India - largest global userbase for Facebook

Of 1900 million global social media network Facebook users as of Dec '16, 1800 million are monthly active users ( MAU) and 1200 million are daily active users (DAU) ! 

The largest Facebook userbase is INDIA ..

If you access FB over your mobile, don't be worried because 1100 million DAU are like you !

Mark Zuckerberg maybe  planning to shift base to India as India has the largest FB user base of 196 million compared to 191 million FB users in US and just about 58 million FB users in China .. 

India shows the world that indeed it is the most open, encouraging, liberal and technologically receptive society in the world.  

Though avg revenue per user (ARPU) for the fourth quarter '16, from Asia Pacific at $2 was one tenth ARPU from US and half of global ARPU,  we need to remember that Indians are not that dumb to fall easily to promises. 

They are really streetsmart !!

These questions (to be discussed in AU EMBA classes) will help you to understand FB's future strategy in India.

1. What country specific features does Facebook have to make it a massive success in India ?
2. How is FB planning to introduce itself to its largest userbase ?
3. FB Messenger was among the first Internet based free telephony services in India. Did this have an impact on FB's wide acceptance in India ?
4. Do you think Reliance Jio's free Internet offering in India for its customers from Oct 2016 to June 2017  had any an impact on wide FB usage ?
5. What is the impact of a neat user interface and low download time on the massive success of FB in India ?
6. What is the effect of FB server farms on FB's low download times in India ?
7. How can FB expect to increase its Avg revenue per user ARPU metric in India? can you suggest some strategies ?
8.  Do you foresee Govt of India using FB to reach to the masses ?

George ..

Indian rockets launching Indian and foreign satellites..

How India is getting ready to give leadership to the satellite launch industry of the world.

Here are some interesting facts on the number of satellites launched by the different nations of the world.

Of the total 2271 satellites in space orbiting earth (data as of February 2017), 1324 satellites belong to Russia (58%), while United States has 658 satellites (29%) orbiting the earth. (info courtesy Goddard Space Flight Centre, US)

India has 39 satellites, solely serving India and has launched using it's rockets 79 satellites for foreign countries orbiting the earth. Of the 39 Indian satellites, 17 are for earth observation and meteorological applications, 13 for communication purposes, 7 for navigational purpose and 2 of space vehicle type. (incl the Astrosat space telescope).

Of the 79 foreign satellites India has launched so far, 19 are for United States (24%), 11 for Canada (14%) and 10 for Germany (13%) and the rest for nations like Singapore(8, 10%), UK (7, 9%), Japan (3 nos.), Indonesia (3 nos.), Israel (1 no.), France (2 nos.), Netherlands (1 no.) , Algeria (3 nos.), Denmark (1 no.), Switzerland (1 no.), Luxembourg (1 no.), Turkey ( 2 nos.)  etc... 

By the middle of February 2017 when India would have put a record 104 satellites to orbit (88 for US), it would be a total of 107 satellites launched for US (58%) of the 180 foreign satellites launched by India. India by then would have launched 42 satellites for its own use into space.

Early March '17, India will put the GSLV Mk III into space with a 4 T payload ..

From a growing space power that launched weather balloons and satellites under the leadership of then PM, Pandit Nehru and Dr. Vikram Sarabhai from Thumba Trivandrum in 1962 by name INCOSPAR to ISRO in 1969, the first Indian satellite Aryabhatta was launched aboard the Soviet Kosmos 3M rocket from Kapustin Yar on April 19, 1975. 

In 55 years India has matured to become a global space power, providing commercial launch services of satellites for other countries of the world, of which the biggest beneficiary is the United States. With improvement in technology and miniaturisation of electronic components, satellites are getting smaller and smaller these days. Micro and nano satellites are the order of the day.

Since United States has been unable to contain its upward spiralling space mission costs, India proving to be a very reliable and less expensive space power has been able to establish itself as the new space power. US has realised over time that it cannot offer any credible competition to India in the commercial launch market in the near future.

The day is not far when India will not only be the leader of low earth orbit missions launching satellites, it will also be the top leader of the world in providing reliable and less expensive manned Mars and other inter planetary expeditions and even inter galactic missions for the development and growth of humanity.  

The Hindu newspaper report of the mid Feb '17 launch of 103/104 satellites aboard PSLV rocket. http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/How-ISRO-plans-to-launch-103-satellites-on-a-single-rocket/article17075073.ece

george.. (Information courtesy Goddard Space Flight Centre US and Wikipedia.com)

Is Amazon going in the right direction ?

The best way to predict the future is to create it - Abraham Lincoln.

Amazon is building assets in the transportation and logistics area with the new transportation hub which will serve its new transport planes in central US Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International airport in the American Northern midwest.

In spite of having Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) less than 50% of Alibaba and knowing fully well that Alibaba is able to gallop way ahead, even though both of them started their e-commerce experiment way back around the same time in 1996.

