Month: July 2014

Media Content Regulation

Shabbir Chunawalla

It is an euphemism  for control of news. There are talks of setting up a regulator. There are moves to ask the broadcasters to pay TDS on the 15 percent trade discount they give to ad agencies. There are moves to limit ads on TV channels to 10 minutes per clock hour. Earlier this 10 minute cap could be adjusted across the day.

In the hyper–competitive satellite channels market, this will spell death for news channels that survive on large volumes of cheap advertising. They may have to resort to promoting corporate interests otherwise, and lose their independence.

Cross-media Controls

Shabbir Chunawalla

There are curbs on newspapers owning TV and radio channels. The issues here must be properly understood. Such ownership caps were introduced in a few countries when there was no media plurality.
These are the days of satellite TV which cuts across the territories. In India, we have 80,000+ registered publications and 800+ TV channels. It is the most plural media market. Private media in India is not allowed into terrestrial TV. Technologically too cross – media curbs are not tenable. There is convergence of technology. There is access of several print and electronic media on the computer, tablet and mobile. There is no one geographical market or no domination of one media. The  competing media today are the internet and social media. These may become source of news of doubtful veracity. Cross–media curbs, wherever they exist, are being dismantled to create a level playing field .

Short Term Gain – Long Term Gain

Shabbir Chunawalla
HP-to-take-over-Autonomy-007HP bought  Autonomy, a software company to achieve short term growth at the expense of long term innovation that can produce profits and jobs. The other such companies which sacrificed long term term growth for short term gain are Kodak and Merck.
HP got a software company but lost its ability to innovate from within by discarding in part its engineering – driven culture for a sales orientation .

Product Patent : Some Problems

Shabbir Chunawalla

Human-DNA-Sequencing-picturesThe patent system was conceived to encourage innovation but has become vulnerable to excesses that have the opposite effect –

  • Locks up ideas
  • Discourages competition
  • Hurts the advancement of diagnostics and therapeutics

The US Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that human gene may not be patented , underlining  that laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas are not patentable because they are not themselves innovation but the basic tool of scientific and technological work .

The processes of isolating the DNA are too well understood by geneticists and so cannot be patented. However , if companies can establish that their methods of isolating genes are innovative or that the DNA under consideration has been synthesized in a lab need not lose heart – they can obtain patents on new applications of knowledge gained from genetic research.

While genes are certainly a product of nature , the isolation of fragments and knowledge of their properties are the outcome of huge financial and material resources invested with its attendant risks. Researchers who discover human gene sequences responsible for a particular disease may not have adequate incentive to disclose the new discovery . Even scientific exploration for new and rare organisms will get a setback .

Marketing – An Introduction

Shabbir Chunawalla


Marketing is an important department of modern day business organizations. It is concerned with the wide array of products you use. It brings these products from the marketers to you. Since these products satisfy your needs and wants, marketing’s basic function is to bring  to you want satisfying products. How will you know about these products? Marketers use advertising and other methods. Advertising persuades you to buy the advertised products. Where do you buy these products from – either from an online store or and off-line brick-and-mortar shop-or a hypermarket or a supermarket. These are the distribution channels that the marketers use. All these products are competitively priced. Marketers thus, have to manage the so-called four P’s – Products, their Prices, their Promotion and the Places where they are available.

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Marketers sell you the products in the country you live in. They also export products to other countries. Marketers have to manage a large sales force who approach the buyers and distributors. Thus foreign trade and sales management are integral to marketing. Marketers have to study the behavior of consumers to know what they buy and why do they buy. It is more or less  the study of consumer psychology.

Thus the scope of marketing is very wide. It covers products, pricing of the products, promotion and advertising of these products, and the distribution of these products. It also covers international marketing and consumer behavior. Marketing research is conducted to know about the markets and consumers.
Had it not been for marketing, we would have not been able to use all these new products, say music systems, lap tops, tablets, antibiotics, automobiles and so many other products. Some of these products were not known a few decades back. Marketing facilitates the introduction of new products. It in a sense delivers a standard of living to you.

To begin with , companies focused on production and manufacturing. As markets expanded they felt the need of selling. In selling , the product is made  and sold to you.Later came marketing. It is a paradigm shift. Marketing starts with the needs and wants of the consumers. Products are the made to satisfy these needs and wants. Thus philosophically, it is different from selling. Marketing puts the consumer in focus.

Marketing Management

Marketing management is being taught at business schools. All big companies have marketing and sales departments. They either do marketing research in-house or engage outside agencies.
Marketing management consists of marketing planning and its implementation. Any plan has to set objectives and devise strategies to achieve these objectives. A marketing plan contributes to the overall corporate plan.

A company first ignores marketing. It the stumbles and falters and the feels the need for marketing. A company takes a long time to adopt marketing. However, companies tend to forget marketing philosophy very fast. There should be a top management commitment to marketing. Marketing department’s head occupies a place of pride in the company. Marketing function is on par with other managerial functions such as finance, production and HR. Marketing ideally should be at the centre of the organisation. It should guide the other other core functions of the business available.