn’t fail noticing the top brands like Ab-Inbev, Heineken, SAB Miller, Carlsberg, Asahi, Molson Coors, Diageo, and couple of Indian brands. I just was curious to understand the market, and was quiet astonished that the global beer market was valued approximately at around USD 510 Billion in 2008-2009. Europe accounted for 49.1% of the global beer market, followed by APAC – 22.9%, South and Central America – 8.6%, and MEA – 1.8%. Consolidation in the beer industry has changed the leading company, with AB-InBev becoming the market leader based on sales in 2008, followed by Heineken, pushing SAB Miller down to the third rank. A recent report by market business insights, show that the largest alcohol category will continue to be beer, cider and flavoured alcoholic beverages category, which is projected to reach USD 393 Billion in Europe & US by end of 2010 resulting in an increase of 5% from 2006 to 2010.
Image Source: Stealingshare.com
However, like any industry, the beer industry has its own concerns and issues. Beer is losing market share to wine and spirits, in part due to perceived health benefits from wine and high levels of innovation and premiumization in the spirits market. Growth in beer consumption volumes will be driven primarily by the increase in rising disposable income and beer-consuming population in emerging markets. The alcoholic drinks industry is being increasingly scrutinized by governments who are demanding stricter controls on advertising, and there are also concerns regarding the rising level of obesity in Europe and US. Also rising raw material prices have led global beer companies to increase the price of beer, especially in Europe. The beer brewing process is a very precise and therefore heavily controlled process where the exact amount of ingredients and heat as well as the right timing are crucial to its success. As enormous amounts of waste water and vast energy consumption are main concerns for a brewery, the following seven focus areas provide excellent examples of sustainable process implementation – energy usage, water conservation, recycling, heat recovery, CO2 recovery, transportation, and emissions reduction. A differentiated value proposition and meeting the triple bottom line is something the industry players must look to build on to. Today, there is a greater demand towards ethical products – go green and recyclable are the mantra’s that these companies need to use in their supply chain.
And while I was thinking green, and I was awakened by the roaring Atletico fans as the ball saw the back of the net. Some of the regulars there got free beers, as their bar tender friend was a die-hard Atletico fan. Now I know why this industry is still booming…and as the old saying goes..."Beer needs Soccer and Soccer needs Beer...that's how life goes...". Cheers to that!
Image Source: images.allposters.com
Image Source: images.allposters.com
Friday, 12 March 2010
Exercising your fingers through Mobile Social Networking
Gone are the days, when a simple telephony system used to exist, and a single dial would take more than couple of minutes to connect to the other side of the world. I vividly remember getting my maiden mobile phone when I was in my super early 20's. Those were the days, I could afford the bills on my own. Today, technology has improved immensely, and times have changed rapidly. Today, even kids who haven't reached a double digit age mark, have handsets in their pocket. In the 90's, some of these handsets used to be very costly, and only a privileged section (err shall I say - high income?) of the society, made utmost use of its existence. Today, there is a mobile phone for every 1.5 person, and moreover this figure is to further reduce every quarter, as mobile companies fight for a share in the market to improve their ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). While the developed nations have reached the mobile saturation, developing countries are yet to improve upon their customer base, while the least developed nations are yet to explore a lot of uncharted opportunities within their region. I had been travelling around for a while, and as I travel, I keep updating my social networking status to let my close friends know about my whereabouts, and lucky me that the friends I have, I do get calls and I end up meeting them in their town. As people and business move, people are looking for smarter ways of accessing the internet and staying in touch with their clients and dear ones. Today, data services have become the new source of income. There is a huge potential, especially amongst the young segment, which have different ways of communicating and keeping in touch. Today, mobile social networking (SN) is on a rise, given the increase in the number of hits to networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, Xing, LinkedIn etc. This new channel of communication in the internet has a huge penetration in young adult segments. More than 68% of young adults in U.S between the age of 18 and 21 reach out to a well known SN site, while a little more than 42% of the adults above 21 in U.S reach out to SN websites. The trend is surely changing. As I was grazing through the websites and reading newspapers, I could see the number of people tweeting, or updating statuses all over the SN websites. What more, just see the uproar that our minister had caused a month ago, because of a tweet. Many studies and papers about communication channels suggest that there is a need and a want for these demographic users to stay connected, have 24 * 7 access to the internet-email-chat-social networking websites. Several handset providers are trying to bring in data services as quickly as possible, with Blackberry and iTouch leading the pack. These handsets still need to further develop the technology in order to meet the customer expectations and deliver the desirable user experience. Both the operators and the handset providers see a great opportunity as well as increased interest amongst the young professionals and teenagers. As technology moves forward, several devices are now internet enabled - the better the quality of the product and superior the functionality of the devices, the expensive these get. Clearly there is a need to have all applications such as Facebook, Yahoo, GChat, E-Mail, YouTube, Google Maps, News Channels, Photo Sharing, Social Networking etc. to promote the usage of the devices on a large scale to the young segment at-least. This will make the customers to up their data traffic usage and hold up an excellent customer experience. The market opportunity is definitely clear, however operators and hand set providers need to be innovative both with their product and marketing techniques for a successful launch. I wish I could have typed this with a Blackberry or a smartphone, that would have been a perfect end to this narration. Well I am yet to experience mobile social networking. Its just that my old cell phone is still loyal and doesn't seem to die of its own...
