It’s been barely three weeks since <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=taxi+aggregator">taxi-aggregator</a> <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=ola+cabs">Ola</a> launched its newest ride-hailing service <keyword id="3291107" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ola-Micro">Ola Micro</keyword> and the company is already beginning to reap the results of the category. 
 According to Anand Subramanian, <keyword id="6354720" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ola">Ola</keyword>’s Senor Director, Marketing and Communications, what Ola as a platform managed to achieve in a span of three years, Ola Micro accomplished the same results in just three weeks. 
 “In three weeks, we have put up a category (Ola Micro) which is already 50 per cent of all of <keyword id="1042120" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Uber">Uber</keyword>'s daily bookings in the country. The rate at which Micro is growing, it will be larger than their entire brand within a month," claimed Raghuvesh Sarup, Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Categories at Ola. 
 
At Rs 6 per km and a minimum fare of Rs 50, Ola Micro is the company’s cheapest offering. Available in seven cities as of the moment (Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Pune), Ola Micro has been garnering significant traction with the company seeing thousands of bookings every day. On offer are rides in cars like Datsun's GO, Suzuki's WagonR and Hyundai's EON when anyone rides with Ola Micro. 
 
Subramanian added that Ola Micro has been primarily introduced for the ‘short distance commute’ sector- thus giving customers an economical solution. He further said that the Micro will be sort of an ‘onboarding platform’ for new users. 
 
“Our data shows that about two-thirds of the people who tried Ola Micro were new users, so that’s an encouraging development,” claims Subramanian, adding that it will be the first AC cab ride at such a jaw-dropping price for a lot of people. 
 
The launch of Ola Micro was a result of the company learning the Indian market, trying to understand the needs of their users and finally executing the idea. 
 
“We understand that India is a group of micro markets, each of which come with different needs. As a brand, it’s important for us to not only fulfil those needs, but also to ensure that every market is taken care of,” Subramanian further adds. 
 Citing the example of <keyword id="2517392" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ola-Prime">Ola Prime</keyword>, the company’s luxury offering with wifi, he says that the Prime was intended to target individuals heading for meetings or official work and he attributed the company’s meticulous understanding of the needs which led to Ola Prime being a runaway hit, so much so that they’ve had to add an extra 20,000 sedans in the last couple of weeks itself to meet soaring demands. 
 
“Our competitions has also tried different permutations and combinations around wifi-enabled cars, but have failed to achieve any success.” 
 
Broaching the topic of competition, when asked to comment on Uber’s claim of being larger than Ola in a month, Subramanian was quick to respond, “Keeping loose claims aside, it’s a known fact that Ola has the majority of the market share- at around 75% as compared to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=uber">Uber</a>.” 
 
Image credit: Indiatimes

Micro
alone will surpass Uber’s India business within a month, says Ola

What does it take for a brand to make it right through the consumers’ heart? Echoing the needs of the consumers that can be served by the product, putting the message across in a creative way to make its own identity and sometimes, taking a slice out of the daily dramatic soaps. Indians love drama but they are also happy with dal chawal. Indians are always on the verge of mixing trend and tradition in its own way which makes marketers emphasise on the emotional quotient of the people.
	 Last year we saw the father figure from Barjatya movies and a common face in television serials, <keyword id="11647" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Alok-Nath">Alok Nath</keyword> aka ‘<keyword id="314387" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Babuji">Babuji</keyword>’ rising in the ‘most trending’ charts. First on Twitter and later jokes and memes flooded the Facebook. What caught the attention of the people was the fun take on the ubiquitous nature of the characters portrayed by actor Alok Nath in many movies and daily soaps. Now, interestingly, we find Alok Nath featuring in television commercials of some big <keyword id="31174" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="brands">brands</keyword> (for example Snapdeal’s Diwali ad and more recently <keyword id="46283" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Nissan">Nissan</keyword> GO+ ad). Wondering what could have driven the brands to play around with a popular trend for TVCs, we face an array of questions. 
	
