Success in my Habit

Monday, May 7, 2012

Vadodara based Jyoti Ltd. bags orders for power projects


AHMEDABAD: Vadodara based Rs 384 crore Jyoti Limited announced the receipt of orders worth Rs 100 crore for various power projects.

The orders comprise of Rs 53 crore fro Bhavnagar Energy Corporation of the government of Gujarat. Jyoti will execute electro-mechanical and instrumentation work of sea water intake, and outfall system for 500 mw lignite based thermal power plant. It will also supply main circulating water pump of power plant for this package.

Also, it will supply Rs 38 crore worth of sea water intake and outfall system for Neyvelli Lignite Corporation's 1,000 mw poiwer project at Tuticorin. Jyoti's scope of work includes civil, electromechanical and allied works for the project.

""For both these projects, Jyoti will supply pumps in complex metarllurgy of duplex stainless steel which is ideal for sea water application,"" read company'media statement. Established in 1943, Jyoti Ltd offers products and services in water and power segments in India and in the international market.

Among others, Indiabulls Power ordered Rs 11.50 crore worth of electro-mechanical and instrumentation works for raw water intake system for the its power project at Sinnar.

Murugappa enters race to acquire Mallya’s Mangalore Chemicals and Fertilizers

CHENNAI/MUMBAI: Coromandel International, a part of the diversified southern conglomerate Murugappa, has entered the fray to buy Vijay Mallya-managed Mangalore Chemicals and Fertilizers (MCF).

Mallya's investment holding company United Breweries Holdings owns 30.44% promoter stake in MCF, which has been long considered a non-core asset. UB Holdings , also the parent of the cashstrapped Kingfisher Airlines, has initiated a formal process to identify potential buyers for MCF.

Ambit Corporate Finance is advising UB Group on the divestment plan, the first such move by the beer-to-airline conglomerate to exit a business in more than a decade. Murugappa is among the six-seven potential bidders who have signalled initial interest after information memorandum on MCF was made available last week.

UB will determine the asking price after initial discussions with the bidders. "As a group policy, we would not like to respond to questions that are speculative and hence we are unable to participate ," a Murugappa spokesperson said. UB Group spokesperson denied developments.

The divestment move comes after a clutch of potential buyers approached UB exploring an MCF buyout. TOI earlier reported that Mangalore Refineries & Petrochemicals (MRPL), a unit of ONGC, wrote to Mallya in February this year conveying a potential interest. Zuari Fertilisers and Chemicals and Chambal Fertilisers are among the other interested suitors.

MCF makes both urea and complex fertilisers at its plant in Panambur (Karnataka) which started its operation in 1976. The company incurred a net loss of Rs 5.21 crore for that period

Ramky Infra bags contracts worth Rs 1249 crore

MUMBAI: Ramky Infrastructure said it has bagged orders worth Rs 1,248.95 crore across various business verticals.

The contracts cover various business verticals, including industrial, irrigation, road and power, in Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and West Bengal, a company statement said here.

The company has bagged two orders in Anuranchal Pradesh - one worth Rs 99.42 crore from HSCC for upgradation of General Hospital at Naharlagun and another Rs 92.59 crore for two-laning of road from Yingkiong to Gobuk.

In Bihar, the company has been awarded a Rs 109.38- crore contract from NTPC for civil works package at Barh STPP (super thermal power project) stage 1 (3X660 MW).

Ramky has bagged a Rs 98.6-crore project from Gujarat Water Supply and Sewerage Board for a bulk pipeline scheme for in Dahod, the release said.

In West Bengal, the company has been awarded a project worth Rs 152.69 crore from the Department of Irrigation and Waterways for reconstruction and improvement of embankment in Surdarbans and adjoining areas in the districts of North and South 24-Parganas.

In Madhya Pradesh, Ramky has bagged four contracts involving Rs 425.46 crore. These related to canals, road maintenance and supply of materials for power projects, the release added.

Can CavinKare rediscover growth in FMCG space?

he ticket to CavinKare's stardom was the humble sachet. When its founder Chinni Krishnan Ranganathan started selling shampoo for 50 paise in sachets in 1983, it did create a stir in a market where biggies such as Hindustan Unilever and Procter and Gamble (P&G) had ruled the roost for decades.

