WIPRO

Product Strategy & Consulting

In order to succeed in a fast-paced global environment, companies have to economize their business operations and market their opportunities. Wipros Product Strategy and Architecture (PSA) practice can help technology vendors and enterprises develop innovative and effective product and IT strategies that prove successful for their businesses. Wipros PSA has over a decade of experience in researching, analyzing and documenting the business value of technology solutions. We assist vendors, service providers and large enterprises in each of these phases of the product development lifecycle, Invent: Identify and validate new market opportunities Build: Build products more effectively Sell: Shorten sales cycles and sell more effectively Optimize: Improve product development efficiency Wipros PSA has an experienced team of technical architects and management consultants from global consultancy firms, IT analyst firms and technology product vendors. We provide unique services by integrating market specific knowledge, experience in emerging technologies, standards in IT and embedded systems, broad strategic planning skills, proficiency in global strategies and understanding of hi-growth emerging countries, thereby helping companies to meet the complex demand of the industry.

ORGANITIONAL STRATEGY
HOW TO NURTURE CREATIVITY ANMOG EMPLOYEES Creative people are a rare species in an organization. They are a strange breed. They are a minority. Unlike many other minority support groups, they dont have anyone to speak up for them. Creative people do not always choose the performing arts or the media to build careers. In fact if anything at all, the ones who are doing the solo act or those whose career lies outside the grip of an organization does not face the same challenges that the creative

people face within the organization. Organizations have a way of taking over the lives of people who work there. We all have the ability to be creative. A child can spend hours playing with a box imagining it to be a space ship, a piano, a turtle The organizations can tap into the creative person hiding inside all employees to make the workplace a more interesting place to be. The basic premise of what I am suggesting is that creative people are like performing artists. They derive their thrill by simply practicing their craft. But what takes them to the next level is appreciation from others. Creative people take their craft up by a notch each time someone applauds their work or idea. A part of them slowly wilts when their work and ideas go unnoticed and unappreciated. Since 1958, millions of children who completed a series of creativity tasks newly designed by professor E. Paul Torrance. Torrances test a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. The Torrance Test identifies whether you have unusual visual perspective or maybe an ability to synthesize diverse elements into meaningful products. Simply put, it tests for your Creativity Quotient. The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ. IQ has been going up by 10 points over each generation, but Creativity has been dropping. Watching TV makes your creativity drop. Encouraging the children to continue asking questions is a way of developing their curiosity. Preschool children ask about a 100 questions a day. This number steadily drops as the years grow by. By the time we are ready for the workplace for most people creativity is not something they say they have. Many children create paracosms fantasies of entire alternative worlds. They create a new language that that is spoken there. Creating paracosms is seen to be a very strong sign of future creativity. Creative people are often distracted. The researchers gave a sensory test to a hundred undergraduates at Harvard. The tests were designed to measure their level of latent inhibition, which is the capacity to ignore stimuli that seem irrelevant. For instance, the sound of the AC in the room or the traffic or the passing aeroplane, depending on where you live. Creative achievers turned out to be people with low latent inhibition. Their attention drifts all over which is why they often land up considering the unexpected. While they tune in to all the distractions, creative people also apply a mental filter to zone in to find the pattern amid the chaos. While most parents, teachers and organizations say that they love to have creative children or employees (as may be the case), in reality they need to realize that creative people are tough to manage because of their constant day dreaming. In recent years, however, its become clear thatdaydreaming is actually an important element of the creative process, allowing the brain to remix ideas, explore counterfactuals and turn the spotlight of attention inwards. (Thats why increased daydreaming correlates with measures of creativity.). Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide goes on to say Daydreaming is when the brain mixes together ideas, memories and concepts that are normally filed away in discrete mental folders. The end result is a kind of subterranean creativity, as the mind makes new connections on its own. Here are a few things every organization can do to stoke back creativity: 1. Applaud their contributions 2. Encourage divergent thinking with bouts of intense convergent thinking, through several stages as you solve problems 3. Give your employees time to daydream. Focus on just action will lead to predictable routine outcomes. 4. Ask them to solve real problems that the organizations are facing 5. Lead them like the conductor leads an orchestra While creative people may be difficult to manage, yet they are the ones who take organizations to new heights. So nurture them or at least get out of their way.

Nokia Strategy 2011

BY PHIL POSTED ON THE 11TH OF FEBRUARY 2011 AT 7:25AM

Nokia Strategy 2011 consists of three pillars: Smartphones; The next billion; Future disruptions.

