Value Add - Price Premium

While creating a philosophy for Cyntax, I have been thinking what kind of businesses can command a price premium. I think the businesses in the value chain that add "unique" value to the end product are the ones where you can ask for money. This is probably as old and as commonsensical as Michael Porter's work on value chains, but realizing it myself, was an achievement.

Let me take an example. The tee shirts business. Three most important components are the supplier, the designer and the retailer. The supplier can not ask for a premium. Simply because he is manufacturing a commodity. There are bound to be many suppliers with similar or near similar offerings and only thing that all suppliers can compete on is the price. A retailer, might command premium if he is a large player and has a ready set of customers. Someone like, say Big Bazaar. But over a period of time, with Internet eliminating all kinds of middle men, a marketer would no longer need a retailer to sell his products. Cases in point being zappos (ok, zappos is a retailer), threadless and cafepress.

On the other hand, if you are someone like Tantra or People Tree or Play Clan, you add value to a basic white tee shirt. You add a unique design and print that design. You dont sell just a tee shirt. You sell this design that no one else can do. And you thus ask for a premium. To compete with a Tantra, I wont need the supplier, I wont need the retailer but I would need a designer. Obviously I am assuming that I would be able to squeeze the suppliers and command terms to the retailers and create a fantastic online community (and a shop).

Tee shirt business is ok. What about travel business? Who will command a premium?

Travel chain has two components - service providers (airlines, railways) and agents (Traditional, OTA). Off the two, agents can only sell the inventory that service providers make available. And its a simple business where you add zilch value (online agents add value in the sense that they make available the inventory real time) and hence they cant command a premium. Moment an agent asks for a premium, the user would move on to the next agent. You compete on mindshare and again, cost!

What about HR consultancies? Petrol pumps? FMCG companies? Who do you think commands a premium? What to you guys think?

Sixth Sense !

Just saw this video on TED featuring Pattie Mae and Pranav mistry of MIT Media Lab. She introduced a wearable device that can present meta information (that already exists) anywhere anytime (assuming the phone supports Internet connection) just by looking at it. Few applications that they showed include looking at your boarding card to know your flight status, clicking pictures, reading book reviews from Amazon by just looking at the barcode, knowing about a person by just looking at his face.



They use basic technology tools - a camera, a mirror, a rechargeable battery, pointers and a cellphone (for communication) to bring to life possibilities that bring the entire world literally on your finger tips. In the team's words, SixthSense is

a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

Its more than QR Codes, Microsoft Surface, iPhone, a digital personal assistant. All put together. Wish it comes to life soon. And this is what I can the New New Thing.

Links
Project SixthSense homepage
TED Talk

Gulaal - Yaara Maula

Track: Yaara Maula
Lyrics: Rahul Ram, Aushim, Piyush Mishra
Movie: Gulaal

Ever since I saw, Gulaal, I have been gung ho about it. As I said earlier too, I cant decide if I hate the movie or love it. But one thing is for sure - I couldnt ignore it. The music is super awesome. The lyrics are even better. Here is the best track from the movie.

Yaara Maula

Yaadon mein hai ab bhi
Kya sureela wo jahaan tha
Hamaare haathon mein rangeen gubbare they aur, dil mein mehekta samaa tha

Yaara Maula

Wo to khwabon ki thi duniya
Wo kitaabon ki thi duniya
Saans mein they machalte hue zalzale, aankh mein wo suhaana nasha tha

Yaara Maula

Wo zameen thi aasmaan tha
Humko lekin kya pata tha
Hum khade they jahaan par usi ke kinaare par gehra sa andha kuaan tha

Yaara maula

Phir wo aayi bheed bankar
Haath mein they unke khanjar
Bole phenko ye kitaabein
Aur sambhalo ye salaakhein

Ye jo gehra sa dhooaan hai
Haan haan andha to nahi hai
Is kooein mein hai khazana
Kal ki duniya to yahin hain
Kood jao le ke khanjar
kaat daalo jo ho andar
Tum hi kal ke ho Shivaji
Tum hi kal ke ho Sikandar

Humne wo hi kiya jo unhone ne kahaa
kyunki unki to khwahish yahi thi

Hum nahi jaante ki ye kyun ye kiya
kyun ki unki farmaaish yahi thi

Ab hamaare lagaa jaayka khoon ka
ab bataao karein to karein kya
nahi hai koi jo hamein kuch bataaye
Bataao karein to karein kya

Via Musicaloud

Have a life !

