Nilesh Rathod's Blog, page 2

Poetry: Khakh hain hum

The best place to retire in India

Rashtrapati BhawanEvery five years, we have a circus played out for appointing someone as the president of India. A president who will live in the largest palace of the world to preside over nothing! Most of his time would be spent on touring places, providing lip service and cutting ribbons. Any assurance or promise he will ever offer will simply be a request to the elected government. Even the speeches he gives in the parliament or his addresses to the nation are not his own, they are written by the elected government. He just reads them! I do not intend to demean the office (or any of its honorable inhabitants) since it exists, but I really question this insistent waste of tax payers money to serve something largely useless.  Whats the history here? King George VI, the king of British India, was represented by his Governor General to govern India. There were constituent assemblies much like our current day parliament then too. But their purpose was to serve British interests and not Indian interests. Anyways, India got its independance on 15th August 1947 and under the leadership of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the constitution of India was re-drafted.Largely adopted and adapted from the British administrative system. That administrative system had a King whereas we fought over 200 years to get rid of one! Well! So we cannot have a King, but can certainly have his constitution. Now instead of cleaning up the whole muck and re-drafting the constitution, we simply replace the King as an administrative head of the government to what we now know as the President! While the king was tyrannical  but the president (post) is useless. I won't go into a full budget of such a position, but I am told the telephone bill of his palace alone is 60 lacs a year.In reality all powers vested with the President are only customary. There are no real powers. He can veto a few laws for a while and pocket-veto (remain undecided and hold decisions) a few more, but can change nothing permanently. Whatever he accepts including ordinances require to be duly passed and accepted by the elected representatives of the people in specific time lines. And by the way he can propose nothing, it must come to him for consideration from the Government of the day!Carrying over the then unlimited Veto powers of the British Monarchy under a alternate term of "President" and without any such powers was a thoughtless proposition. Was it done so as to quickly get a constitution in place without having to tamper with the tenants of British Administrative law or worst still think about newer or better ones? I don't know really.This also gets me to the subject of Raya Sabha and its members. Why do we need a bicameral assembly? Why cannot the democratically elected Lok Sabha  make the laws instead of a full additional layer of members in the Rajya Sabha who add nothing but delayed implementation of much needed laws. And lets not to forget while we already have a president to pay for, now we also need a vice president to preside over the Rajya Sabha!Should I even talk about the Governors for each of the state and their palaces and entourage and the costs thereof? My opinions are strong, but show me some sense in this. To me this is the best retirement home one can have. Look at the list of its residents, and tell me if anyone did anything else after that. And while this has nothing to do with any of the residents in person, for some of the most respected sons of India held that office in the past and continue to hold it. It is merely talking about governance as a means to an end. 

The ethos of brick and mortar retail

When any brick and mortar retailer looks at the World Wide Web and e-commerce, the biggest mistake one can make is think of it as competition. It is true that online retail and e-commerce are here to stay and will grow at phenomenal rates in the future. It is equally true that brick-and-mortar retail models cannot be history and have very important roles to play in building brands.

Online cannot replace Brick and mortar stores. It is also true that traditional retail formats will be dead and faster than we can time the last nail to that coffin. Retailers must not look at their online counterparts as competitors but as important complimenting tools their sales models. Social media, websites, online marketplaces and blogs can only complement the identity; it can never be the identity. Not embracing this reality, and wholeheartedly, will make your brand history in no time.

Each brand must build an identity for the market place. These identities are more like a wish list of what you hope your brand should stand for. From the brand’s view these are values the brand wants itself to be identified among its customers and stakeholders. The reality is that unless the core values of the brand bears the same identity, the perceived identities will be very different from what the brand hopes to be identified as. And unlike what some feel, this dichotomy cannot be addressed by publicity or marketing alone, or lets say cannot be sustained by those tools. They must be real.

Assuming that it is not the case and there is no mismatch between the two, it still needs to be hammered into your customers mind and this must be done by experiences rather than mere rhetoric utterances in various communications. This gap between the perceived and real identity can be addressed at your store. Remember this is the only place your customer can have human interaction with your brand.

Retailers need to look beyond thinking of stores as a merchandise display house or transaction centers; they must be converted into experience centers. A place where the customer can breathe and experience the essence of the brand and inhale the core values it stands for.

