Reflections

A stunning news on a news daily, relating to an App Interface of a very popular service brand, caught my attention : Uber may have been secretly recording your iPhone screen, even when the app is closed. Will Strafach, a New York-based security researcher, discovered that the taxi hailing app had received a special permission from Apple to access the screen-recording feature. The company, however, rejected the security breach fears, stating the code was installed to improve the experience on Apple Watch version of the app . = Now this is frankly stupidity on a colossal scale; accessing a user's screen even when the app is closed ... where are we going as an industry? By what stretch of imagination, strategy, morality or intelligence is this an advance? How far are we going to allow apps, internet and computers into our lives? This has now lead me to question the entire Smartphone aspect : I think there is a need for users to take their personal lives off the Smartpho...

INTRODUCTION The telecom sector has been in the news of late for all the wrong reasons – rising stress, high debt, loss making or low profitability, mergers, job losses and lot… this sector is one of the high-points of the India Growth story. For this to happen in this showcase industry seems strange from the outside… the reality is, in my opinion, the exact reverse. The seeds of the stress were sown right at the beginning ; all hints to this reality were ignored, and by everyone. I do not recall anyone pointing these, self included; though I did come close, to be honest . Yet, when I now look back with my experience garnered since then – there can be no doubt : the seeds of the problems were inherent in the model itself… SYSTEMS & PROCESSES It wasn’t, for the most part, deliberate; the decisions that were reached were all rational decisions made by rational people. They may not have been the right ones, as we know from hindsight, but they were decisions reached with a st...

JIO – An Analysis of Prospects and Challenges A common refrain, question, discussion point among at least us Telecom Professionals {those outside Jio at least} centers around what it is doing, what it plans to do, what disruptive impact it will have on services as well as devices and whether it will achieve whatever objectives it has set out for itself. My humble submission here is one simple statement: the key question is not among the points being pondered above; the real question is whether it, or indeed we as a nation, can afford it to fail? Indeed, does Jio have a choice in the matter except do what it is doing? Before we move into details, just look at the numbers involved: as per Telecomtalk & Economic Times articles dated January the 14 th 2017, it has infused 1,71,000 Crore into this venture; another 30,000 Crore is being planned. That brings the investments to 2,01,000 Crore. Its current subscriber base is between 67-73 Million Customers as on date, a...

UNDERSTANDING THE SMARTPHONE MARKET The market for Smartphones in India is one of the most talked-about in pink papers as well as white sheets alike, with regular articles on top and budget smartphones making headlines all too often; yet, paradoxically, it is the least understood outside the trade, i.e. those of us who are actually in the handset trade. For the pink sheets and white sheets, it is the Apples and the premium phones that matter, or the budget smartphones with a range of online as well as offline offerings being highlighted. This is a very simplistic look at one of the most complex markets in my experience, which spans telecom services, data, insurance, FMCG/D  - for a number of reasons, some known and some unlisted insofar as my reading goes. The pace of technology development is one of the well-understood reasons; as is the pricing factor. These are just of the factors that make this market such  a fascinating yet complex study. The speed of change m...

BOOK REVIEW : THE INDIAN MEDIA BUSINESS BY : VANITA KOHLI-KHANDEKAR ABOUT THE AUTHOR :  Vanita Kohli-Khandekar is a media specialist and writer. She has been tracking the Indian media and entertainment business for over a decade. Currently she is a columnist and writer for Business Standard and Mid-Day. Her earlier stints include one at Businessworld and Ernst & Young. A Cambridge University fellow (2000), Vanita teaches at some of the top communication schools in India. THE BOOK The book is, in simple terms, a reference book on the entire Media Landscape of India; at the same time, it is also a book that teaches you the basics of the game, and then proceeds to take you into the inner working and nut&bolts of this industry and all its constituent sectors. It traces the development of each sector right from its beginnings, right from the start, and develops right upto the present time. It furthermore  also covers regulatory ...

I closed the previous article {found here : Understanding The Internet : Reaching Into The Gut Of Existing Systems } with a statement that few organizations truly understand how to use the 5-21” space of the screen;  this article looks at this aspect in a little more detail. A great many companies use the customer-facing aspects of the internet as merely another tool to communicate and connect, completely ignoring the full power of the internet ecosystem. The Screen, first of all, is mistakenly defined as just a mere device that displays, or acts as a window, disseminating information to your prospects and customers, and the general audience. The screen is more of a doorway, a portal that transports – or has the ability to – transport your customer into a world of constantly interacting stakeholders in your product, your company and your addressable market segment. If that doesn’t scare you as a Brand Manager, as a Marketer, and as a Sales Professional, high time it did. ...