Growth is about new market opportunities

See acquisition as a growth platform

Indian firms tend to prefer organic growth when it comes to the Indian market, but have looked to acquisitions to enter international markets, observes Bala Chakravarthy, Shell Chair Professor of Sustainable Business Growth, IMD, Switzerland ( http://www.imd.ch/), and author Profit or growth? Why you don’t have to choose (Wharton). He cautions, however, that international acquisitions are expensive and can bring some nasty surprises.

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'On the ARPU front, Africa ranks better than India, at roughly $12 per subscriber as compared to $6 per subscriber in India'

Does Bharti-MTN deal signal a recovery?

The first developing-nation foray into the ‘Big 5’ of the telecom world encompassing two fast-growing emerging wireless markets, India and Africa; consolidated post-deal financials, north of 200 million subscribers and revenues of $20 billion; one of India’s biggest cross-border deals, even relative to Tata-Corus or Hutch-Vodafone… These are some of the opening observations about the Bharti-MTN deal that Mr Vivek Gupta, Partner, M &A practice, BMR Advisors, New Delhi, shares with Business Line, during a quick email interaction shortly after the mega merger was in the news.

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Storage is basically putting information to work for you when you need it

‘Virtualisation of storage, the ultimate step to maximise ROI’

Three sextillion, 892 quintillion, 179 quadrillion, 868 trillion, 480 billion, 350 million. That’s the number of new digital information bits created in 2008, says John Gantz, Chief Research Officer for IDC. “Contrary to popular belief, as the economy deteriorated in late 2008, the pace of digital information created and transmitted over the Internet, phone networks, and airwaves actually increased.”
A key finding of IDC is that while the pace of digital information increased in 2008, IT (information technology) budgets declined, thus creating an even larger divide between the amount of information generated and the amount of IT resources purchased and deployed to manage it. This dynamic further validates the demand for tools and techniques (e.g. virtualisation, de-duplication and other data reduction technologies) geared specifically to managing more with less, informs a recent communiqué from EMC Corporation, a global player in information infrastructure solutions.
You may wonder if there is the possibility of storage offerings on the pay-for-use model. That is the ultimate goal for every piece of IT today, affirms Mr Prakash Krishnamoorthy, Country Manager, Storage Works Division, Hewlett-Packard India Sales P Ltd, Chennai ( www.hp.com/in ).

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'Innovation is a buzzword in companies and has to be one in education'

Economic crisis vs global strategies

A common question during situations of economic crisis, such as now, is whether companies should focus on their existing geographies (or even rationalise their current operations) rather than venture into expanding their global footprint. “International trade and investments are part of a complex machinery that acts and reacts upon economic fluctuations, management capacities, public policy issues, and many other factors,” observes Dr Gabriele Suder, Professor of International Business at CERAM Business School, France ( http://www.ceram.fr/ ). This creates opportunities and threats at any time, but more so in times of crises, she adds, during the course of a recent email interaction with Business Line.

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'India has found it easier to adopt the most recent technologies'

Insurance, key game-changer in spread of healthcare

A healthy thought that Mr S. Nandakumar, CEO, Perfint Healthcare Pvt Ltd, Chennai ( http://www.perfinttech.com/) has top on his mind is that India offers valuable and well-documented examples to the rest of the world in healthcare services. Narayana Hrudayalaya, Arvind Eye Hospital, and Jaipur foot are popular successes, he cites, as sustainable models that have been tested for several decades, with the Indian market at it core.

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'The future of banking would be in cutting operational costs by automating branch banking'

Will there be surprises in our bank balance sheets?

What’s common between cricket players and central bankers? They keep us on the edge of our seats, and can surprise us all the time. Tuesday was one such day, when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced yet another round of rate cuts, sending a clear message to banks that they should follow suit by reducing their lending and deposit rates to support the return of the economy to a higher growth path.... Whilst the rate cuts are, at best, a signal from the RBI on its intent to see lower rates in the system, the RBI has stressed on developing a corporate bond market as well as rationalising the Government borrowing programme to keep interest rates lower, observed Mr Abizer Diwanji, Head of Financial Services, KPMG, interacting with Business Line by e-mail...

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'Do cost accounting standards find adoption?'

Performance oversight dimension

The corporate sector in India has held, for too long a time, the role of cost and management accounting (CMA) as supplementary to the financial accounting domain, rues Mr A. N. Raman, Chairman of the Professional Accountants in Business Committee of the South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA), and a Central Council Member of the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India (ICWAI).

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