SAAS – What’s In It For Vendors?

SAAS promises zero upfront cost, freedom from maintenance and relief from headaches of updates, and so on. These are all benefits for customers of SAAS. What’s in it for providers of SAAS? Shorter sales cycle is the most obvious benefit. Because buyers don’t need to incur huge licensing costs while signing up for a SAAS … Read more

Aspect Ratio Is Not Rocket Science But So Many Brands Still Get It Wrong

A few years ago, images on websites and banner ads used to suck. Poor resolution, bleeding colors – these were the common problems in images used even by leading brands. That’s mostly history now. Image quality has improved significantly in recent times. I wish I could say the same about image sizes and aspect ratios. … Read more

Reliance JioFi First Impressions

I purchased a Reliance JioFi Portable 4G Pocket WiFi Router two days ago. Here are my first impressions of the product and the onboarding process. #1. Scrappy, But Formless, Onboarding There is no Jio store. All leading telecom companies in India like Airtel, Idea and Vodafone have a retail presence. But not Jio – at least … Read more

3 Ways To Make Events Memorable

Retail industry analyst RSR Research notes in “The Lasting Effects Of Shoptalk” that the new event in Las Vegas differentiates itself from other events by featuring “Full-out breakfast, lunch and dinner” that were accompanied by “impressive spreads of snacks and beverages throughout the day.” And goes on to remark, “These may seem like trivial things, but for someone … Read more

Indian IT Industry Might Produce A Fortune 500 Corporation Next Year

The unthinkable has happened – the entry barrier of the FORTUNE GLOBAL 500 list has actually come down. Yes, the last company in the latest FORTUNE GLOBAL 500 list (published in Fortune magazine dated 1 August 2016) posted a revenue of US$ 20.923 billion compared to US$ 23.720 billion turned in by its counterpart last year. Expressed … Read more

Fintechs Need Guts More Than Lawyers!

In Part 1 titled “Fintechs Need Marketers And Lobbyists – Not Lawyers”, we saw why marketers and lobbyists play a vital role in a fintech startup’s success, and how successful startups in fintech and other heavily regulated industries don’t seem to have consulted lawyers while conceptualizing their offerings. In this second part, we’ll examine the … Read more

Omnichannel Couponing Drives CEM Success – Part 2

In Part-1 of this blog post, I’d described my experience with PayTM’s CEM campaign on Nescafe’s instant coffee bottle. In this part, I’ll describe my experience with the sachet of the same product. If you’re wondering how packing types matter in a CEM campaign, trust me, bottle and sachet pose different challenges and provide different … Read more

Omnichannel Couponing Drives CEM Success – Part 1

Barring a few exceptions like Dollar Shave Club, consumer brands still don’t sell their products directly to people who use them. Instead, they use the traditional multi-tiered distribution channel comprising distributors, wholesalers and retailers. Ergo they don’t know their end consumers. How do brands overcome the “anonymity” challenge, reach out to end consumers and engage … Read more