There are various ways to do this; it starts from the Shop front. I will not deal with how the shop front or its merchandising window must look. It must attract customers to stop in their tracks is a given requirement, look elsewhere for those tips. What I am addressing is whether that shop front or VM window moves the customer’s mind to the experience what your brand identity stands for. Lets look at Subway. Nothing fancy, clean frames with clear glass and signage to communicate what it stands for. It offers healthy, hearty, quick bites at an economical price. That’s the experience and thus the communication. Promise any more with extravagant displays and the customer is disappointed do less and the brand will be disappointed. We don’t want both. Yet another example is this stand-alone retail store “Made in Earth”,  selling handcrafted lifestyle accessories in LA where the storefront complements its merchandise well.


The experience continues to the store layouts and merchandise arrangement and assortment, even density of display plays a role in defining the core identity of a brand. Lets imagine walking into an empty Big Bazaar, the Indian equivalent of a Wal-Mart. We want it stuffed with goods. That’s what comes to our mind, galleys of merchandise across an assortment of products for homes, décor, et al. Likewise, we cannot imagine walking into an Apple store with stacks of mobile phones displayed close to each other. That’s just how the brands' have been wired into us; they wanted it that way too. There cannot be exceptions. It is an experience all the way; it stays with customers, so when a customer is buying the same brand online, that identity stays. That is the reason I say they complement each other and cannot be competition to each other. Nothing else can justify the millions of dollars Apple continues to pump into each store they make. I can never imagine it will ever make economic sense if a store level balance sheet was made for Apple. The same is the case with many other such brands that take experience to another level.



The merchandise itself of course has to be in tandem with the identity your wish your brand to stand for. I am more enthused to use Apple again as a case in point but will refrain. But lets go diesel here. A denim, the entire identity of the brand right from its campaigns, communications, stores and even the assistants you meet when you visit one of their stores will give you only one feeling, a feeling of being rugged, young and carefree. That’s what the brand feels about itself to the core and that’s what it wants you to believe. And this is not a marketing stunt; it is what the core values of the brand are. Another brand I can name here is Starbucks; each café takes personalisation
to a different level and yet caters to all geographies of the world. Each store will find a distinct taste of local design and environment that is also extended to its merchandise. In a store at Mumbai, do not miss the delicate ‘warli’ work done on the floor, the VM displays and the carved wall claddings have a distinct India’n ethos too.

 
The staff, their approach, etiquette must speak oodles about your brand. Remember that is the only human face that will interact with your customer, imagine if that gave a bad impression. With this I do not mean to say they must absolutely hold the customer high in regard, they may do so, if your brand so feels it must. Lets look at the experience at interacting with the bearer at your favourite five star restaurant and compare that with that one at Hard rock cafe. They are very different, but they both hold their brand identities in high esteem and add tremendous value to it. While at a super luxury restaurant the customer must be pampered no end, a Hardrock gives the feel of a talking to a jolly friend. Well that is what they stand for.

None of the above can be achieved by a website or created in an online marketplace. They can only complement what you already have. A true brick and mortar model which connects with the customer at a level so personal, the bonds are made to achieve the loyalty a brand will need to thrive.

The author is the founder and director at Ensemble Furniture Limited, manufacturer & exporters of Retail Store Fixtures and fit-outs. You may reach him on nilesh.rathod@ensemble.co.in or visit the company website on www.ensemble.co.in If you liked this post kindly share it with others, any comments or observations are welcome too.

Whats next? Veil the sculptures at Khajuraho?

The central government banned some 843 sites porn sites for viewing in India. Well that didn’t really perturb me, what perturbed me was the logic behind the decision. Apparently they were done for discouraging child pornography! Honestly, however hard one tried to search, child pornography is globally banned content and difficult to trace. Worst still the government will set up a committee to take further steps in the matter. Doesn’t matter what they say about it; it is all eyewash and we know that.

I have several objections to why they did that, some even on how they implemented the decision. It is a bad decision with even worse implementation. Their skills really suck. Don’t they know about Hola.com? And what could be the logic of such a decision? Probably the answer to the question of the logic partially answers why the implementation is so thoughtless.  Can banning some 800 sites really take porn out of India? You and I both know, it’s not possible; there are millions out there.

Public posturing is a part of administrative policy. This decision is a result of public posturing, much like the decision of a beef ban or banning Gutka in several states or even banning alcohol in Gujarat some decades back. They are available in as much abundance as you may wish to have. So is with porn. And in any case do you think the government cares about it? it doesn’t. Because all it wanted was to posture its position, no wonder the implementation sucks as well.

