Reina Kurtani’s Blog Failed Partnership between Volkswagen and Suzuki narrates the incident how the alliance between two automobile giants of the world met its fate. The Japanese and Germans formed this alliance for mutual benefit but this relationship didn’t last as the German partner denied Suzuki to share its valuable hybrid technology. Both these automobile companies made a partnership where Suzuki would get access to fuel efficient and technological know how of Volkswagen in return of its 19.9% stake.

The denial by Volkswagen created a buzz in the business world as one of the most anticipated partnerships of all time died out even before getting benefited by each other substantially. As a result, Suzuki will buy back its share and will search for another loyal partner like Maruti in India. Volkswagen has lost its credibility in terms of business partnership by breaking the trust of one of the biggest automobile companies in the world. Further, the German will lose its customer loyalty as analysed by Reina. Volkswagen is in one of its worst phases since the company started its operations with broken partnership and financial scandals hampering the image of company adversely. Reina’s suggestions of certain technological changes by internal combustion and electric motor to target the green car lovers should go in favour of Suzuki.

In this short term not so loveable relationship between Volkswagen and Suzuki , the Japanese will have the last laugh in long term.

Seth Fiegerman’s blog “Why Facebook and Twitter are embracing E-commerce”  on Mashable.com highlights the growing importance of E-commerce in the world of social media from the service provider’s point of view. Its amusing to see the business incline the social media giants have to enter the E-commerce world. Facebook had made multiple attempts to enter the e-business arena with the “credits” policy, sending gifts and in-game purchases. Though these attempts didn’t really fetch any significant revenue, Facebook is adamant to embrace e-commerce. Facebook incorporated a BUY button in its interface which makes Facebook users buy products advertised without really leaving the social media site and redirect to the buyer’s homepage.

Facebook’s rival Twitter also purchased CardSpring, an online payment platform the subsequent week after Facebook incorporated the buy button. Both these giants are attempting their luck in e-commerce world where the presence of powerhouse like Amazon, Ebay and Alibaba is dominant. Though reports are that this step has been taken buy both the websites just to make sure that users don’t get bored and stay online for more buy shopping online, it is hard to deny the profit motive behind this.

Facebook has 1.55 Billion monthly active users whereas microblogging monster has 307 million monthly active users. If simple math is applied, even if 0.5% of users hit the buy button, the revenue would be gigantic and the both Facebook and Twitter would levy some charges for the same from the retailer.

Facebook’s and Twitter’s constant embracing of e-commerce clearly indicates the prospects of growth in the same and an alert of a hybrid of Social Media and E-commerce is round the corner.

Reference –http://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/

http://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-active-twitter-users/

Pavit Sethi’s blog “Marketing: Friend or Foe?” clearly mentions and explains the need and importance of marketing as well as he clearly supports his idea with the example of “Mylan” the company that sells Epinen and narrated how good marketing of the product boosted the sale and resulted in contribution of 40% of the total profit of the firm.

 

Marketing is necessary but unnecessary marketing leads to failure of even well established businesses. Ford Edsel is one of the biggest marketing blunder of all time. The $400-million-dollar investment of the Ford Company on its new car was burned within three years of its launch. According to experts Edsel was competing with itself as it had the same price tag as other Ford’s Mercury line but didn’t really had any new thing to offer to its customers. The product line failed as there were quality issues because Edsel wasn’t given any separate production unit and was using parts of both Mercury and Ford. Even over the top marketing of the much hyped Edsel couldn’t help it as there were increasing mechanical issues.

 

David Ogilvy , one of the greatest marketing maestro once said ,

“Great Marketing only makes a bad product fail faster”

I agree with Pavit that in today’s world marketing is an essential part of business but cannot lead long term profitability unless there is some concrete idea or substance to market.

 

Reference – http://michaelhyatt.com/it%E2%80%99s-the-product-stupid.html

http://www.usdatacorporation.com/info/2011/08/15-worst-marketing-blunders/

 

 

The World’s biggest democracy underwent its biggest elections in 2014 which resulted in Narendra Modi, now 9^th most powerful man on earth being elected as the Representative of over 1.25 billion people. Make in India project is Modi’s baby and the Indian prime minister is going out of this way to nurture it into making India the biggest manufacturing force of the world. Modi has been termed as “Absentee PM” due to his frequent foreign trips. Modi has travelled to maximum number of countries by an Indian PM in one single year.

 

 

Down to business, the investment of whopping Three Billion Rupees spent on PM’s Travel are showing monetary results as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) i.e. The Investment made by foreign investors which gives them direct control over an asset and control over it’s decision making was up by 700% to $40.2 billion in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015. The Industrial Production rose by 2.1% from 0.6% to 2.7% from October 2014 to May 2015

The Multinational Companies like Foxconn and General Motors notified their billion dollar plans of further investment in India.
The Indian PM’s Second visit to the Silicon Valley, United States in less than a year and in return Google’s Announcement of Free Wi-Fi at 500 Indian Railway Stations and Successive visits by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg indicates that there is a lot to come in years ahead in terms of India’s Impact on International Trade and its relations with foreign partners.

 

Reference –http://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2015/08/12/five-things-that-show-modis-make-in-india-campaign-is-working/

 

I am opposed to one for one business model because I believe it’s similar to the spoon feeding (Freemium) model of governance which makes citizens dependent on government for their livelihood. I agree every business has social responsibility as business is an integral part of society but the social responsibility should subside the main motive of any business organisation i.e. to work for its existence by earning adequate profits.

If you want to do go to the society in long run and actually make an impact, business should go for ideas like equal employment opportunity, use of sustainable energy and other employee specific activates. If a business is providing all its workers and employees with adequate training and development, safe and sound workplace and free environment then according to me its meeting its social responsibility. Why is that only helping people outside is considered as social responsibility by general mindset.

Zappos.com ‘s has been proved to be one of the best companies in the world to work for as well as renowned for its customer service at the same time. Zappos’ business model is an example in the business world that how a business can fulfil its social responsibility and make the balance sheet of the company show some positive figures every year.

The Indian two-minute noodle Maggi was banned by the government of India when the lead content in the noodle was found out to be very high according to Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) earlier this year. The most selling instant noodles in Indian market was taken down due to government ban which lead to Nestle, the maker of Maggi file a legal petition in Bombay High court seeking a review of this order. The fun fact was that the Made-In-India Maggi was being sold in many countries all over the world including Canada and Singapore even after the ban in India as the lead test of Maggi in these nation proved that it was safe for human consumption.

Indian Shopping website www.Snapdeal.com came up with a deal with Nestle to sell the first comeback lot of Maggi after a long exile of 5 months. The response Snapdeal and Maggi got was overwhelming for both the giants. A whooping 60000 welcome kits of Maggi were sold in less than Five minutes online for the first time. The Deal of the Day model of E-commerce giants in India yet again turned out to be an Ace in the pack of marketing strategies.

 

Reference – http://www.firstpost.com/business/five-minute-frenzy-for-two-minute-noodles-60k-maggi-kits-sold-out-in-flash-sale-on-snapdeal-2504228.html