With that one innovation, the hitherto non-existent rural market was well within Ranganathan's grasp. As brand consultant Harish Bijoor puts it, "It democratised shampoo usage."

Building on that, by the early years of 2000, Chennai-based CavinKare (named after the classical Tamil word for beauty) and known for its Chik shampoo managed to come across as a doughty challenger to the big guys of the FMCG industry. It had started getting termed "the giant killer". By 2004-05, when CavinKare was about Rs 400 crore in revenue, the momentum was so good that Ranganathan predicted joining the billion-dollar club by 2012.

Billion Never Happened

Eight years later, it is clear the company hasn't lived up to its promise. CavinKare has just managed a fifth of what Ranganathan had predicted: Rs 1,070 crore in revenues. A recent PINC Research study gives details. In skin care, a money spinner for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, CavinKare has just about a 5% market share.

HUL has a whopping 58% of the market while L'Oreal, P&G and Emami have a 13%, 10% and 9% market share, respectively. In the shampoo market, CavinKare may have a better record, with a 11% market share, but still lags the likes of HUL, P&G and Dabur. As Nikhil Vora, managing director of IDFC Securities, puts it, "They have taken a backseat. They are no longer challenging the leader."

What Went Wrong?

You can get the answer by comparing Ranganathan's business interests a decade back and now. Then, he was essentially building a base in the FMCG sector. In fact, in 2002, his talcum powder foray itself was just three years old. Now, his interests go beyond FMCG. In the past 10 years, he has forayed into salons, into food, into beverages, into home care, into snacks, into restaurants and into dairy.

New businesses in themselves aren't bad. But, critics point out, they have come at the cost of the core FMCG business. "They were aggressive in entering new spaces but weren't growing their existing business," says Vora. Ranganthan may have lost the opportunity of scaling up his core business as he had to spend management bandwidth and money on newer interests. And, diversifications such as food and beverages won't work without big marketing spends.

Losing Its Core

One of the key fallouts of the defrayed focus is seen as CavinKare's inability to read the market in certain instances in its core business. Take the example of shampoo. While the market was moving toward anti-dandruff shampoo, it didn't. Today, a fourth of the market is anti-dandruff shampoo.

Also, Vora says, "The market was moving towards premium brands and CavinKare was at the bottom end." Bijoor agrees: "The brand still suffers the mindset of a down-market player."

Also, MNCs, whom CavinKare is competing against, have deep pockets for R&D. So, there's virtually a pipeline of new products and innovations at all times. A smaller player over time needs to match that. For CavinKare, innovations such as sachet may have become far and few. Also, to do it in multiple businesses is a bit too much for a medium-sized player.

'We Will Grow'

Ranganathan does agree to the criticism that his company has spread itself quite thin. "Having taken those steps, we can't reverse it. We will not take any more step in diversification. We will only look at consolidating and growing," he says.

Ranganathan the person is actually quite like Ranganathan the businessman on the point of wide-ranging interests. He is interested in the Tamil language and loves birds (he has 200 different species of birds). What more, he has even modelled for a shirt brand.

In business, however, his wide-ranging interests haven't paid off till now, he admits. "We don't leverage the advantage of one division to another," he says. That's especially true of his food, beverages, snacks and dairy businesses. "If all the products get into the same distribution line, then I can leverage."

Ranganathan gives the example of his foray into dairy four years back. It was a market that was completely different from what he had experienced earlier. That included everything from the highly perishable nature of the product, the cold process distribution, the profile of people who were willing to invest and also the systems and processes to be used. "So I don't leverage anything here," he says.

New Revenue Hopes

Diversifications done, lessons learnt, the CavinKare chief believes growth will follow now. His hope is that his group would double its revenues in two years. Those who have tracked the company believe some positive moves have been taken of late. Raveendra Chittoor, a strategy expert who teaches at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, says the move to go slow on the restaurant business is one such.

Also, Ranganathan also moved his marketing team to Mumbai from Chennai last year. One reason is to effect a pan-India presence, something that CavinKare has struggled with until now. That's a pragmatic move, says ad veteran Suguna Swamy. "This move reflects the realism of the man. If he has to go national, he needs to be located in Mumbai, both for resources and bandwidth of talent," she says.

