Indeed, She is the future of Mandsaur

So, She is the future of Mandsaur http://anshuman-jaiswal.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-she-mandsaurs-new-future.html . It has been more than a month that she surprised me with use of orkut for getting her political message across and now she has surprised everyone by defeating the incumbent MP, Mr. Laxmi Narayan Pandey. Mr Pandey would not have imagined such a defeat at hands of a political novice in his wildest imagination as rightly pointed out by Business Standard http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/meenakshi-natarajan-defeats-laxmi-narayan-by-30000-votes/62005/on But history is already made and it's time for her to deliver on her promises and meet expectations of Mandsaur. ET came out with agenda for next 100 days for the Union Govt. So has to be the case for Meenaskshi Natarajan. Here is what she should immediately focus and deliver on :

1. Increase number of trains and better rail connectivity.
2. Completion of four laning of Neemuch Ratlam National highway in next 6 months.
3. Attract small business and enterprises to setup their shops in Mandsaur.
4. Plan for eradicating water crisis.
5. Put a curb on corruption involved in Opium supply chain.

She should not and in fact no public representative should forget that public will punish non performance. So Ms Natarajan, ball is in your court. People will keenly watch your action and in action too.

Euphoric response to Tata Housing project

Since I wrote last week about Tata's new low cost housing project http://anshuman-jaiswal.blogspot.com/2009/05/mr-tata-has-heard-me.html , there has been euphoric response. See this ET link http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4496483.cms . Success of this project will surely boost confidence of Tatas and other developers to start such project across India.

Mr. Tata has heard me!

Ya, I am right. Mr. Tata or perhaps CEO of Tata Housing, Mr. Brotin Banerjee has given much needed hearing to market demands. I am so delighted with launch of Tata Housing project for Low cost houses in the price band of Rs 3.9 lakh-6.7 lakh . These days, my predictions are proving correct. I will write more about those predictions in future posts. But for now, it’s great moment for Indian Housing sector. Since I wrote in May 2008 http://anshuman-jaiswal.blogspot.com/2008/05/housing-needs-nano.html ,there has been a great evolution of low costs models. Success of Tata Nano bookings has awakened top line conscious business houses to new source of revenues. All big industrial houses such as Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis and new age entrepreneurs should take a lesson from Tata’s low cost housing initiative and jump into the untouched, unserved markets of low cost housing for creating newer markets of middle class and lower middle class consumers. But I am surprised with poor coverage of this news, which according to me is transformational for Indian Housing sector. Let’s wait for more Low cost innovations coming from fast becoming Low Cost Capital of the world, India.

Why don't you not spend when you can?

I have always been amazed with Brand Building exercises and Ad Spends of two companies HPCL (Hindustan Petroleum) and BPCL(Bharat Petroleum). Here are the reasons for my amazement:

1. Both are Government owned Indian Oil retailers. I have hardly seen any other PSU which spends the way these two companies spend on marketing. Perhaps, there are few government companies in B2C (Business to Consumer) market.

2. Both companies are in red as per ET(Economic Times) dated 30th Apr 2009. If you don't make profits, then you try to cut costs and reduce expenditure on things such as Ads. I have hardly seen any visible efforts in this direction as they continue to get their products endorsed by costly players such as Dhonis' of the world.

3. Both companies are in oil retailing where competition is crushed by Government’s populist policies (Read Closure of Reliance’s oil retailing business). Why the hell you need to spend on brand building (Endorsement Spend, customer loyalty programs etc) when you hardly have any competitor to deal with.