		The Father-figure Phenomenon 
	 
	
		Apparently ‘Babuji’ is a normal character popularly found in almost every Indian family and there is nothing new about it. The jokes on him are fine, even Alok Nath himself is sporty enough to accept them. But this is a trend that is set to go out of trend after a while. There is no futuristic approach to these TVCs or that have they come up with some real great creatives that takes the entire ‘Babuji’ hoolah to the next level.
	 
	
		Then what is the purpose of these TVCs? Should we say that the brands in order to cope up with the social media highs and lows are ready to invest good amount of money on a temporary thing that might wither away in a while? Or should we say the brands are taking trends more seriously rather than originality and creative output? If we take a look at some of the other trends that the brands have followed recently like, Kapil Sharma from Indian Comedy Circus, the big selfie trend, is it sending across a message that the advertisers are waiting for something to happen, rather than making something happen? We dig in deeper to try and find out whether this approach of advertising a trend was a hit or miss.
	 
	
		The Snapdeal Diwali ad had set a record featuring 28 popular faces from television in 50 commercials. No matter, how path-breaking approach it was, there is no denying that it was more of a gimmick than actually establishing a unique tone of the brand. This is because Snapdeal has always been starting from its inception in the limelight for attractive offers to lure the audience.
	 
	
		Unlike Flipkart or Amazon who have been consistent in creating an identification of the brand, Snapdeal has been creating aggressive campaigns of Sale ads and not any creative route to set the brand tonality. Now, among all those stars Alok Nath was a face who we all identified with, but suddenly in trend taking cues from his quintessential dialogues. The question is how much this move is going to affect a consumer?
	 
	
		The twitter trend where ‘Babuji’ found popularity is still restricted to a certain section of the consumers. Trends on Facebook, twitter are mostly limited to the social zone only with sharing, liking or commenting and then after few months moving on to something new. Is it possible for a customer who is not at all influenced by the social trends to be convinced enough to buy a product watching that commercial only? The huge discounts will interest him/her lot more than Alok Nath who is just a moment on social media.
	 
	
		Coming to Datsun Nissan Go+ TVC, the MPV car is all set to hit the right notes with variant features, quality and at a most desirable price. Apart from some loopholes like not having airbags and ABS the car is banking upon its feature of more space, an essential thing that most Indian families love to afford.
	 
	
		So, with the target audience being middle class and upper middle class, why has this brand brought in faces like Ayushman Khurana and Alok Nath is a debatable issue. The dialogue between the two actors emphasize on the USP factor of the car that is the extra space. Here we get a middle-class approach when Alok Nath is saying, we can adjust and then the catching up with the trend comes in where Ayushman reassures things are different in new Nissan Go+.
	 
	
		The ad gets aired while the trend of Alok Nath has almost died, and Ayushman (definitely a known face) is not significantly in news. Period. So, while the creative execution remains nothing impactful does it connect the brand properly? The message is sent across, but there is no way the brand can be recalled.
	 As far as the car television commercials in India are concerned, it is a very obvious thing to talk about a family with grandparents with their grandchildren, but the executions previously have been lot better. Don’t we all still remember Innova car ads? The Innova ads were more successful mostly because actor <keyword id="6355923" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Aamir-Khan">Aamir Khan</keyword> had introduced the car in so many ways throughout the campaign. 
	
		Capitalizing on a Social Trend?
	 
	
		When Nissan was on the way of introducing a brand new car in the market would not it have been more feasible if they had started with a fresh campaign and not by taking help of an ongoing trend that hardly bothers people anymore?
	 
	
		In both the cases, did we find that Alok Nath is trending back again on Twitter as a result of his appearance in the TVCs? Did the ‘babuji’ factor contribute to the brand in a different way or were the brands accommodating their messages to fix in the man of the moment on social media?
	
		Manish Porwal, MD, Alchemist Marketing &amp; Talent Solutions, gives us an interesting insight on why some brands are going by the trend.
	 
	
		“Advertising is all about trends or creating trends. What is important for the country at that moment is crucial for advertising. These ads will run few times and then it will move on. This is not a strategic move but going with the trend”, explains Porwal.
	 