Smartphones
Beginning 2011, Nokia will use Microsofts Windows Phone for its main smartphone operating system. The reason for this is that the smartphone battle is now a war of ecosystems rather than just devices. An ecosystem consists of devices, services, third-party providers, a strong app market and delighted customers. Microsoft, Nokia and its other partners will form a strong ecosystem to bring innovation and choice into the market. MeeGo now becomes a platform for future disruption of the market through innovative and different devices. Symbian will continue to be supported and developed as the full product portfolio takes shape.

Articles:
Open Letter from Stephen Elop and Steve Ballmer Welcome to the Third Ecosystem Nokia Strategy and Financial Briefing [video] Stephen Elop and Steve Ballmer answer questions from Nokia Conversations readers The future is glanceable

The next billion

Around 3.2 billion people do not currently own a mobile phone. Nokias reach, extensive product portfolio and market presence worldwide make it the best-placed manufacturer to supply the next billion mobile phone users with great devices and rich services suited to local needs. In addition, well be taking the Internet to the users of these phones in their next step. The Series 40 operating system, Ovi Life Tools and Java development are keystones here.

Articles:
Mobile Phones: the next billion Mary McDowell on the next billion Launch: the Nokia X1-00

Future disruptions
Innovation in the field of mobile devices is far from over and Nokia is determined to play a key role in the future of this field. MeeGo will play a key part in this, and continued support for revolutionary research and development work across Nokias worldwide research labs, the Qt development framework and independent providers will help to fuel this further

Articles:
Rich Green at Nokia Developer Day 13 reasons to get stuck on Qt

Environmental strategy

Nokia aims to be a leading company in environmental performance. Our vision is a world where everyone being connected can contribute to sustainable development. We want to shape our industry and drive best practices. Achieving environmental leadership means minimizing our own environmental footprint. With the expansion of mobile communications, this is all the more important. We strive to reduce the environmental impact of our products, solutions, and operations. We also collaborate with our suppliers to improve the environmental performance of our supply chain. We have a user base of more than one billion people which means that we have a unique opportunity to make an impact that goes beyond our own activities. That's why we aim to offer people products and solutions that help them make sustainable choices. Together, we can achieve more. Minimizing our environmental footprint Nokia's environmental work is based on life cycle thinking. This means that we aim to minimize the environmental impact of our products throughout our operations, beginning with the extraction of raw materials and ending with recycling, treatment of waste, and recovery of used materials. We achieve this by better product design, close control of the production processes, and greater material reuse and recycling.

Our environmental efforts focus on four issues:

Substance management. We work closely with our suppliers and require full declaration of the substances we use in our devices. Our work is based on the precautionary principle and we aim at continuously reducing the amount of substances of concern. In addition, we explore the opportunities for using new, more environmentally friendly materials, such as bio plastics or recycled metals and plastics. Energy efficiency. We make sure our devices use as little energy as possible. We also work to reduce the energy consumption of our operations, and agree on energy efficiency targets with our key suppliers. Take back and recycling. We want to increase consumer awareness of recycling, offer superior recycling in all markets and promote the recycling of used devices through specific initiatives and campaigns. The backbone of

Nokia's take-back program are the around 5000 collection points for no longer needed devices in almost 100 countries. Promoting sustainability through mobile applications. We are developing mobile applications to help people make sustainable choices and consider the environment in their everyday lives. A variety of eco services are freely downloadable to Nokia devices via Ovi store.

Basic principles Our environmental work is based on global principles and standards. Our targets are not driven by regulatory compliance but go way beyond legal requirements. Environmental issues are fully integrated in our business activities and are everyone's responsibility in Nokia. It is a part of everything we do.