The most important thing to understand here is that Amazon is not afraid to experiment with new business models which would make it asset heavy but at the same time make it more responsive and agile. Amazon wants to create the future which it wants to control.

The revolutionary changes happening in the logistics and transportation scene of major e-commerce players is bound to give lot of meat for discussions in the classrooms.

Amazon wants to be able to control its transportation network by having its own transportation hub costing a whopping $1.5 billion .. Click here for the link.

george..

Amazon vs. Alibaba, Why is Alibaba GMV equal to 5x Amazon ?

Can Amazon ever be a capable and credible competitor to Alibaba ? Amazon with a GMV of app $ 255 billion is less than half of Aliababa's GMV of $ 550 billion. Jack Ma needs to be complimented as one of the greatest from the e-commerce world as from a virtual non-entity, spearheaded by Amazon, e-commerce has now grown to be a great business across the world wsorth billions of dollars.s

Jack Ma Founder of Alibaba, courtesy Reuters .

Even though Jeff Bezoz of Amazon brought the concept of e-commerce really to the forefront, resulting in many startups opening and thriving, increasing the wealth of the world, because of limited opportunities and a matured market in the western hemisphere Bezoz could not make much headway.

Getting to know of the power and potential of Internet, a 30 year old school teacher from Hangzhou, China changed the future of electronic commerce forever .. Now at 52 years Jack Ma, after 21 years of starting Alibaba in 1996 is the greatest entrepreneur the world has ever seen. The company he founded against all odds of Communist one party rule and a stifling leadership, now annually generates more than half a trillion dollars of gross merchandise value.

The major reasons for his success, in spite of the relatively closed business environment within China after the cultural revolution from 1949 to 1976 and the subsequent opening up of Chinese economy since 1979, has been his dogged belief in the potential of electronic commerce to change the future of commerce around the world. With great courage and foresight, Jack Ma transformed the closed-door business environment within China constrained by regulations, control, corruption and nepotism, to one of competition, fair playing ground and vast global reach, powered simultaneously by a national push to improve the transportation infrastructure around the country.

Nasdaq data ..

By helping startups to exploit the internet, he gave employment opportunities for the people and growth prospects for businesses willing to trade with the outside world through Alibaba.  More than his or his company's personal growth, Jack concentratred on empowering and legitimizing small vendors to do business with customers from around the world and benefit in the long run.

Click on this very recent youtube video from Alibaba Jack Ma's talk at the World Economic Forum in Davos, SWITZERLAND in January 2017  where he speaks of how Alibaba overtook Amazon even though Amazon and Alibaba started their journey in 1994 itself. (watch from 13:40 min)

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) is a measure of a company's operating performance. Essentially, it's a way to evaluate a company's performance without having to factor in financing decisions, accounting decisions or tax environments.

Gross merchandise value is the total value of merchandise sold over a given period of time through a customer to customer exchange site. It is a measure of the growth of the business, or use of the site to sell merchandise owned by others.

     (credit for definition : www.investopedia.com)

Amazon has an asset heavy model where it maintains its own assets, warehouses and distribution setup.

Alibaba on the other hand, believes in having as asset light model, it does not have much of assets and facilities, it enables a business ecosystem, empowering others to do big business. The stocks are majorly kept by their partners, not Alibaba. We could even postulate this asset light model of Alibaba to be the Just-In-Time business model of the trading and commerce world.

Alibaba is to e-commerce what Toyota is to Manufacturing ..

Click here for the Nasdaq  link ..

In the GMV/EBITDA ratio we find Alibaba is 2.5 times Amazon while in the GMV/Revenue ratio Alibaba is almost 14 times Amazon. The business earnings of Amazon is greater than Alibaba as Alibaba believes in creating a business ecosystem where all the partners get to share in the benefits from the better business environment (socialistic style) while Amazon wants to control the whole business and does not believe in sharing the benefits of improved business with its partners (truly capitalistic style) ..

In the final run, it is the business ecosystem that will survive and thrive and not the business entity, as the results show after both Amazon and Alibaba are in business for 22 years each. This should be a great learning for the rest of the business entities around the world. Try to create a business ecosystem where everyone gets to thrive depending on individual efforts ..

Jack Ma is not the greatest retailer, like Sam Walton or Jeff Bezoz, Alibaba will always remain a retail platform. Jack Ma thus is empowering millions of entrepreneurs from China to succeed globally. Click here to listen to this youtube video on the philosophy of Alibaba .. It also gives an idea of what should the companies in the rest of Asia, America and Africa do to launch counter offensive to Alibaba in these countries focusing on strategy, structure and implementation with omnichannel distribution, in other words how to counter the Alibaba effect .....

george ..

Migrants vs. migrants, the curious case of immigration ban in US

Will this xenophobe make a mess of United States ?

