SLAs – for differentiation & positioning
Posted by Sreelesh in Marketing, Technology on July 31, 2010
I’ve been wanting to blog on this for some time and after reading many related posts in the recent times, I decided I had to get this off my chest. We all know of Service Level Agreements – those contractual bindings a service provider and his customer lay out as they seal their buyer-seller relationship. The SLAs when seen from the two angles: for the customer it’s a document that ensures he gets a “minimum” guarantee on services and maybe a compensation if this is not met, while for the service provider he sees this as opportunity to defend himself against any litigation that could happen (he is not sued for millions).
How many times have you come across words you cannot understand in these documents? SLAs today are just communication between the legal departments of organizations and are not really referred to unless something huge really happens that involves failure and costs.
SLAs to differentiate
There’s definitely a lot many better ways of using SLAs in today’s businesses –right from the very business model incorporated to the way market differentiation & positioning is done. What you would you think of a company that sends you its SLA doc that just has on it, in bold:
We promise to work our a** off to give you our 100%, here’s our CEO’s number if you think we’re not delivering
With the above, for those customers really bothered on what’s being done to ensure top services, add a whole section on technicalities involved – failover mechanisms, back up processes, state-of-the-art facilities bla bla. But no complicated “ifs”, “buts”, percentages and small text. Being upfront and convincing of sincerity goes a long way to winning over the customer’s faith than numbers and percentages. Something to the lines of this is what I read at http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2010/03/the-best-sla-ive-seen-in-a-while.html.
I had another idea on a radically new business model centered on SLA and number of customers. I ran this through a few friends and they seemed pretty convinced. I’ll put that in my next post, any service provider willing to listen before I go public 
? My really long shot at some sweet money!
You have to be the First-Announcer in the Internet age
Posted by Sreelesh in Marketing, Technology on March 1, 2010
Whether to purchase or otherwise, most of us reach amazon.com when we try searching for a book on the internet. Barnes & Noble too has an online bookstore but certainly not as popular as Amazon’s. And today as we know it, Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world doing sales (~19 billion!) about three times as much as the closest competition Staples.
Ok, that’s what many of us know. Did you know of a site called books.com? This site (now redirects to Barnes & Nobel site) was there on the internet selling books two years before Amazon was started by Jeff Bezos. Charles Stack, books.com founder, apparently was an ‘inside guy’ more interested in building an infrastructure than promoting a business. The price for being an insider guy? In 1996, Stack sold his business for $4.2 million while a month later Amazon was able to mop up a staggering $32 million in its first IPO!
Stack lost out because he did not let enough people know about his site. He had a two year headstart over Amazon and yet he was not able to own the online retail market at least for books (even with a killer of a domain named books.com!) In today’s internet age, one barely has a headstart. Somehow word gets to the competition and the so-called first-mover advantage is hard to realize. Imagine having spent a lot on R&D, successfully seeing the release and working of a great feature, not having this publicized and the very next year your competition does the same feature but makes more news of it and before you know it they’re touted the pioneer, cutting-edge, industry-leading blah blah.
If you are innovating, make sure you let your market know; else you could actually be signing off your hardwork to competition. Make sure to be the first-announcer and constantly follow up with your marketing and PR departments!
Congrats Premchand!
Finally, two Go-Daddy debit notification SMSes did it. Enough guilt summoned to put down my first blog post in 2010! Hope we’re all having a great year so far. It’s been very good for me especially towards the end of 2009 – wife and I spending a splendid weekend at Pondicherry, my brother visiting from the US, the family getting ready for little cus’ wedding, and the knocker of them all, a record year-end at work.
Another catalyst for today’s post is happiness over a good friend’s new status – fatherhood! It seems so yesterday when we went for his wedding, how time flies. Congratulations Premchand, may your son bring you new luck and happiness. Hoping my first post in 2010, on your son’s birthday, is auspicious for me too! I end with a promise for better time management and more frequent blogging.
Implementing IPv6
Posted by Sreelesh in Technology on November 30, 2009
I was searching around for information on IPv6 implementations and found a statement in Twitter that sums up the global state of affairs related to IPv6 perfectly:
Woke up again thinking about IPv6. Gotta do something about.
The IT world’s realized that IPv6 is inevitable but nothing solid is really being done in a huge majority of organizations. I feel it’s not just the costs associated, but also the lack of information that is available on the subject. Apparently only 10% of IPv4 addresses are available globally and this would exhaust in a year or two.
So what happens then if you do not get along with IPv6?
- You cannot have another ‘networked’ equipment (a sure bye bye to the ‘internet of things’ concept)
- There will be islands of IPv6 networks private or public that you will find hard to reach to
- IPv6 networks would also stumble a few times before reaching your network. Your business would definitely be hurt by the lack of IPv6 compatibility(the US government has even announced that they will only procure gear that supports IPv6 from next July)
IPv6 is not just against ‘IP address exhaustion’, but it also ensures a more secure (by including IPsec) and quicker network (fixed size headers that requiring less processing).
Businesses need to educate the IT team on the importance and short time available and also ensure only IPv6 supported hardware and software is procured. Every aspect of the network will need an overhaul – the ISP, connectivity with ISP, the routers, firewalls, switches, every single node on the network, including application installations. A good social network site that offers information and help on implementing IPv6 is gogo6. It also offers services and hardware to make that smooth transitioning :- tunneling services for IPv6 connectivity and an IP gateway providing v4-v6 interoperability.
Other interesting reading on IPv6 implementation:
- Worldwide only 0.238 percent of their users’ systems have IPv6 enabled. Russia, France, Ukraine, Norway, USA lead in IPv6 adoption.