	
		He continues, “These characters are already established. Advertising are lot more expensive now, if they want to create such a character it might take a few years. So, at a lesser cost these characters can be used to send across a message. Thirdly and quite importantly, these characters will not overpower the brand. Today if they want to use the top-notch celebrities, they often become the news themselves instead of the brand.”
	 
	
		On the other hand, brand endorsing expert Harish Bijoor is of the opinion, “Brands love to capitalize on the minds of the consumers. Not just today but using the ongoing trend has been a practice since the popular Hindi movie villains like Pran or Amrish Puri as Mogambo. The advertisers always eye the comic sphere of the mind. And as far as the longevity of the ad is concerned, it depends on how the concepts are implemented. It is surely not a strategic move, but a brand tactic.”
	 Advertisements are indeed all about convincing people to spend some money on what makes them happy. In an attempt to reemphasize on the emotional quotient of consumers, advertisers often take help of moments like festivals, special occasions, <keyword id="143" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Bollywood">Bollywood</keyword> and Cricket that engage people. But while in doing so if such a large amount of money is being spent, some creative aspects or something that has long-term significance can be aimed at. Flipkart had set an example of saying the same thing, but in such a quirky manner in the campaigns featuring kids. Fascination for cars to Indians means a lot more than apparent. Why not treat them with more care? And as far as using the ongoing trends are concerned, ‘Babuji’ is a character who we all knew but for a while enjoyed the funny side of it. If there is any necessity of connecting him with any brand, why not re-establish the character targeting another crucial sphere of audience i.e. the senior citizens and hold onto him for a little longer? Trends are something that will come and go, but advertisements are meant to be impactful, resonating and something that remains with us for a long time. 
	
		(Image: BCCL)
	 
	
		About the author: This article has been written by Somrweeta Mukherjee

Why Twitter’s Babuji Is A Darling Of Brands Today?

