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Journalism of Courage
B.M. Khaitan is all keyed up about his 100 years celebrations for his company Eveready which will be coming up in 2005. Getting really changed up with the excitement he is coming out with numerous changes for his company. The most recent being that of getting Amitabh Bachchan to be brand ambassador for Eveready, perhaps inspired by Nippo which took on Yuvraj Singh as ambassador. This move will put an end to most of his previous sales and promotional schemes ,and the beginning of advertisements on television and other media. The tycoon who sold 1 billion batteries in the year 2003-04, now wishes to sell 400 million by May this year. For this Khaitan has got busier on improving his supply chain management techniques, which he began at the beginning of the year. Discussions with Wipro to formulate new enterprise resource planning packages and other cost reduction measures in order to achieve better operational efficiency are in the making. Meanwhile the tycoon’s bulk tea business which has a presence in the states of UP, MP, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, and the tea gardens in Assam and Dooars is doing well ,which is sheer luck considering that in general the tea market is at a low. So with some help from his son Deepak ,Khaitan is continuing on his favourite ritual of sponsoring of events for the youth as well as sending his Eveready vans all over the country especially to the rural areas, with his batteries and torches. Even though he hasn’t been able to convince Bachchan to show up at Eveready events yet or got permission to use his photographs on his products , the tycoon is still sure he will manage to reach out to the people . But aren’t these too many changes coming together at the same time ? Agreed a 100th anniversary for a company is a big deal, but in all his excitement isn’t the tycoon overlooking the fact that he just might score fewer goals than he has made moves.
Matrix on his mind
After a 41.4 per cent rise in profits for the second quarter (Dec 2003) there was none left doubting why Gautam Thapar’s Ballarpur Industries (Bilt) is the largest paper company in the country. Ever since that the tycoon has however been relentlessly on the move. He was first heard bidding for 74% of the Union government’s equity for Hindustan Paper Corporation. And now he has come out with plans for expansion. Thapar’s agenda is simple, first he will set up a new paper trading company along with a social forestry programme of over 50,000 hectares probably in Malaysia. This will ensure the smooth flow of raw materials ,so that he can then put into play his real plan of action- a new retail programme. That’s true the tycoon is onto a big retail tactic, and is secretly building up his retail volumes, which will finally be launched under the brand name of “Matrix”. This will be a massive change as Bilt was always a manufacturing based company, but that doesn’t bother Thapar . He will launch his Matrix products using his vast network of 4000 shops and his efficient sales teams that are always on the run. He obviously wants to be the only name you think of when you think of paper!
Goeling for kid
The withdrawing of CAS, is spelling good news for many. Among them is the tycoon Subhash Chandra, who is glad, as it means a higher viewership for his DTH service, Dish TV. That aside he’s back to his I-love-children moods. Last year he was bouncing around getting his “Kidzee” playschools in order and now its animation time, for who else but the kids again! The tycoon just signed up two deals for developing animation content. The first was through his Padmalaya Telefilms, which got its moments of fame from being the producers of the serial “Jai Veer Hanuman”. Padmalya’s deal is a $5.2 million one with Mallard Media of Scotland and Ealing Animation of UK to produce 52 animated episodes of 10 minutes duration each. This will be done though Goel’s Zed Institute of Creative Arts (ZICA), India’s first full-fledged institute for animation filmmaking. The second deal for $14 million gives the tycoon the rights of co- production and the licence for the exploitation rights for 1,000 episodes in Mondo TV, which specializes in the production and distribution of original animation programmes both in Italy and abroad.
The tycoon will concentrate on the production of four animation series out of which two are Sindbad and Panchatantra, known to be children’s favourites. The tycoon along with Mondo will also work on the setting up of Goel’s 3-D animation studio .If Goel has his way Mondo might even become a partner in this programme. While the tycoon is once again putting his money on kids, this time he’ll have to deal with competition from the kids channels of UTV (yet to be launched- Hungama) and Turner (Cartoon Network and POGO).
Dilip Cherian runs the public relations firm Perfect Relations. He is an economy watcher and tycoon tracker. The people he writes about are not clients. Send your insider dope to dilipcherian@now-india.net.in