Ultimately, focus, Chittoor believes, is inevitable. "It should focus on a few product categories in which it has a competitive edge and try and achieve national leadership in those." That's the lesson one can learn from successful companies such as Marico, says Chittoor. That could be key to its future.

ajaj Pulsar crosses 50 lakh sales mark since its launch

NEW DELHI: The country's second largest two-wheeler maker Bajaj Auto today said its Pulsar model motorcycles have crossed 50 lakh units sales mark since its launch over 10 years ago.

"The (Pulsar) brand has crossed the landmark 5 million sales mark, while celebrating a decade of existence. Pulsar is the only brand in the performance segment which has crossed the 5 million mark in India," Bajaj Auto Ltd (BAL) said in a statement.

The company had first introduced the Pulsar motorcycles in November 2001 in two engine capacities -- 180 cc and 150 cc, it added.

The brand today has a portfolio starting from 135 cc light-sports model to 220 cc 'street-fighter' product and enjoys a market share of 44 per cent in the performance segment, BAL claimed.

"Not many brands in the Indian automobile space have crossed the 5 million mark. This holds true even for mass motorcycles. The Pulsar range has received many accolades over the years," BAL President (Motorcycle Business) K Srinivas said.

The company had unveiled the Pulsar 200 NS early this year and it is hopeful of the model doing good in the market, he added.

Bio-diversity museum to be set up in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: With the mega global biodiversity meet in October approaching, the Andhra Pradesh Government has set in motion a series of initiatives, both preparatory and commemorative.

The Government plans to establish a museum on bio-diversity to commemorate the global Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). Similarly, it wants to put up a pylon and develop a bio-diversity park ahead of the Conference of Parties (CoP-11).

The mega event will see about 8,000 delegates from 193 countries take part. About 10 heads of nations, apart from forest ministers of 90-100 countries will deliberate on various issues.

The State Chief Minister, Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy, who reviewed a preparatory meeting, said the bio-diversity park should be established at a suitable location, preferably in Dulapally reserve forest area on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

The objective of these initiatives is to create awareness among the people, especially students and children, about the rich biological heritage and importance of conservation.

SlideShare success an inspiration for Indian developers


Bangalore/New Delhi: The SlideShare engine, which helps users upload presentations online and embed these on blog, websites, intranets and social media, was mostly developed by the company’s Indian developers. The company that was recently acquired by online professional networking company LinkedIn for a handsome $119 million (about Rs 640 crore) has majority of its developers and designers in New Delhi.

The person behind the successful business venture, which she co-founded with her husband Jonathan Boutelle and brother Amit Ranjan, however, is not a techie, going by her academic qualifications. Rashmi Sinha, who was born and educated in Allahabad before going for a PhD at Brown University, studied psychology.

"What Rashmi and Amit have achieved is truly commendable. They'll be an inspiration to many entrepreneurs in India. Our software product ecosystem is becoming strongly by the day," says Sharad Sharma, chairman of Nasscom Product Forum and the former chief executive of Yahoo! India R&D centre.

While Ranjan heads the company’s office in New Delhi, the core technology development work is being taken care of by Kapil Mohan, technical architect who has been working with the company since its inception.

Before SlideShare, Rashmi also co-founded two other ventures including Uzanto, a web consulting company and MindCanvas a gaming product company.

“When I was at Brown University, it felt too isolated, too ivory tower. When I discovered the Web, and how you could build for it and constantly iterate, it seemed a far more exciting prospect than sitting in a lab doing made-up experiments on people,” she had written in one of her blogposts.

In her latest blogpost, while disclosing SlideShare was being acquired by LinkedIn, Rashmi has stated she would continue to lead SlideShare and her team would continue to do what they had been doing.

Smartphone shipments to reach 1.7 billion

New Delhi/ Melbourne: Smartphones will outperform the overall market for mobile phones, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.9% for the period 2011-17 to reach 1.7 billion units, according to Ovum.

Predictions show Android as the dominant operating system over the next five years as handset vendors rush to make it their primary smartphone platform. In its latest forecast, Mobile Phone and Smartphone Forecast: 2012-17, the leading telecoms analyst house reveals global annual mobile phone shipments will grow at a CAGR of 6.3% between 2011 and 2017, driven primarily by demand from emerging markets where connection growth will continue to fuel handset shipments.