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:540px"><div class="image"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boeing_737-529_VP-BHA_SkyExpress%28Russia%29.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></div></div>Global companies struggle with decisions on how much to outsource. Too little means an organization may lose the pricing advantages that can come with using competitive providers worldwide. Too much—or the wrong kind of outsourcing—and quality and knowledge management can suffer.
A panel at a recent Wharton Global Forum in Tokyo titled, "Global Supply Chain Management: <keyword id="6363915" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Outsourcing">Outsourcing</keyword>, Re-shoring, and Near-Shoring," looked at the reshaping of the global supply chain, and how companies choose where and whom to source from in a fast-changing environment. During the discussion, led by Wharton professor of operations and information management <a href="https://opimweb.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/27/">Morris A. Cohen</a>, the panelists suggested that the cheapest solution is not always the best, and that the architecture of supply chains can vary widely depending on the industry and products involved.
<keyword id="6357957" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Boeing">Boeing</keyword>'s supply chain evolves from extensive research into customers and the environments in which they operate, said Beth Anderson, a Boeing vice president. "We go through the entire cycle of designing the airplane and designing the production system, and understanding who our customers are going to be and how we're going to support [the aircraft] once it goes into service."
Boeing's main customer base has evolved since 20 years ago, when 75% of the company's production took place in the United States and Europe, with the rest happening elsewhere. Now, just 25% of Boeing's backlog is in its traditional markets in the U.S. and Europe, with 75% in fast-growing economies like China and India. Thus, Boeing's vast supply chain is evolving to fit its changing market and advancing technologies.
Last year, the manufacturer sourced 783 million parts used to build 600 aircraft. By 2014, it will be bringing in more than one billion parts from a total of 7,500 suppliers to build 700 planes. "It's a vast supply chain and very complex," Anderson said of the 500,000 people in 73 countries engaged in helping to build Boeing products. "It [takes] really well choreographed logistics ... to bring those airplanes together." She noted that even a seemingly simple window shade is sourced from seven suppliers.
Like most manufacturers, Boeing is contending with immense competition, and that means its choice of suppliers has to enhance its competitive advantage. Ultimately, "it all comes down to safety," Anderson said. Each of Boeing's 7,500 suppliers is held to the same standards the company requires of itself. Optimizing its supply chain and other qualities such as fuel efficiency and aerodynamics enabled Boeing to gain 35% in efficiency between 1975 and 1995, but airlines are demanding still more improvements. "Our world has changed dramatically," Anderson noted. "To be competitive, we are working with our supply chain. We're looking at whom we work with, [and] how we change the engineering, the architecture."
Boeing's manufacturing processes have been in the spotlight lately because of the company's high-tech 787 Dreamliner, which suffered from delays, cost overruns and, after its launch, high-profile battery problems. Last week, an empty 787 Dreamliner caught fire while parked at London's Heathrow Airport. Boeing, along with Great Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Honeywell, maker of the emergency device located in the area where the fire appeared to be burning, is investigating the possible causes of the incident.
Ultimately, Boeing seeks to minimize risk and maximize the value of its supply chain by gauging the capability, capacity, collaboration, cash and commitment of its suppliers. It also has to work with aspiring partners in emerging markets such as China, despite potential risks from technology transfers. "It's a balancing act. We don't want to say, 'No, we're not going to share,' because we would be shutting ourselves out of the market. But we have to decide when we have to say no," Anderson noted.
Where, and How Many?
Japanese aircraft maker and defense contractor Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, whose company has worked closely with Boeing on the 787 and other planes, is also balancing its domestic manufacturing base with the need to expand into global markets, said Shigefumi Tatsumi, the company's vice president and general manager for commercial aircraft. The company makes at most 50 of its best-selling aircraft in a month, with lead times that are often over a year. "We have a very flat supply chain, which is not good for the current business environment," noted Tatsumi. Key considerations are location and quality assurance.
Nissan Motors faces similar challenges, according to Vincent Cobee, corporate vice president in the automaker's Global Datsun Business Unit. Nissan's supply chain, like Boeing's, has been transformed by globalization and the emergence of newly affluent markets outside of North America, Europe and Japan. The shift of production to offshore markets to help defuse trade friction ended the traditional reliance of Japanese automakers on marketing through the big Japanese trading houses. That transition was followed by a shift toward localization across many markets.
While Nissan maintains full control over development of its vehicles, it has had to localize supply chains to reduce costs and reach its key markets. The automaker uses several different business models. The premium brand, Infiniti, is competitive with German luxury cars and developed and made in Japan. The global Nissan product is developed in Japan but localized for various markets. Finally, there is Datsun, which Cobee calls a global-local product, developed and sourced locally with Japanese expertise.
For high-tech products, supply chain logistics can be even more daunting, said Kenji Mizuno, a senior vice president in electronics maker Fujitsu's supply chain management unit. Unlike aircraft and cars, Fujitsu's products are often invisible to consumers, but there are similar pressures to ensure that goods are delivered quickly enough to meet customers' requirements. Fujitsu counts among its clients nearly half of all Fortune 500 global companies and it is the world's third-largest IT service provider, with 173,000 employees and 4.4 trillion yen in annual sales.
