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Social media primer
There are various types of online social media - from social networks of friends and professionals, to microblogging services, to video sharing sites. Here’s a helpful list.

Social-media minefields
The beauty of social media is that there are no hard and fast rules to go by. Instead, there definitely are conventions to follow and traps to avoid in order to fully leverage the medium to your company’s advantage and keep you out of trouble. Here are a few tips.
Building businesses in emerging media
Unlike the standard disclaimers in financial markets, on the social Web, past results are, in fact, an indicator of future performance.
India Inc wakes up to social media
From Facebook to LinkedIn, Twitter to Orkut, corporates are beginning to use various forms of social media to reach out to consumers, employees and partners, writes Kushan Mitra.

2009-07-12

Digital

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Editors note

From the Editor

Here's an e-mail that serves as an example of the power and perils of the phenomenon called social media.

Leadership Spotlight

K. Anji Reddy on leadership

K. Anji Reddy, chairman Dr Reddy's Labs on his leadership style. 

People

Pratima Koppolu: Fresh-baked entrepreneur

It is close to achieving the impossible. In a city known for its biryani lovers, Pratima Koppolu, 41, has got people to appreciate the virtues of authentic European food.

Features

Preetha Reddy: Healthcare queen

The eldest daughter of the Apollo Hospitals’ founder is named his successor. Can she continue his dream run?

How to make meetings work

What distinguishes collective boredom from an effective meeting of minds?

Return of the professionals

There’s a CEO churn of huge proportions taking place at India Inc. Right from family-run businesses to affiliates of global multinationals, high-flying professionals are taking over, writes Anand Adhikari.

Tightening the hold

Private-equity honchos are putting their oars into the companies they’ve invested in to ensure they survive the downturn.

'We generate sufficient profits to grow the Indian business'

We are never happy about losing people but we have to be realistic. Citi is a favourite hunting ground for talent, says Mark Robinson.

India's most-watched ads: Maximum eyeballs

Love them, or hate ’em—these are the most-watched ads on telly.

Why GRP is the correct metric

You can spend crores and still not be viewed enough because you are not buying enough GRPs; you can also spend little and still be amongst the most-viewed ads if you are buying the right GRPs.

The case for reach planning

Marketers want highest reach possible because that means more people will be exposed to the advertising, leading to stronger correlation with higher awareness and sales.

Money

India is the bright spot

A survey by Barclays Wealth reaffirms the faith of overseas investors in the India story.

A spook in the guarantees

ULIPs with capital guarantees come at a steep price.

The face-value trap

Small investors sometimes unwittingly fall into it. But while the uniform face value debate rages on, it’s best for you to do your homework.

Trends

Numbers of note

33%: The rise in US bankruptcies for the year ended March 31, 2009

How the sea was bridged

The 4.7 km-long Bandra-Worli Sea Link in Mumbai is set to open soon. Here are some key features of this unique bridge.

A chronology of Income Tax since 1950s

Upset with your income tax deductions? Then how about going back to 1973-74, when the effective rate at the top was 97.5 per cent and there were 11 rate slabs?

Human capital: Infy 'measures' its employees

For the past 14 years, IT giant Infosys has been gauging the “real worth” of its employees.

Plugging the skill gap

It is a shortcoming that India Inc. is familiar with. Vast number of job seekers whose existing skill-sets make them unemployable. Now a new venture, Vocational Academy, has created a business model to fill this gap.

Chinese imports bully Indian SMEs

Indian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are caught in a vice-like grip of monumental proportions, if a recent FICCI survey is to be believed.

An Ivy League degree in India?

Virtues of low debt

They didn’t go overboard during the housing boom. No wonder when the crash came, these smart realtors had very low debt.

What's the good word?

Who said games are not serious business? The legal saga over an online game originally called “Scrabulous” has brought into focus a critical debate surrounding the interface of copyright and design protection.

Lifting the burden

By doing away with the concept of entry load, the message from the market regulator is loud and clear: Advise investors, don’t just sell mutual funds.

Chasing the fraudsters

The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) has been the chief investigation arm of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs during the Satyam scam investigation now underway.

Deal Watch

Lanxess AG acquires Gwalior Chemical Industries

Germany’s leading chemical manufacturer Lanxess AG has announced the acquisition of the chemical and wind power business of Mumbai based Gwalior Chemical Industries, in a deal valued at Rs 536 crore.

Technology

The king is dead. Long live the king!

Apple launches the third-generation iPhone 3G S, but this device faces tougher competition than ever before.

Case Study

Funding the last dose

After being bailed out by equity from ICICI Venture and loans from SBI, Medica has stabilised cash flows but needs to secure a small funding component.

Corporate

Apollo's mission to conquer the world

Onkar Kanwar has painstakingly built Apollo into India’s largest tyre company. His new goal? To take on global giants Michelin and Bridgestone, writes Rajiv Rao.

Britannia's new recipe

With Nusli Wadia in complete control of Britannia, the premier biscuit maker is better placed to beat back a host of competitors and regain lost ground, writes Rahul Sachitanand.

Book

Are Singurs avoidable?

In Transitional Puzzles, Amlan Datta tackles socio-political problems and warns against buying into simplistic concepts of industrialisation, writes Jayanta Sarkar.

The new world of money

Five new books to better understand stocks, finance and the meltdown.

Special

Brand new recruiters

Not Goldman Sachs, not McKinsey, not Infosys. The top recruiters on business and engineering college campuses were all new names.

2009 has been an aberration

India Today and Ma Foi Management Consultants published a survey in January 2008 that predicted creation of close to a million new jobs during the year.

A summer many would like to forget

One of the top 10 B-schools was finding it a challenge to place its students. Previous years, they had 100 per cent placements by Day-3 of the placement calendar.

Columns

Cut income tax slab, abolish FBT

The government could also consider the recommendations of the Fifth and Sixth Pay Commissions aimed at improving the efficiency of public services, writes Yashwant Sinha.Special: Budget 2009-'10 Video: UPA to unveil Budget on July 6 Photos: Can Pranab's Budget boost the economy?

Create babies, not dwarfs

India is a hostile habitat for entrepreneurship because reforms have fixed sins of commission and not omission. This creates the wrong kind of companies.

A level playing field

Violations of the Act now would face serious action. It can be up to 10 per cent of the turnover or three times the profit for each year!

How to transform the highways

In India, we have a unique and anomalous situation where there is neither lack of resources nor lack of demand and yet we create hugely suboptimal outcomes in roads construction.

Next placement season could be tougher

By extension, the business school is expected to be a headhunter, linking its students with the right employers.

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