Kapil's Korner » India

Can India be a cashless society?

Kapil — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:46:09 +0000

Saw this ad a while back. And although the creative team has taken the license to exaggerate the product benefit I am not sure if it really fits into our country yet so perfectly.

Visa Debit Card from Campaign India on Vimeo.

Can we hope that India will become a cash-less society? A major technology boost is needed before we can proudly flash our cards for every purchase. But hey we are getting there. What do you think?

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Book-Shelf Update #5

Kapil — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:23:50 +0000

Butter Chicken in Ludhiana by Pankaj Mishra
Gives a good peek into the interiors of India. And I am very keen to explore India and it’s people beyond just it’s metro & satellite towns. This should be a good read.

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish by Rashmi Bansal (View Blog)
Success stories have always inspired me and I think I am going to enjoy this one too.

Superstar India by Shobhaa De
It’s my first pick of a Shobhaa De title, let’s see how interesting this one turns out to be.

Read other Book-Shelf Update #1, Update #2, Update #3, Update #4.

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A little caffeinated opinion

Kapil — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 18:20:09 +0000

This post is more like a comment to poor_planner’s Caffeinexperience. It turned out so long that I decided to post it here.

Together they sum up as a ‘great coffee experience.’ What more can they offer? When everybody starts offering the same ‘great coffee experience,’ will price become a deciding factor. Or will chains re-arrange themselves as premium and value chains.

Yes, although price would become a major deciding factor I think like all other services around us it will be the experience that will count. We humans tend to get ourselves adjusted to certain likes and dislikes. For example my wife always prefers a CCD to a Barista if given an option. Also my ex-colleagues at Think WhyNot would always prefer the next door CCD. For them there was a reason – it was easily accessible, the price was not too steep and besides we were regulars there so the waiters knew us pretty well which guaranteed a prompt and sometimes extra service. The way I see it there will be certain deciding factors:

Service levels: How efficient is the team around the place? Can they make you comfortable in the rush hours too? Are the waiters pushy, wanting you to clear the table for the next guest? Besides let’s not forget that if you’re going to pay 30 bucks for a cup of coffee you surely want service level beyond what you would get at a Udippi restaurant or irani cafe.
Innovation: How often does the chain bring about a change in their offerings? Are there seasonal specials? And all this at the cost making sure that regular favourites remain on the menu.
Value-adds: What more are you offering than just coffee? CCD gives you a juke box, a plasma television and even mobile chargers. Barista offers wireless Internet. These could be sticky points for a regular set of clients walking in for those kind of services.

That’s a caffeinated opinion from me on this late Monday night ….

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Give our cricketers some incentive

Kapil — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 18:27:25 +0000

I was reading a few cricket cartoons this afternoon – yes, cricket currently is limited to cartoons only because I really don’t see anybody discussing the current world cup atleast.

Anyways, then it struck me why are our cricket players are so over-paid. I mean they not only get big fat pays from the big fat rich BCCI but they also get huge sponsorship deals. Great! but the recent performance has disappointed everyone it seems including the big sponsors. So now they seem to have got a fee review in place and the contract will be negotiable based on performance. Hello! didn’t anyone ever think about that one. Even the most high-paid CEOs in MNCs have their pays directly connected to the performance and profits of the company so why couldn’t somebody think of that for our super players. Besides they can always work out some very lucrative deals which will help improve performance. Give them an incentive, simple! If I remember correct a few years back during the football world cup some team players were promised a Mercedes each if they came back with the cup! Of course I am not sure if Sachin would be happy to get a free Reliance phone if he had come back with the cup. Or Dravid getting a lifetime free supply of Reebok shoes. But such incentives could make things interesting.

Would love to hear on how the sponsor companies are revising their deals.

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To Each Its Own Â» Punjabi Lingo For Dummies

Kapil — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 15:01:25 +0000

This is a beautiful post written by Sakshi. It’s interesting because Punjabi is a language which I like because of the vibrancy and high emotion content in it. There is this “josh” in it which is loud and vocal.

Sakshi gives us a preview of some of the commonly used *thheth Punjabi lingo. Incidentally my fore-fathers were also from *thheth. But we are Sindhis. Maybe I should post some Sindhi lingo here soon.

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Greetings to all

Kapil — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:11:23 +0000

Here is wishing everyone a very Happy Diwali and Prosperous New Year.

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Oh! Calcutta

Kapil — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 12:24:15 +0000

Recently work took me to Calcutta. Now no offense to anyone living there but mentally I have always had this particular image of the city being very poor and under-developed in some way. Maybe itâ€™s always the images which I have seen of Kolkatta in press, movies etc. A few years back when someone visited the place told me it was very dirty with a lot of traffic problems. But I guess I was not 100% correct in imagining the city. They did have some certain pockets of the city which are slowly on a great development phase. There is some very modern construction coming up both in commercial and residential areas which will truly change the image of the city in the next few years or so.

Of course one of the key highlights of the city has always been the numerous â€œbandhsâ€ and â€œralliesâ€ which I think often disturb the common manâ€™s life. Thankfully none of this affected my short weekend trip there. Being a business trip I didnâ€™t get chance to do much sight-seeing but I did manage to see a few places like the Victoria Memorial, Eden Gardens and some of the recently developed portions of the city like Salt Lake, where supposedly Wipro has one of itâ€™s largest set-up in India. I also noticed that Wipro was not alone, a lot of other tech companies like IBM had also invested money to set-up their operations in this city. Now this was very new to us who live in Mumbai since I had not read much about the tech facilities in Kolkatta. When you think of tech or call centers you usually think South India, Gurgaon and Mumbai. But I think this only goes a long way to show the great market demand for a larger skill set of Indian talent to cater to the growing demand of tech and other related services. Way to go India.

Didnâ€™t get a chance to capture too many photos, but I thought the public transport was indeed very interesting around this place.

They use the old ambassadors yet as a taxi. The government has not allowed any other car manufacturer to get a license for this!

The very popular hand-pulled cart. I really missed out a ride on this one. Maybe next time.