It is not known whether it is total and wholesome ignorance of historical events or someone playing pure mischief, the immigration ban in US makes interesting reading.

In the very young land of migrants, with historical record of violence, murder, savagery, barbarity, inhumanity and finally unlawful annexation of the land of the original owners and inhabitants of North America, the earlier migrants and their progeny have declared war on the later migrants ..

So was Apple Steve Job's father and
Google's Sergei Brin

It will be interesting and fascinating to see how these senseless bunch of migrants fight and finish off their other co-migrants ! Who cares for the original and true owner of the land, the indigenous American ?

Earlier migrants vs later migrants ! ☹☹

Trump should remember that starting from George Washington everybody has been once an immigrant or a descendent of an immigrant. Were it not for liberal US immigration policy, at the expense of the indigenous owner of the land, US and the world would not have had its biggest technology giants Apple and Google. Steve Jobs of Apple was the son of Syrian Muslim immigrant and Sergei Brin of Google was a Russian immigrant. 

If Trump succeeds in dividing American society on the basis of hatred against fellow Americans, it will be a great disservice to American society and that day will be a black spot in American history. Each American will fight the other and see the final end of this nascent and world's youngest culture.

George ..

Thattukada, the innovative roadside fastfood eatery, at Calicut - a case study

This evening in Calicut, Kerala, India  when I came out of my hotel for a very light dinner of fruits, never did I ever think that it would be such a sumptuous and tasty dinner of hot dosas (or steaming fermented rice flour cake cooked, heated on pan, 3 nos.), sambhar, chutney and a single omelette, all for just Rs. 30/-. (45 cents) at this thattukada, the healthy, hot serving, low cost fast food setup, reliving experience of my younger college days in KDpuram, TVM. 

I was very keen on reliving that experience !

Click here for the video ..

Prepared with modern gadgets like LPG gas stove, automobile battery powered LED lights (2 nos) for lighting, hygienic neat plates lined inside with butter paper, neat washing place with piped water and hot water to gulp the food down, the setup near Vasan eye care hospital near Thali temple Calicut was a good quality service setup. It was run by a front office manager, waiter, cashier, cleaner and public relations expert (all-in-one) of 30 years and his back office manager, chief (and only) cook, tasting expert, employee and friend of 30 years (2 employees in total)..

 The cooking setup which was on a trailer-mode four tyred steel bodied structure  had an open top, which was the mobile and open kitchen. All vessels were properly covered. The customers who on being convinced of the quality and hygiene of the service setup, placed the order to the manager-cum-waiter. The menu card was not available nor on display. 

The customers were served standing, had to finish the eating standing, pay up and could socialise with the 2 employees and be around for not more than 5 minutes. At the time I was being served, two other customers were also in service with very low waiting time. There was no queueing at this fast food setup.

The dosa batter, chutney and sambhar was prepared at the residence by these employees during daytime. The eatery or thattukada is open from 8-12 mignight daily at the same place. Since the setup was mobile, infrastructure expenses and rent were nil, keeping expenses at rock-bottom low levels. This helped to serve customers at very low costs and highly hygienic levels. 

The entire mobile  setup is packed and towed away manually to a nearby compound for the rest of the day till 8 pm. Some of these enterprising people also work as vegetable and fruit vendors during day time.

A good example of low cost innovation and value for money with high customer satisfaction ..

george..

Prof. Clayton Christensen on Disruptive Innovation ..

Continuing his research on disruptive innovation..

Prof Clayton Christensen from Harvard Business School talking about how steel mills disrupted the business of integrated steel mills across the world, how Toyota disrupted the automobile market in US, a good example. How Personal computer disrupted the world wide computing market and made a big difference to the world ..

Listen to the talk as part of the Clarendon lectures at Said Business School, Oxford Uty 10 June 2013. 

What Prof. Clayton did not mention was how Indian space research is disrupting the established space research organisations of the world. When Russia and US were busy planning to fly to moon and fly space shuttles, India entered the market at the lower end with weather sounding balloons, weather sounding rockets etc. 

India is disrupting the space technology and research process by slowly going up the ladder and now is a challenger to NASA, with its own space shuttle protoypes, space telescopes, navigational satellites and satellites launching capabilities of different tonnage payload  for the rest of the world at the cheapest rates in the world, not forgetting the ailing Russian, ESA and Chinese space missions. In the beginning of Feb 2017, India will be launching 80 satellites for NASA at costs less than 50 % of what others would charge for such launches, cheaper than the private player Space X from Elon Musk. 

India cannot be complacent with its successes in space technology, but should try to offer high value missions to its customers from around the world in other fields too.

Disruptive innovation is the watchword which India and china needs to look around fo rand keep disrupting.  Innovation is the firm and sure way both these countries can dominate the world.

george ..