TCS
TCS Work Culture Strategy-Building Culture of Innovation
Indias Tata Group has made innovation part of its DNA, setting up a way for handling new ideas and making creative thinking a performance criterion . Its not that there had been no innovation inside Tata Group, the 117-year-old Indian powerhouse responsible for that nations first steel mill, power plant, and airline, among other achievements. But when Indias long protected economy was opened in 1991, Chairman Ratan Tata decided that for his companies to survive and thrive in a global economy he had to make innovation a priorityand build it into the DNA of the Tata group so that every employee at every company might think and act like an innovator. Today those 15 companies have produced such innovative products as the $2,000 Tata Nano car, and includes firms such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the Mumbai-based IT services and outsourcing power, which earned almost $6 billion in revenues in 2008. THE TCS STRATEGY Cultural transformation is impossible without the leadership of top executives, so Tata created the Tata Group Innovation Forum (TGIF), a 12-member panel of senior Tata Group executives and some CEOs of the independently run companies. TGIFs main objective is to inspire and share best practices says Sunil Sinha, CEO of Tata Quality Management Services and a member of the forum. But executives also have employed other strategies to build a culture of innovation. Heres how they did so within TCS. First, leaders approached the challenge both top down and bottom up. TCS Chief Technology Officer Ananth Krishnan says this involved establishing formal systems for encouraging innovative thinking and processing of ideas. If I come up with an innovation, whether its an incremental or a disruptive idea, I need to know whom to go to with it, and there needs to be an organizational process for moving it forward, says Krishnan. TCS created multiple channels, and managers are trained how to direct an employees idea: incremental innovations are handled and funded by the business unit in which the idea originated; platform-level innovations that might extend an existing offering are directed to one of the companys 19 global innovation labs, leading-edge research centers focused on specific technology areas or business sectors. Disruptive ideas tend to originate in the labs, but if one emerged from a business unit it would be directed to a lab or funded through an incubator fund run by the CTOs office. How all of the ideas are evaluated and funded is almost less important than the fact that TCS employees know ideas are welcomeand that good ones wont die in a pile on someones desk. TCS has also incorporated innovation into its formal annual review process, making it one of the nine categories on which employees are evaluated. If an employee wins the companys Young Innovator Award, he or she will see more than a salary bump. It certainly accelerates your career track, says Krishnan. I might pluck you up and put you in one of our innovation labs. CREATIVE DISSATISFACTION In addition to formal systems, TCS takes steps to stimulate innovative thinking. We train people to think about improvement all of the time, to have what I call a culture of creative dissatisfaction with the status quo, says Krishnan. TCS has made innovation a component of training programs, from its leadership institute, to which 50 senior managers are sent every year, to its four-day Technovator workshop, at which its programmers are taught to think creatively.

Five hours of an employees 45-hour week can be used for personal projects, such as learning a skill or developing an idea. To better capture nascent ideas, the company launched IdeaMax, a Digg-like social network that lets any employee submit, comment, and vote on ideas. Since it was launched last year, IdeaMax has collected 12,000 ideas, several hundred of which have become projects. Every quarter, I review the top 10 most popular ideas, says Krishnan. The wisdom of crowds works for us. The company says it has been steadily meeting its innovation goals. Last year 10% of revenues were directly traceable to innovation activity, says Krishnan. TCS also has set goals for customer recognition of their innovations. When we launched our innovation initiative three years ago, we said one third of customers must be able to recount an innovative element of their project, he says. Now weve raised that to one half. Is that enough? I dont know. Maybe we should raise it again. What can executives learn from TCS about building a culture of innovation? Leadership Lays the Foundation The CEO is the cornerstone of any effort to build a culture of innovation. He or she needs to communicate the importance of innovation directly to managers and to celebrate innovative efforts, including those that failed but were valiant attempts. Hire the Right People. But In a targeted effort to build its capacity for breakthrough innovations, TCS hired more PhD graduates. But broadly speaking, the processes are as important as the people when it comes to building a culture of innovation. Build Innovation Into the Organization A culture of innovation wont take root if you dont have clear systems for approving and funding ideas, for example, or an employee review process that includes innovation criteria. Use Social Media to Tap Ideas and Encourage Collaboration In addition to IdeaMax, which will roll out to all Tata companies in September, TCS created Just Ask, a platform that allows employees to post and answer questions internally. Ten thousand questions were asked and answered within the first months of its launch. Celebrate Innovators In addition to the Tata Group-wide Innovista innovation competition, TCS runs its own Young Innovator Awards to reward and recognize successful innovators.

TCS changes recruitment strategy

Tata Consultancy Services [ Get Quote ], the country's largest IT company, has changed its hiring strategy and will focus on just-in-time hiring or real-time talent management.

"TCS has decided to adopt the policy of real-time management whereby we will hire in the last three months of the final year of graduation rather than a year before," said S Ramadorai, managing director and chief executive officer, TCS. This will not only help the company to optimise and increase its utilisation, but also align its hiring strategy closer to the demand and supply of business, a company spokesperson said. The company is working on ways to reduce the two-month training period by half. TCS, with over 130,000 employees, has already freezed lateral hiring and plans to hire only on need basis. "The decision is also been based on our constant interaction with the academia, which have been telling that students are not pursuing higher studies as they get jobs and also during the academic year they tend to get lax," added the company's spokesperson. The decision will not impact the company's current hiring plan of recruiting over 24,000 students for FY10. The step comes immediately after the Nasscom announcement to hire students only in their eighth semester. "Some firms were hiring in the fourth or fifth semester of an academic year. However, now the IT trade body and companies have decided to hire only in the eighth semester of the academic year," said Nasscom President Som Mittal. Mittal felt that this will help the students as well as the industry. "When you hire that early, students get confused and do not focus on their studies. Besides, we also realised that since many would get jobs they would not concentrate on further studies," added Mittal