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Going with the wind...
I have always been fascinated with the way businesses are held these days and the impact they create in the society. Business people all over the world are discovering extraordinary opportunities generated by protecting the nature and more so trying to meet the triple bottom line. Remember the world-wide concern about climate change that resulted in the agreements of Rio de Janeiro (1992), Kyoto (1997), Marrakech (2001), and more recently the Copenhagen deal (2009) aiming to decrease the global greenhouse gas emissions. Renewable energy is at the forefront of most countries and considered as a long-term alternative to fossil fuel resources, contributing to the security of energy supply. Since the last decades, the interest and political support for electricity generation from renewable sources has much increased.
Source: Vestas.com
Wind power is, together with biomass, the fastest growing renewable energy technology today. Wind is competitive, and companies have reduced the cost of wind power significantly, making it financially sound to increase their modern energy’s share of the world’s energy mix. Wind has jumped ahead of other green energy sources because of innovations in turbine technology. Another reason wind surged to the forefront is because many states passed standards that require that a percentage of the state’s electricity to be made from renewable energy sources. Most countries have defined a goal of putting wind power at the top of the global energy agenda. Electricity from modern energy by 2020 is becoming a reality, and the UN 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen will further consolidate strong growth outlook.
Wind energy technology is developing fast; turbines are becoming cheaper and more powerful, bringing the cost of renewably-generated electricity down. Improvements in wind energy technology mean that the trends which have led to the dramatic fall in the cost of wind energy are set to continue. My vision is that everyone will have a small turbine on the roof of their house the way we had TV antennas in the past. Meeting the triple bottom line in these businesses is both an opportunity and a way of living in a green world. What matters in this industry today is the way production is carried out in a cost-efficient manner and with the use of the modern technology.
You can also follow the post in http://consultingnetwork.co.in/going-with-the-wind/1799/
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
350 !!
I hope things are great at the other end of the screen. Recently, I had been dirtying my hands with all the numbers and operations of our business venture, which I hope to blog in the coming days. Going back in time, earlier in August, I opted to apply for this Net Impact project for 350.org, fostering the climate crisis control movement. Nine of IE Business School MBA candidates, together with nine of Kaos-Pilot process design school, defined effective and creative strategy to run the 350 campaign for Madrid on 24th Oct ‘09, so that the voice of Madrid could be heard in Copenhagen 2009. To start with, 350.org is an international campaign dedicated to build a movement to unite the world solutions to the climate crisis. The focus is on the number 350--as in parts per million, the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. But 350 is more than a number--it's a symbol of where we need to head as a planet.
In this economic downturn, when every action of the crisis affects every individual and their businesses, people start looking for a great economy and are willing to pay any price to get closer to it. What matters in such situations are the right strategy, success and moreover the right attitude to excel for the betterment of the business and the society at large. It is this thought provoking fact that motivated me to apply for this socially impacting project. This 3-day workshop not only provided me the basic set of skills and tools to overcome my concerns and opinions over the current situation and gain meaningful insights over the way decisions are considered while making business, but also provided me opportunities to share knowledge, and organize presentations on topics related to Marketing and Entrepreneurship to the students. The 3-day friendship, marked with creative and innovative process tools by the Kaos-Pilot team, made me realize the importance of knowledge sharing and networks one can gain. Finally, the day came when a huge group marched towards the Retiro park, and as campaign leaders, organized and mapped the plan to put the image of 350 in the lake nearby. Hop, everyone went, and after 40 minutes of struggle finally managed to form a 3, a 5 and a 0. What was more important in the process was that people within and outside the university, enjoyed thoroughly the activity. Overall, I felt great sense of satisfaction and gave my best to convey the message by putting forth my point of view, giving lectures to students, and learning from them. We played our part from Madrid. Is Copenhagen Listening ??
Monday, 28 September 2009
Industry understands of customer requirements in the emerging cloud computing market
As the underlying concept of Cloud Computing technology relies mainly on user collaboration, it has become even more important for organizations to understand the needs of their clients and the medium to reach their customers and consumers. Below are some comments quoted by industry experts...
“2008 will be remembered as the coming-out year for cloud-computing services. I’m beginning to think that 2009 will be best remembered for cloud-computing understanding. I encourage you to get involved.” - James Urquhart
"Cloud computing is emerging as a fundamental change in how IT is managed and delivered," said Dr. Willy Chiu, vice president of IBM High Performance on Demand Solutions. "It is a powerful tool for efficient operations, especially in growth economies."
Source: IBM.com
"Businesses requiring hyper-scale computing environments – where infrastructure deployments are measured by up to millions of servers, storage and networking equipment – are changing the way they approach IT to drive revenue growth and decrease operational expenses,” said Brad Anderson, senior vice president, Dell Product Group.
Source: Dell.com
The following videos in youtube, will give a notion of what cloud computing is, and the general trends by some of the industry experts...
The world of Internet is exploding tremendously. For example ―daily (Google users have created 20 Petabytes of data) or using eBay services (1 Terabyte of logs is created by embay users in 2000 application servers per day.
Cloud Computing has a major role to play in tying up this complicated layout and manage the explosion of data and users. These videos eventually shows how Cloud Computing has evolved from the traditional Application Service provision and support since the last decade.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)