Twitter Vs Not Twitting

There is a lot of hype around social media marketing. Some say its the way to go for corporate branding. I agree that almost all major MNCs have adopted IT systems, but that doesn't mean that having a great online presence will help in building the brand. I know so many of my senior collegues who hardly get time to log into their noncorporate mail accounts.
I am sure its good to market ones profile through linkedin, twitter, facebook and orkut, but I don't agree with the sustainability of these social media based marketing. I have been hearing a lot from marketing gurus on the low cost marketing, its benefits and its reach. I if NRN or Bill Gates will ever get time to tweet. I doubt the strength of social media as a marketing tool. I would wait to watch a real success story. Well, I am trying it somewhere else as well to see the success of tweets and orkuts of the world.
http://www.tomfishburne.com/tomfishburne/2009/07/corporate-twitter.html
I happened to go through this blog by Tom Fishburne. Its an interesting read for folks who will be getting into marketing.
One thing is clear, twitter, orkut and facebook are good means to be connected with friends, collegue but I doubt if they can really be a means of corporate branding.

- Arun (Nettayan)

Sensex at 17K

This is the most surprising thing that is happening now in the financial market. Can't imagine the movement of market from 8k to 17 K at such a pace. Is our market not mature enough to understand the world ? How could the financial situation improve to such a great extent?
I think there is some kind of bubble awaiting. It's time to book partial profits.

Moody's of economy.com said there is always a risk of another major event sending shock waves in financial markets like the Lehman Brothers. The central banks across the globe are tightening the money supply to control inflation and this is going to affect the market for sure.

Be sure to exit at the right time.

hachi tarou monogatari (4 out of 5) - 1987

Its an interesting Japanese movie about a loyal dog. The movie starts of with the birth of puppies and director has taken all efforts to show the birth process naturally. The movie then goes to another place where they show a family which had recently lost their pet dog. The new born puppy is sent to them though the entire family opposes except the daughter. The daughter ignores the dog after her marriage. The portrayal of changing characteristics of human beings with changing environment is portrayed in a creative and artistic manner. The director thus brings the contrast between the man and the dog. They call him hachi which means faithful dog.

Hachi (The dog) brings lots of changes in the life of the family. The head of the family who is a professor in Agri university(you could call him the hero)- Ueno, becomes very close to the dog and he takes care of it like his child. After his daughter's marriage he becomes really close to it and all his thoughts are around Hachi. Every morning and evening the dog accompanies the professor from home to railway station and back. Everyone is amazed by the punctuality of the dog. Every evening Hachi waits for his masters arrival. The station master, a shopkeeper near the station and other on-goers admire the love showered by Hachi (it's the dog's love for the man that gets depicted here). However, the professor dies suddenly one day (1925). Hachi doesn't realize this and continues waiting for the professor at the railway station at the usual spot for next 10 years, till it dies. The screenplay and direction is amazing as you reach the last half an hour of the movie. The director will make you feel for the dog.

I loved it and I would recommend all the readers of this blog also to watch that movie. This movie has given me motivation to watch more Japanese Classics. This is the statue of the dog that is currently there in a railways station in Japan. I think this is based on a true story.

- Arun (Nettayan)

Jet got the best

Jet has finally managed to get a lot of booking with their 50% discount strategy. It seems there were more than 21K booking/day over the last three days. Jet was up by 18% today. With no major news around market has been inching new levels everyday. I believe the system has lots of money, but can it take the market to new levels. 5000+ is a sure over valuation and we might see heavy profit booking. New investors be careful ...
Happy investing

Jet Lag continues

The meeting between the management and the pilots came to an inconclusive end. This is going to be more of an ego clash between the management and the pilots.
Things are pretty much clear that the employees of Jet Airways are unhappy with the management. Jet Airways management need to focus on building employee confidence- through better salaries and employee benefits. I sometimes feel Indian Aviation industry is bleeding unnecessarily because of the low cost approach that most of the airlines are taking up in India. It's better to charge more from customers and satisfy them, rather than taking less and making them unsatisfied with poor service. It's better to service less in a profitable way rather than servicing a large volume in loss.
Will it be possible for Jet Airways to revive its business? How will it be able to bring in employee loyalty? How will it bring in customer ?

Jet Airways - Will it hit the sky?

This is interesting. India is wholly dependent on the services industry. Whether it's IT, tourism, hospitality. It will be an interesting situation if one lakh employess of all the big IT companies (TCS, Infy, Wipro) plan to take sick (please read it as sick) leave for a whole week. Just a thought ... nothing more to write :)
I think time has come for the employees to show their power to their management. Can Jet Airways take bold decisions? Will we see some large scale lay off and organization re-structuring in Jet Airwways?
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/business/india-business/Jet-Airways-to-hold-talks-with-pilots-on-Friday-/articleshow/4995692.cms

Up Up and Down

While in B-school, we are always taught that Airline industry is not a good business to get into. Today Jet Airways has a bigger problem than just running their existing business. The most interesting aspect of all this is Jet Airways stock price has not gone down a bit over last 2 days, infact it has gone up by more than 5%!!! What does this mean???
I had a short discussion with my friend Anuj, who also tracks stock markets like me. Some of the points that came out were:
1. Market feels that jet airways is better off being idle, as operations will only add to the cost
2. They are better off selling their assets to some other company
I think the market is also trying to factor in these points. We tried doing some web search of the profit making airline companies in the world and some interesting facts are given below. Most profitable airline companies are:
1) FedEx
2) Lufthansa Group
3) British Airways
4) Singapore Airlines Group
5) Qantas
6) Emirates
7) ANA
8) Cathay Pacific
9) Air France / KLM Group
10) Southwest Airlines
Though the data is slightly outdates, most of these airlines have been able to do good business because of their global presence except for Southwest airlines.
Well, we will have to wait now to see Mr.Goyal's next step or "Strategy".