TATA MOTORS

Marketing Strategies of Tata Motors

Tata Motors is an Automobile Company in India and is a very high earning company. It's revenues reportedly in the year 2008-2009, is 14 billion. But it's achievements do not stop there. It is among the world's top automobile companies, reportedly the 4th lagest truck manufacturer. The question that many may ask is, What can we learn from such a large company, with such great profits? The age old statement, Success often leaves traces may be appropriate to add in this junction. With 23,000 employees what is notable in Tata Motors approach is the fact that it's marketing approach is novel and founded on clear cut internet marketing guidelines. One only has to go to the Tata Motors website to find that it integrates multiple media outlets in it's marketing approach. From its use of flash to its sleak webiste design, the comapny useswhat is essential to great profits,- innovation. Innovation is simply the proccess by which companies increase thei profitabiliyt in the marketplace by staking out a position that other companies in the market can't do. It clears out space in their prospect's mind as to what their company is able to offer them that no other company can. For Tata Motors- excellence in service and presentation- is the perception that comes to the prospect 's mind, for others it may understanding a customer's family needs for a car. Essentially what Tata Motors has done is they've brought a new range of value to their market by bringing media and technology that have not been overemphasized by their competitors so that they could carve out an unshakable space in the minds of their customers and thus lead to increased sales.

RELIANCE INDUSTRIES
Reliance Industries | Strategy Information from ICIS
Edited from: "Letter to shareholders", Annual Report 2007-08 and company website Reliance Industries (RIL) is entering fiscal 2008-09 with the clear message that while its growth is planned and focused, it is also spontaneous and self-energising. In addition, the company states that it is on the path to improving its global ranking in polymers by building extremely competitive new assets in India.. Our outlook for the future continues to be optimistic. It is driven by the fact that the fulcrum of economic growth is shifting to Asia, propelled primarily by the unprecedented growth paradigm of the two most populous countries in the world, India and China, says chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani. RIL's strategy includes: Building and sustaining leadership position across its product categories in the domestic markets; Pursuing attractive export opportunities; Implementing vertical integration; Improving its technology; Achieving economies of scale; Focusing on prudent financial management; and Investing in high growth opportunities. In the petrochemical and refining business, RIL's strategy is to: Strive for global leadership and to be amongst the lowest cost producers worldwide; Continue to invest in research, quality, safety and the environment; and Pursue inorganic growth opportunities, which are strategic to its intents and will have the potential to create greater value for its shareholders. Looking ahead, RIL will make strategic decisions with regard to its "emerging" businesses, these include: Identifying new businesses with high growth potential; Investing in businesses that can scale rapidly and generate returns over an extendable period of time; and Aspire to be the lowest cost manufacturer/service provider, which it believes will result in RIL gaining "dominant market leadership".