I found this at Sudhanshu Gupta 3.0.

Gulaal - Pseudo Review

And then I saw Gulaal, yet another Anurag Kashyap movie (after Dev D) that I cant decide if I liked it or hated it. At times I wanted to compare it to Haasil, at times to Rang De Basanti and at times to Gangajal.

Movie's got AWESOME music. Wonderful voice talent, sound direction and lyrics. In fact I can compare the lyrics for gulaal to what Rabbi Shergill writes. We need more song writers like these in the main-stream.

It made me aware of the underground movement for Rajputana. I never imagined that the kings that were removed after independence are still struggling for their princely states. Need to read more about them.

BhimaShankar: The Sepia Tones

Title: The Sepia Tones
Equipment: Sony Ericson K790i
Date: 14 Mar 2009
Time: 6:16 PM
Place: Way back from BheemaShankar to Mumbai, Maharashtra

P.S.: I did not choose the color settings as Sepia. This is how the place looked ! 

Drive to Bhimashankar

Apart from regular games of pool and counter-strike, this time on the weekend, me and Vivek did a roadtrip to Bhimashankar. Bhimashankar boasts of a wild life sanctuary, famous treks and one of the 12 Shiv Jyotirlings.

Roadtrip was full of mountains, rains, landscapes, sheep, dams, rivers, sunshine, clean air, people walking long miles, going from nowhere to nowhere. The drive to Bhimashankar is easily the most scenic drive I have even taken in India (better than my trek to Chandratal and Rohtang Pass).


I got to know about the place from Milind Gunaji's book - Offbeat tracks in Maharashtra. It is some 260 KMs from Mumbai and easiest way to reach there is by the Mumbai Pune Expressway and take the exit at Talegaon. Then you drive on for about 3 hours to reach the Shiva temple.

This is one of those places where the journey is more exciting and fun than the destination.

Why Travel?

I say ...

I have always believed that journey is more important than the destination. The pursuit of unknown is what makes the journey part exciting. You face ambiguity. You face uncertainty. You don’t know if you would reach or not. You don’t know what to expect when you reach your destination. You don’t know what is on the other side of that long and winding dark tunnel. You don’t even know if the tunnel would end.

The new Saurabh Garg Blog

For reasons, known and unknown, evident and classified, the New New Thing has been put to rest. And since it left a void in my routine, I am onto my next blogging endeavor. The all new Saurabh Garg Blog.

Personal Information Management

So, these are problem statements ...

1. I know a lot of things and want to know lot more.
   
2. I read tons of material and my to-read list is growing exponentially everyday.
3. I come in contact with a lot of wonderful people. And I need to stay connected with them.
4. And finally I want to be able to manage my todo list on a daily basis.

And with busier and mobile life, its imperative that something about managing information is done. And fast.

I have decided I would use online tools for these tasks. Simply because Internet is now as ubiquitous as it could be and online tools are almost as good as offline ones. Also I want to use simple tools. Life is too complex anyways, why use complex tools?

So, here is a list.

1. A pen drive for files that are too large to be shared on the Internet. And carry along data that is very critical that if Internet goes for a toss.
   
2. del.icio.us - bookmark links, webpages and other things that I want to keep track of.
   
3. pbwiki - take notes and invite comments
4. Google Docs, Calendar - for creating lists and schedules
5. Google Reader - to keep track on my reading list
   
6. SaurabhGarg.com and septemberthe22nd.blogspot.com
7. Slideshare and Scribd - for managing files, documents and presentations
   

And then I will continue to use these online tools/services

1. Twitter
2. Dopplr
3. Facebook
4. Flickr
5. LinkedIn

What else should I use? Is there a good contact management software? Where I can keep a list of my contacts, where I know them from, what do they get to the table and all that?