Amul has been “the taste of India since independence”. While growing up I always felt that Amul’s success was due to a variety of reasons. It had clever marketing strategies such as the “Amul girl”, it was a reliable brand to every Indian household and its products such as Amul butter were always of a superior quality.

After delving further into Amul, I discovered; contrary to my opinion, that the brand’s success came through its roots of being a social entrepreneurship. Amul in 1946 was founded as a reaction to the unfair milk trade practices that occurred in India. Amul’s objective at the time was to eradicate the gap present between the producers and consumers in the market and it did just that! It was a small idea that had ignited a revolution in all of the market structures in India. Amul within months emerged from being just a new start-up to a brand that had become the catalyst for social change and rural development.

Therefore Amul has illustrated an example of how a brand’s sets of values can not only bring success, but change unfair systems that are prevalent in any market system.

Bibliography and Other Blogs and References:

Blog – On Amul

Amul’s Start

“5 Successful Examples of Social Entrepreneurship – : RingCentral Blog for Businesses.” RingCentral Blog for Businesses 5 Successful Examples of Social Entrepreneurship Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. <http://blog.ringcentral.com/2012/02/5-successful-examples-of-social-entrepreneurship.html>.

After having an interesting lecture on finance, I felt that it was only logical to explore this topic more in person. Reading, viewing and analyzing from a broad category of data available online, finance left me with an overwhelming image of present-day economies. From the many articles I read, “Burberry confirms weak sales In China” struck me the most.

Burberry shares declined in China after the company issued a surprise profit warning related to the downturn in China. With a plunge of 19% in Burberry shares, analysts asserted that the weakening of the Chinese economy was liable for the company’s poor performance.  Even though Burberry suffered this hit in its Chinese market, the overall revenues remained eight percent higher then they were six months ago.

Learning further about the brand, related articles expressed how Burberry would now sell its perfumes and its beauty products in its own stores and take back control of the sales of all its products. The initial news article published by BBC (Burberry confirms weak sales in China) illustrated how it encompassed such a large variety of topics, involved other nations, and computed limitless numbers; portraying altogether, the complexity of any one company and the depth present in Finance.

Bibliography and Other References:

Burberry’s New Strategy

“Burberry Confirms Weak China Sales Figures.” BBC News. BBC, 10 Nov. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19907560>.

Beatles were the zeitgeist of the 1960’s. The “Beatlemania” brought with it an overwhelming love and passion for music. They boldly changed the music genres of their time and exceled as the Fab4. Yet, as we look at them now, we can’t grasp the idea they could ever fail. Unfortunately, they did much like how Elvis Presley did in his first attempt to become a musician. This is because the music industry is extremely competitive. With the supplier power being extremely low, and the buyer power being the most influential. Therefore it’s a subjective judgment that the record label firms need to take to define both their musician’s and their success. Thus in this process of subjective decision-making, there are many great artists who get rejected at this early stage.

“the music industry is extremely competitive. With the supplier power being extremely low, and the buyer power being the most influential.”

This in recent years has changed because of YouTube. People now can post videos and within days get accolades from strangers all over the world. It’s easy, quick and convenient. Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and Lana Del Ray, are few examples who reached their peak all because of YouTube. With YouTube, the middleman is gone and you alone can pave your way to Stardom. 

Here are some YouTube videos of musicians that I think are great!

Everyone who has ever heard of the James Bond franchise has also heard of him ordering his famous martini, “Shaken, Not Stirred”. In the new James Bond movie; however, Heineken has paid millions of dollars to replace this Bond tradition. Even though the James Bond Franchise has earned more than 13 billion dollars in tickets sales in the last 5 decades, getting producers for this independent set of films has been a tough challenge for the movie in its recent years. Daniel Craig exclaimed that, “A movie like this costs $118 million to make. And it costs another $200 million to sell it. So the $200 million has to come from somewhere. Product placement, whether you like it or you think it’s disgusting, it’s what it is. Heineken gave us a ton of money for it to be in the film. Without them, the movie couldn’t get sold.” This is a clever marketing strategy adopted by Heineken because it’s trying to change its position in the market as being the “new cool James Bond drink”. It’s a cunning change for the Dutch beer brand, and only time will tell whether people support Heineken and its new commitment with James Bond.

Bibliography and Other References:

HEINEKEN Commercial with Daniel Craig – Skyfall

“Big Bucks for Bond, James Bond.” CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2012. <http://edition.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_tvbx>.

“Heineken.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 July 2012. Web. 08 Oct. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heineken>.

“  James Bond Needed To Drink Heineken To Get Movie Made, Says Daniel Craig.” The Inquisitr. N.p., 3 Oct. 2012. Web. 08 Oct. 2012. <http://www.inquisitr.com/351893/james-bond-needed-to-drink-heineken-to-get-movie-made-says-daniel-craig/>.

Competition has benefited nearly all-financial systems in the world, except for a country like India.

In 2008, India’s economy trembled in the wake of the “2G” scam that cunningly fooled the government and its citizens. Minister A Raja that was responsible for auctioning out the exclusive telecom services, decided instead, to sell the various spectrum licenses at cheap rates upon receiving bribes. On one hand, the government reportedly lost 31.97 billion dollars due to this scandal, while on the other hand, minister A Raja cashed in from 40 million dollars bribes with unethical companies like Reliance, Essar, Loop, Swan and Unitech. All the laws were completely bent and respect-worthy corporations upheld no standards whatsoever to stay in the “competition”. The scale of the corruption was gargantuan and this left a permanent dent to the reputation of companies in India and the integrity of its leaders.

With investigation still in process, the responsible companies are being charged with cases of forgery of documents, criminal conspiracy, corruption and many more. In the end, this incident clearly reveals how the companies lost everything while trying to gain the unethical edge in the “competition”.

Bibliography and Other References:

NDTV-2G SCAM

“What Is 2G Spectrum Scam?” NDTV.com. N.p., 15 Nov. 2010. Web. 13 Sept. 2012. <http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/what-is-2g-spectrum-scam-66418>.

“Wired for Success.” How Competition Can Encourage Unethical Business Practices. N.p., 15 June 2012. Web. 13 Sept. 2012. <http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201206/how-competition-can-encourage-unethical-business-practices>.

“2G Spectrum Scam.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 09 Nov. 2012. Web. 13 Sept. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G_spectrum_scam>.

“2G Scam: Raja Fails to Dissuade Witness.” – India. N.p., 11 Sept. 2012. Web. 13 Sept. 2012. <http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_2g-scam-raja-fails-to-dissuade-witness_1739536>.