Blog by S.Swaminathan

Over the last year or two, the government owned telecom Co. MTNL, has been constantly improving its service due to some aggressive  telecom competition in India. They have become innovative and relatively better customer focussed.  I was quite impressed with their customer service centres ...

Fast Company writes

There are chinks in the armour even for the most admired companies in America.

And they should want to get better, right? So we've helpfully identified "opportunities for improvement," as they say on performance evaluations, at companies otherwise celebrated for great cu...

Via Fast Company

Interesting thoughts are discussed here on how to define great leadership. What I find exciting are the points that are being made in this discussion/article which are not often heard stuff like - being a visionary, communicator, strategic thinker etc. which everybody confuses as the...

Adam L. Penenberg writes in wired

Think of 18- to 34-year-olds as generation WHOIS. They live on e-mail, communicate via instant messaging, change ringtones on their cell phones at the drop of a baseball cap (turned backward, naturally), play video games, download music (sometimes they'll even pay fo...

via adage

• Increasingly, there is a blurring line between commercial spots and short, subtly branded films. It is becoming important to get your brands into what the consumers are interested to see rather than what you would like to say. For example, cable networks in the US are now working closely wi...

Fortune just released the list of fastest growing Cos for 2005. The growth of the big daddies - P&G, Fedex and Lowe's is something other companies can learn from.

Here's how they do it:

1. P&G talks about the importance of organic growth - Getting more business from your existing customers. ...

I had written a few weeks back, referring an article by Prof. Mohan Sawhney - Marketing Manifesto, on how marketing departments need to learn to be process oriented. I came across an interesting "thinking tool" that can help one put this into action. It's called the Theory of Constraints. ...

David Polinchock writes

A new marketing application from Kraft is leveraging the iPod phenomenon in a way that goes beyond podcasting. Owners of the ubiquitous device who download the company's "Greatest Hits of Summer" widget can carry a library of over 100 Kraft-inspired recipes with them...

It's a well known fact that in retailing, profiling leads to profits. The question is how does one start and take it all the way to the shopping experience?

Best Buy in the US gives us an interesting starting point and in fact I feel they have taken it to the next level by profiling stores too. This ...

Lego's Brickfest is an annual customer event where Lego enthusiasts come together to display some amazing Lego  creations - built by customers themselves! Mosaics, castles, trains, sculptures, spaceships and hundreds of such incredible creations were on display. Imagine the time customers would...