Rather than thousands of suppliers, Fujitsu relies on only a handful for each of the many components used in its X86 servers, which Mizuno cited as an example. It buys CPUs from Intel and AMD, and hard disc drives from Seagate and Toshiba. The realities of the supply chain, and high expectations of Fujitsu's customers, mean that Fujitsu has to source parts from suppliers that have moved offshore to China and elsewhere in Asia, and keep costs low, while providing high quality and high reliability and managing grueling time limitations.
Despite the small number of suppliers, Fujitsu must provide servers tailored to meet up to 20,000 configurations, Mizuno said. Fujitsu's solution to the dilemma of scattered suppliers and short delivery times of five or six days is to buy parts from China or from members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), ship them by sea freight and have them ready for final assembly close to its customers' locations in Japan, Europe and China. "We assemble the products, put them through long tests and deliver. This is the only scenario that allows us to make money and meet all the other requirements," Mizuno noted.
To manage its myriad supply chains, Fujitsu has opted for a "virtual global SCM" (supply chain management system) to decide who will make and deliver products. "We are doing this every day. We look at the customer orders, factory lines and parts supplies. This is the only way we can do it," Mizuno said. Tokyo Electron, which makes the chip sets used in Sony Play Stations and other devices, faces similar requirements for high reliability and quality but has a less open approach to its own supply chain, noted Akihisa Sekiguchi, the company's vice president and general manager for corporate marketing. Tokyo Electron produces mainly for export, though only eight customers account for almost all its business.
No Single Solution
Although it is not that well-known to consumers, Tokyo Electron once was number one in the integrated circuit industry, back when Japan was the leading manufacturer of semiconductors. Now, it is at the top in Japan and number three in the world, with 12,000 employees and $5 billion to $7 billion in annual sales. The firm's manufacturing is all done in Japan, though it ships 90% of its products overseas. "Our R&amp;D is global, but sourcing is domestic," Sekiguchi said. Keeping production onshore works for Tokyo Electron because the components needed to make its tools are made in Japan, and the country's infrastructure can support its manufacturing.
Apart from trials related to years of "endaka," or the high-valued yen, Tokyo Electron's biggest challenge came with the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which forced its factory in Fukushima to close for about two months. The company's workers pulled together to get production back up as soon as possible, though "it takes time to track down 4,000 or 5,000 suppliers," Sekiguchi noted. Calamities like the March 2011 disasters drove home the need to mitigate risk through multi-sourcing. But it does involve costs. "It's not an easy solution," Sekiguchi said. "IP protection is an issue. Geographic location is an issue."
Ultimately, there is no single solution that works in all cases. The question of IP protection is vital to supply chain management, Cohen noted during the panel discussion. But for companies like Boeing, the extremely high degree of regulation typically helps to prevent bogus parts from getting into the industry. "Mostly the regulators do the policing. We just ensure that all the parts have the right documentation," Anderson said.
Automakers like Nissan face much greater risks, given the prevalence of independent auto service companies in many markets. "It's very difficult to guarantee the source of the parts. Our badge is on the car no matter where the parts come from," Cobee noted. "I recommend not using an unauthorized dealer in China."
Partly out of those concerns, some consumers are choosy about the origin of the products they buy. But for IT companies like Fujitsu, although components are made in various places, from Costa Rica to Israel, "we can boast that our products are made only in Japan," said Mizuno. "The real issue is reliability and capability. We do very special tests, and sometimes many components fail. But when we deliver the finished computers, they are very high quality. That's our expertise. They are made and assembled in Japan with our technology."
Tokyo Electron, likewise, uses components from overseas but puts its products through extensive testing before they are shipped. "If components fail, they are dropped," Sekiguchi said of the tests, which extend to the "molecular level. In the semiconductor industry, we buy the product, not the location or the source."
Stretching to reach global markets involves risks, as Boeing's experience with the 787 attests. Yet, outsourcing is something Boeing will continue to do, even if the company found that it went a bit too far with the Dreamliner.
"We had an expectation that our suppliers could do the same things that we do every day. We learned that stuffing an airplane full of parts, [something that] we take for granted, is ... challenging," Anderson noted. "We'll take our expertise and start getting the next new airplane on the books. We're taking advantage of the expertise around the world. We can't believe we're the only ones who can do it." According to Tatsumi of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, working with Boeing is an elaborate process involving hundreds of engineers and a collaboration that has to evolve as the products and market environment change.
Companies must realize that once they have opened the door to collaboration or outsourcing, though, it can never be closed, noted Nissan's Cobee. Given the huge risks of failure for products like automobiles and many other products, "you have to think about not only the benefit for tomorrow but also about whether you can sustain it." To keep a competitive edge requires constant innovation. "You have to innovate more than the others. Yes, we have the daily job of protecting IP. It doesn't take a genius to dismantle a car and reverse engineer it," Cobee said. "The only way is innovation."This story was originally published by <a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/" target="_blank">Knowledge@Wharton</a>.

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