But they have achieved what they had to. Make the right noises, its half the battle won. Who better than the marketing maverick like Modi would know that. He has been a bachelor all his life. Given up on that pleasure of life, I would atleast presume so. But does that also give him the right to deprive every one else from the same pleasure. Could it be that in the euphoria of this headline grabbing decision, the administration will go overboard in the next steps in this direction. What do we hear next? “Government veils sculptures at Khajuraho!”

This reminds me of the Nirbhaya rape case, which made headlines across the country. We saw a mass movement against molestation and other heinous crimes against women, which lasted for weeks. Even today one woman is raped every 20 minutes in India! There will be one before I finish this blog and painfully there is nothing I can do about it. And this would have happened after the porn ban.

Trust me all this will do, is a get children faster to the subject. Like my eleven year old son asked me what is porn and why is it banned? He is more than inquisitive to know simply because it is now banned. I had to give him some insight and just enough so he stops probing the subject on his own.

If you want to stop something please stop the rapes, please stop the molestation, please provide me a state where my fellow friends can roam freely without a worry of any of these things. This will come through good laws and sound implementation to back them up. This will come with more resources dedicated to education and employment, so the people who harbour these mindsets can find reason within their mind to do more mindful things. The least it would come from is arbitrarily banning some 800 sites one morning. Some will argue this is the first step. Yes it is for sure, but I’d say in the wrong direction!

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Pune - The city of law abiding Peshwas

Pune is the city of Peshwas’. They still rule the city. Only difference that the warriors today are seen on bikes and scooties instead of horsebacks. They adorn brightly coloured floral scarfs in place of the thick metal armours in those days. The ones you must be really scared of would be petite on small rides and about sixteen years of age. They beat the huge broad shouldered infantry and cavalry of the olden days by miles and hands down.

You will see these neo-patriahs  equipped at the art of modern warfare; they don’t need any swords. Their heads are tightly wrapped with scarfs of all designs and colours. Brightly coloured floral silks seem to be their favourite armour. And there is more material armour protecting their bikes than themselves. Their priorities are clear.  So well wrapped around their face and head one can only see only two wide eyes – luscious, dreamy and warming. Also warning! Thankfully I don’t drive anymore; else they wont have to try hard to knock me down and with the seduction of their eyes alone ☺

This was about the warriors, let’s talk about the warfare now. And this war is only about one thing, again much like the olden days. Covering ground. The warriors must move ahead with as much haste to cover as much they can. Who ever made all those traffic rules wasted his time doing it. We have our own. Welcome to Pune.

Rule number one (there are none other actually). Follow the direction you need to go and forget everything else. They start with riding the road, enough traffic proliferates on the road and they are soon seen on the footpath. With over three million on bikes alone, soon the footpaths and their foot soldiers have no space too.  I’ve seen some clinging on to poles to avoid a rider in a hurry knock them off. They wont stop at that. These warriors are now looking for buildings with separate entry and exits. Get in from one side and exit from the other, beat the footpath traffic too.

Master craft I would say. I wonder why these bikes have speedometers anymore, they need to put magnetic compasses instead. Soon these ninja riders would find their ways through the homes of people and they wont blink an eyelid before voyaging though them. It’s their birthright you see, it came with the bike and the license the administration gave for riding them. The authorities forgot to tell them, they are to be driven on the roads and roads alone.

One does not see pedestrian crossings on roads in Pune. But they are there; you will have to look hard enough.  Whatever they mean on the traffic books teaching kids, to these riders they are more like unnecessary rodents. You will find them somewhere in the maze of bikes waiting (hopefully) at a signal. As a pedestrian if I wished to cross the road, I would carry my heart in my hand, even jump over some of these bikes to make it safe across. If I walked the road following a crossing, presuming I were to find one, I am sure to be in a first aid centre or worse still in a hospital.

And Signals, how can I forget them. Again whatever they mean for the administration, here the rules are slightly different, very different if you really think about it. Green is a “Go”. Yellow indicates, “Go faster” and before the damn thing turns red. And red, by the time that turns green you are on the other side of the road anyways, who cares what colour it looked like when you were before it. These bikes will almost automatically move one foot every few seconds and before the signal allows you to proceed, you are on the other side anyways. Who cares!

The worst you could do in all of this is try being a responsible citizen. Try talking sense to one of these bandit queens or worse their fellow three wheeled chariots (read rickshaws) you would be sorry you did that. More on that sometime later, for now I must live with this and accept that Pune is a city of Peshwas’ and I am not a Peshwa.


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