Asia-Pacific will be the largest region in volume terms, shipping just over 200 million units by 2016. New shipments in developed markets, such as North America and Western Europe, will be almost entirely made up of smartphones, while feature phones will continue to play a small role in emerging markets in 2017. "Android will dominate the smartphone market over the next five years," said Adam Leach, principal analyst at Ovum. "While Apple has defined the smartphone market since it introduced the iPhone in 2007, we're now seeing a sharp rise in the shipment volumes of Android, signaling its appeal to leading handset manufacturers."

Smartphones based on Android accounted for 44% of the smartphone market in 2011, significantly up from 17% in 2010. However, its share will reach 48% in 2017, as Android-based smartphones are expected to grow at a CAGR of 26.8% over the forecast period. Apple's iOS will be the second most widely deployed software platform in 2017, accounting for 27% of the smartphone market, a slight increase on the 23% share of the market it reported in 2011. Sitting some way behind the Android/iOS duopoly will be the remaining smartphone players.

"Although it will remain behind Android in terms of shipment volumes, Apple will continue to be a key player and innovator in the smartphone market over the forecast period," says Leach. "We expect Microsoft, despite its slow start, to have established Windows Phone as a relevant smartphone platform by 2017." The Windows Phone platform, with the assistance of Nokia, will account for 13% of the smartphone market in 2017. Despite losing significant market share since its high point in 2009, RIM's BlackBerry platform will still represent 10% of the market in 2017.

Kerala Tourism road show in Saudi Arabia

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Tourism is holding its maiden road show in Jeddah, the thriving urban centre of oil-rich Saudi Arabia from Sunday. The three-day event will travel to capital Riyadh and Dammam on Monday and the day after.

The Tourism Minister, Mr A.P. Anil Kumar, will lead the road shows, a Kerala Tourism spokesman announced here. These are being held at a time when the middle-east is emerging as a major market for the world's exotic destinations.

“Saudi Arabia is the biggest market for outbound tourists in the region,” the spokesman quoted the Minister as saying. “We want to invite travellers from Saudi Arabia to Kerala's world renowned tourism destinations,” he added.

High-Spending
Saudi Arabian tourists are the highest spending travellers abroad from the Middle-East. Nearly half of the country's population falls in the higher income bracket.

Saudi Arabians look for holidays in the harsh summer (June to September) in their country when temperatures hover above 50 degree Celsius.

Kerala's monsoon tourism and Ayurveda are already drawing a number of travellers from Saudi Arabia, the spokesman said. Health and wellness holidays are a major segment of outbound travel from Saudi Arabia, a factor Kerala Tourism is keen to leverage in its favour.

Outbound Tourists
The country's proximity to Kerala and good air connectivity are the other factors in favour of God's Own Country.

The Middle-East has recorded more than nine million outbound tourists in 2011 and the figure is likely to touch 35 million by 2020.

Saudi Arabia accounts for 40 per cent of these, he added. Others now joining the list include United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain.

Around 50 local tour operators are expected to participate in the road shows in each of the three Saudi Arabian cities.

Japan's imports from India up 21.5% in last fiscal

Kolkata: Japan's imports from India jumped 21.5 per cent to ¥54 billion in the financial year that ended on March 31. Mr Mitsuo Kawaguchi, Consul General of Japan, said this at an interaction with EEPC India (formerly Engineering Export Promotion Council) members here.

The Indian engineering industry appears poised for better access to the Japanese market and more Japanese companies are willing to set up joint ventures with their Indian counterparts. Mr Kawaguchi said after the signing of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in February last year that there has been a visible change in the two-way trade.

Under the CEPA, Japan eliminated tariffs on 87 per cent of its tariff lines. Over the next decade, it would remove import tariffs in a phased manner on nearly 97 per cent of the tariff lines. Iron, steel, zinc, aluminium and copper items from India can pass through with zero duty into Japan.

Industrial and automotive components form a substantial part of the exports to Japan.

“Japan is looking for outsourcing opportunity in India,” he said. Japanese companies are also keen to set up manufacturing bases in India.