WINING MARKETING STRATEGY

Reliance is gearing to be a major player in the Indian Retail Revolution. They are aggressively working on a pan-India network of retail outlets in various formats. State-of-the-art technology, a seamless supply chain infrastructure and unmatched customer experience, is what the initiative is all about. Reliance Retail, the 100% subsidiary of Reliance Industries, entered the retail foray involving a minimum investment of Rs 25,000 crore. They plan to achieve a target of Rs 10-billion revenue by 2010 employing 5,00,000 people. Hinting at an impending IPO, Reliance retail, has renamed Ranger Farm to Reliance Fresh Ltd, having hived the name of their most popular format. The companys name will sound familiar to the investors once the company plans to tap the capital markets by facilitating brand recall. The first of their format is Reliance Fresh, a convenience store. These stores, range from 2,000 to 5,000 sq feet, provide customers with a variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, staple foods and other products in a world-class ambience. They aggressively partnered farmers by following a farm-to-folk strategy to ensure fresh fruits and vegetables at affordable prices. They chose Hyderabad to test waters, as the city offers real estate at a price that does not quite pinch. They selected the cream crowd from pioneers in organized retailers to head the organization. With such a strong foothold, they ventured and their cash counters clicked Rs 3.5 to Rs 6.5 lakh per day and some outlets at prime locations are averaging Rs 5 lakh per day. Vegetable vendors and small retail shop-owners are accusing Reliance of directly hitting their business. Reliance Fresh will not compete with local vendors due to political reasons, and their inability to create a robust supply chain. This is different from their original plans. In states like Kerala, West Bengal and Orissa, where they face opposition, they have changed their retail strategy by introducing large supermarkets, where they will not trade in fruits and vegetables. This is a critical factor in assessing the impact of retail giants on the unorganized segment. These Reliance Super stores are large supermarkets with an area of 4,000-10,000 sq ft and will stock grocery, stationary, pharmaceutical products and apparel only. In the foods business, they have consciously segregated its vegetarian and non-vegetarian items by having a separate brand - Delight for the latter, with a separate distribution centre. This may be a smart move as vegetarians are sensitive to these issues. Seeing huge opportunities, they have introduced own brands like Dairy Pure for milk, ghee, (the only other major player being Amul) and Reliance Select for other categories like staples. This will optimize margins and streamline supply chain because of bulk procurement. Reliance Fresh will also retail FMCG, home, consumer durables, IT, pharmaceuticals, and auto accessories, in different formats like hypermarkets, supermarkets and discount stores; however, food will be a major account. Reliance Fresh, Reliance Mart, Reliance Digital, Reliance Trendz (apparel), Reliance Footprint (footwear, handbags, accessories), Reliance Wellness (health), Reliance Jewels, Reliance Timeout (books and gifts) and Reliance Super (mini mart) are various formats that Reliance has introduced. There are 491 Reliance Fresh stores and this figure is likely to touch 1,400 by the end of next fiscal, currently spanning 2.2-million sq. ft. In addition, Reliance Retail has entered into an alliance with

Apple for a chain of Apple Specialty Stores branded as iStore, Bangalore. With Marks and Spencer they are exploring apparel, gourmet food and cafes. Diversifying into various categories gives them an opportunity to tap the growing segments with immediate effect and further minimize potential losses. After the successful launch of consumer-good super market Reliance Fresh and Consumer Electronic and Digital, Reliance Mart (1,50,000-3,00,00 sq. ft.) is the company's hypermarket format. Around 23 percent of the hypermarket floor space will be allocated to garment brands, while the rest will stock footwear, home goods and other products. Luxury products will cover a floor space of 11 percent. Reliance Retail Limited (RRL) announced a Joint Venture with Pearle Europe for the launch of a chain of optical stores. This will bring a world-class range of private label frames, lenses and sunglasses. The optical industry is on the brink of major growth and has few organized players. Even the Tatas have ventured in this segment. Reliance has bought properties ranging from Rs 1,000 per sq ft to as high as Rs 22,000 per sq ft or more for their expansion. Reliance now plans the franchisee route for further expansion. Faced with expensive real estate costs and delays in retail space acquisition, the company is co-opting existing small retailers in all formats other than Reliance Fresh and Reliance Hypermarket. This is yet another success formula for giant retailers. Given their economies of scale and huge resources, excellent business acumen, and governmental support, the ever-strategic Reliance Fresh has become an ambitious and strong force to reckon with. They are able to provide their merchandise at cheaper rates than any other retailer, and have signed real estate deals at breakneck speed for mega projects across India. Reliance and Future Group are the early birds at making a dent in the large profit from the retail sector in India, at excellent real estate rates for properties in prime locations. The retail sector employs around 40 million people in India. Trade/retailing contributes to 14 percent of the service sector. The fact that about 4 percent of the population is employed in the unorganized retail trade makes it vital to the socio- economic equilibrium in India. Organized retailing and supply chain integration displace labor in a labor-surplus society. These chains negate a large and growing proportion of added value away from producers to companies. Bulk procurement decreases producers margins. By controlling both ends of the chain, the company can buy cheap and sell dear, thus severely undercutting the small retailers and creating a monopolistic situation. In addition, retail trade also has a sky rocketing effect on the real estate prices. Markets, wholesale sales and retail form one axis of the economy, while productive sectors like agriculture, textile, and industries form the other. Ambitious MNCs are trying to control both the axes of the economy on the pretext of privatization, liberalization, and globalization. Therefore, Reliance Fresh along with other domestic corporations have a moral standing. Along with the support of the government, they must pave a path for an efficient retail market (no monopoly) in India and help maintain a socio-economic equilibrium. This will remain the biggest challenge for Reliance who leads the way as a corporate citizen. The growth must be through value creation. This will help the Indian retail sector to remain fresh in a hygienic and ethical market.