- More Macs mean higher IPv6 usage in US (no less than 52 percent of all IPv6 users have a Mac and use 6to4)
- Cash for Clunker architecture?
- Most common IPv6 questions answered
- Largest IPv6 ISP doubles in size
marooned, n lovin it!
It’s been a week since the rain’s started in Chennai and I’m sure some of us have already used up our quota of swearing allotted for monsoon 2009. But personally I’m happy for the rain bringing down the temperatures and bringing out the smiles and joy out off em kids. No matter the brown water, or the dead floating roach, or the damp smell – let’s have a ball!
Tata Nano suppliers’ performance in the stock markets
Last year (Jan 16th, 2008) I had predicted a good show in the stock markets for the Tata Nano part suppliers, over a 1-2 year horizon. I checked up on these stocks and I was surprised, mostly negative, with the results. Taken as a basket of stocks, the group fell 28% as compared to the Sensex’s fall of 18% as on 23rd October 2009.
Exide Industries (+30%)
Lumax Industries (-51.59%)
Sona Group (-46.3%)
Rico Auto (-42.43%)
Sekurit Saint-Gobain (-49.52%)
MICO Bosch (-9.58%)
One of the reasons is definitely the delayed release of the Nano. The first Nano was handed to a customer on July 17th, 2009, almost a year later than the once-officially announced availability. So it does warrant another year’s time before one thinks of selling off these stocks. Remember CRISIL did report that the Nano has the potential of increasing the Indian car market by 65%. And how did Tata Motors perform at the stocks? Compared to Jan 16 2008, a fall of 24.41%. Obviously hurt by the Singur plant delay and shut-down, the delayed release, increasing raw material costs and the recession.
By the way, the only stock I invested in back then was Exide Industries 
, never mind how many. An increase of 30% while all the other stocks including the Sensex are in negative! Exide industries will continue to do well(it doubled net profits this quarter!). The others should climb once the Nano catches up and the various versions come out.
For effective SMS marketing
SMS marketing to the publicity-deprived entrepreneur is like the Gold rush to the small-time miner. You have an easy mine of gold found at very low cost, mined like crazy without a process or a plan, profits reaped, other miners join in for scale, more competing miners rush in and before you know it the gold mine is empty.
Today the cell phone user is inundated with marketing SMS and it is increasingly difficult to catch user attention. Check out my friend’s frustration on the number of mobile spam he receives: “51 unread SMS in just 3 days!”
Just like how gold mining improved in the prospecting, extraction, purification and transportation, mobile SMS marketing has to find ways of getting effective – finding the right, needing audience, at the right time and with the right message. Here is a quick checklist before you send out that SMS:
- Who is in your database of mobile numbers? Have you got their permission? Even if it means reading through every entry and investigating, make sure you know your list.
- Make sure your SMS has a value offering, not just an introductory SMS. e.g. “Reply YES to join the XYZ 25% discount promo“
- SMS is very personal. Never send an SMS without the customer’s name being mentioned.
- Get the message worded perfect. I loved this one from this site.
“Beat the queue! Show this text at Metropolis Nightclub before 10pm tonight and we’ll take you through the members’ only entrance. Free single shot at the bar with this text.”
Any club in Chennai reading? - Always include an ‘unsubscribe’ or opt-out option such as “reply STOP to be removed“
- Never send the same SMS twice!!!
- When you have many messages to be sent(highly discouraged though), never have the SMS sent in a flurry, space them out over time.
- make sure your website has a mobile friendly version
Here is one that I received recently, it did not follow much of the above list but it caught my attention and it stays in my inbox!
Dear Customer,
Stay Indoor to Get Outdoor!
Bicycle service at your doorstep – BSA Hercules Care,
Call Toll Free 18001022324.
Mon to Fri (9 am to 5 pm)
“Stay indoor to get outdoor”… I liked that
Cartoons for advertising and communication
Cartoons are loved by everyone, of every age group, of every social/economic/cultural background. And that includes marketers and advertisers! Amul’s ad campaigns are one of the most long-running and anticipated ads in India… Whether it’s the very recognized Amul baby face or the good product quality, it’s always Amul butter and cheese in my fridge.
The cartoon medium is probably the easiest, quickest and most powerful way of communicating even a serious message. Check out this signboard I captured at the Madras Crocodile Bank. It not just passed on the message clearly, but put a smile on every visitor’s face too.
Happy Onam!
The Pillais celebrated a wonderful Onam in Chennai and we wish you a very happy and prosperous Onam
‘Dil titli’ Airtel ad – thumbs down!
I felt so strongly on this one I had to blog! Airtel’s marketing made a big mistake with the latest ad on “superior picture clarity” for Airtel DTH . These guys always had feel-good ads – the husband-wife relationship with Madhavan and Vidya Balan, the beautiful father-daughter ad with papa showing sweet daughter the stars over a phone call, the two kids playing football across the border.. The latest one has Saif looking for his childhood sweetheart, finding her thanks to “picture clarity” and then finally dumping her for Kareena just as she walks by. C’mon guys, Airtel is all love and warmth, not this idiocy! And don’t tell me you are trying the “hep/hip youth” angle here!
The Kenyan Keralite- SLAs – for differentiation & positioning July 31, 2010
- You have to be the First-Announcer in the Internet age March 1, 2010
- Congrats Premchand! February 18, 2010
- Implementing IPv6 November 30, 2009
- marooned, n lovin it! November 10, 2009
- Tata Nano suppliers’ performance in the stock markets October 25, 2009
- For effective SMS marketing October 10, 2009
- Cartoons for advertising and communication October 4, 2009
- Happy Onam! September 2, 2009
- ‘Dil titli’ Airtel ad – thumbs down! August 26, 2009