Tag: India

India arrives at the Oscars party

While watching the Oscars today  in which eight were won by Slumdog Millionaire based in India- I could help but note the fact that the song and dance musical routine (vaudeville) is now back in Hollywood , while in India’s Bollywood it never went away.

A R Rahman won two Oscars , one more Indian won for sound mixing, while the poet Gulzar won for best song as well. 4 Oscars for 3 Indians – is unprecedented for the nation of a billion movie watchers- India produces and consumes more movies in more languages than any single other nation. What took India so long- the cocoon of isolation in which movies were released 3-4 years in India after they had been released abroad  was finally waved off in the mid 1990s.

And thanks to the globalized world, Indian movie goers learn the pleasures of multiplexes , off beat movies, award ceremonies while teaching the world – how to dance when the wallet , stomach and the home is empty. To the newly impoverished Western citizens in the global folly of the financial recession , Indian citizens , at least 80 % of whom live below 1 dollar a day, these citizens ask – “ As long as there is music in the movies , life and  it’s surprises are worth living for.” And like the 18 year old actor who debuted in a low budget movie which won 8 Oscars, you too can win the Millionaire show. If it is written. Because it is written.

A R Rahman, an Indian Muslim trained at Trinity College,England ,rising from poverty himself  —kind of summed up the Indian way of looking at things ( as opposed to the Pakistani 😉 way when he said – In  Life you can choose between love and hate. I chose love and so here I am.

ps – Hugh Jackman tried so hard .

But I would prefer Steve Martin and Tina Fey any day.

BANKING 2.0|India and the Internet

Well for customers who are India bound, and are shopping for loans face an acute shortage of options. Most online banks claim to be award winning in terms of design. Unfortunately, most of them act as lead generators and nothing more. I have worked with one of them myself. Even third party loan comparers end up NOT making a commitment on the final loan and amount, because of 

1) lack of credit assurance in India due to established credit ratings for individuals.

CIBIL is considered too young (< 5 years) and is the only credit rating agency.

2) lack of exposure to latest tools available globally online. 

As the saying goes, Why risk being innovative , if you are already having respectable market share, and are meeting your annual banking bonus in India’s financial services sector – booming (till 2007) and now rapidly growing (despite the central bank’s rate raises).

Indian customers remain the most under leveraged in the world, have very low delienquency rates, have Continue reading “BANKING 2.0|India and the Internet”

Dude , Wheres my software ?

Here is the reason why .

It would take an average Indian 26 months to buy a software worth 6000 USD (Assuming he didnot spend any money on anything else) while it takes the average UK  citizen only 2 months.

–

But why Sweden ……see post here on a Swedish Website

Here is a list of countries by per capita GDP in terms of purchasing power parity

(or how much they make on an year).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

Online Banking in India

What made you enter the online market space ? What prompted you to take up this present assignment?

There is tremendous opportunity in the Indian online market space. For instance buying flight tickets and shopping online was not popular a few years ago. Today people realize that transacting online can be safe, cheap, and can be done within a few seconds. Bankbazaar.com makes getting a great loan bargain as easy as buying an air ticket. Customers using our site will appreciate how much thought we have put into every little detail, which will make the process of applying and getting a loan a hassle free experience. It can help them save precious time and money. We expect a large percentage of consumers from channels such as bank branches and agents to migrate to BankBazaar.com .

Today there are a number of websites that claim to give customers instant loan rate quotes, when they actually just collect customer information and sell them to multiple banks and Direct Sales Agents. In such a scenario, we see a need for BankBazaar.com. Our innovative talent pool drawn from the world’s best colleges and companies are constantly seeking the best possible ways to offer an easier and faster online experience for customers.

I took up this assignment because my team is driving pure innovation in India. We are exploring options that no other financial marketplace in the world has ever attempted before and our goal is to build the world’s premier financial services marketplace (made in India).

What is different about BankBazaar for the customer ? What is different for a prospective employee ?

On BankBazaar.com the customer can instantly get customized competing offers from India’s leading Banks and NBFCs on our secure interface. We are the first neutral provider in the world to have innovated in partnership with leading financial institutions to provide this real-time offer capability. This information is

Continue reading “Online Banking in India”

India and the Internet:SimplyMarry.com

What prompted you to enter the internet media space, and what qualities do you think made you succeed in it.

I just loved the internet since I started using it, somehow I always felt this is the medium for me. I created a portal long time back and then joined an internet firm. The best thing about the medium is that the product, marketing, content and sales are close-knit than in any other medium. Another great part of it being it’s flexibility, you can create lot of designs of experiments at almost zero cost, and implied risk.

Whatever little success I have had is because of my passion for the field, which has given me a sound understanding of behaviour of web consumption. I think consumer behaviour is the key here, which has to driven by great data interpretation skills, which is basically the level of understanding of the medium.

What’s your most challenging project ever (anonmous details)

My most challenging project has been the C2C engine success challenge. This is a case of concurrent profiles, threshold traffic, registered traffic, returning traffic and overall site engagement metrics. Now this is tough t build and tough to break as well, still very tough to build. The returning traffic is a component of current traffic, which makes it a chicken and egg story in C2C domain. This is the toughest part, the “engagement metrics” forecasting is the key, and you can never be precise on this, the engine needs to be fueled on scientific data analysis, industry trends, consumer research and believe it or not, lot of heuristics. And if you go wrong, you can waste millions of dollars for

Continue reading “India and the Internet:SimplyMarry.com”

Keeping them honest

A great example of a central bank using technology is Reserve Bank of India, whose banking ombudsman has an online form which is quite user friendly.

You can see the form here-

https://reservebank.org.in/BO/compltindex.htm

The form, which has very simple drop downs for segmenting, adequate linking to relevant policy for easy checklist of complaint.

So if your bank hid an extra line in the fine print , or deducted an extra emi as additional charges or just plain acted as in violation of Code of Conduct (there are 18 defined clauses), you can use this link to submit a complaint conveniently.

The Great Connector ,Stan Relihan

Note from Ajay-

Stan Relihan is the 40th most connected person list on LinkedIn out of 25 million people.His podcast: http://connections.thepodcastnetwork.com gets more than 12,000 downloads a month and he has leveraged social networking to maximum advantage for building great assets as well as increasing his own business value. Here he shares some insights  on using social networking networks.

1) What’s the latest trend you see in community sites over the next year and next three to five years.

I see more and more emphasis on the need to focus on Business outcomes -not just idle chit-chat or frivolous questions. Social Networking sites will also need to truly embrace the Web 2.0 ethos – where what the users want is ultimately more important that what the site owner / operators think it should be.  This means more responsiveness to requests for new features and more transparency & intercommunication from management with their users. In the end, just like with Search Engines & Operating Systems, many will cease to exist – and only a few dominant players will continue.

Continue reading “The Great Connector ,Stan Relihan”