20.05.2008

• The largest producer of cement in India and the world?
• Holcim, a Swiss company.
• Talking of cement, let’s take a look at the cement economy in the country:
• The latest available figures show that for April-March, while output growth was of the order of 8.13%, consumption grew a notch over 10%. Also, capacity utilisation is close to 96%, despite significant capacity addition of late.
• What is leadership economics?
• It is exploiting one's strong global customer position and capability to quickly build a leading market presence in a new area using a repeatable formula, including co-branding with champions. Leadership economics does not require companies to eventually become the market leader by size in their industries. That is seldom a worthwhile pursuit. Rather, leadership economics means finding an area of unique strength to build on — a set of customer situations, channels, locations, or products where you have some competitive advantage.
• This is best understood by looking at Nike. Golf ranks as one of the demanding markets in the sports business. So, despite its fabled swoosh, Nike was regarded as an amateur when it decided in 1995 to branch out from shoes to golf apparel, balls, and equipment. Within six years, however, Nike had scored priceless marketing victories — not once, but three times running. Nike scored its victories in the golf market by using the power of leadership economics.
• To fully exploit the advantages of leadership economics, leaders first need to recognise the power of their position, especially as accounting systems tend to obscure the full value of leadership economics. When leaders fail to identify the leverage and market power provided by their positions, they can pay a heavy price, as contact lens maker Bausch & Lomb did. In the early 1990s, when competitors attacked Bausch & Lomb’s market share with new technologies, the company failed to understand the true boundaries and profit economics of its business and prematurely abandoned its core. It diversified into businesses such as skin care, dental health, and hearing aids that had no obvious links to lens-making.
• The result: Bausch & Lomb’s market share plunged, its stock plummeted, and it dropped two places from its top-ranked position in the lens-making business.
• Is the recent rupee depreciation in line with fundamentals?
• A good question and an excellent debate that appeared in today's ET. Three regular experts debate the issue. Some lessons/excerpts for us from their debate:
• It is misleading to use words like fundamentals for a currency. Unlike real assets which produce real returns, and hence can conceivably compute the present discounted value of future stream of returns, there is no such fundamental objective value for currency. There is a real effective exchange rate based on purchasing parity.
• There are four key factors behind the recent depreciation: (1) recovery of the US dollar; (2) higher global crude oil prices, which widen the current account deficit and also increase dollar buying by oil companies; (3) slowdown in capital inflows, which decreases the supply of dollars; and (4) unwinding of positions that were betting on rupee appreciation to check inflation.
• A $10/bbl increase in crude oil prices increases the merchandise trade deficit by around $6.5-7.0 billion.
• The overall balance of payments surplus will probably narrow to a mere $24 billion (1.8% of GDP) in 2008-09 after the multiyear high of around $90 billion (7.6% of GDP) estimated for last year.
• Obituary: Vijay Tendulkar
• He is a noted playwright. He died on Monday in Pune following a prolonged illness.
• Tendulkar was perhaps the only Marathi playwright to get international recognition and put Marathi theatre on the international map. Ghashiram Kotwal, his 1972 play, which was performed outside India, is in a musical format and was translated not only in major Indian languages, but also in English. In 1999, a festival of his (translated) plays was held in New York.
• Tendulkar’s most controversial plays — Ghasiram Kotwal and Sakharam Binder, stirred a hornets’ nest in Maharashtra after it was staged in 1972.
• In Ghasiram Kotwal it was the controversial depiction of the historical character of Nana Phadnavis, a revered statesman during the Peshwa rule in Maharashtra that angered Brahmins and led to a series of protests.
• A similar controversy surrounded when Tendulkar came out with Sakharam Binder inviting the charge of obscene presentation. Eminent stage and film actor Nilu Phule played the role of the protagonist from a lower strata of society. The play had a scene that showed the female character suffering abortion after being subjected to cruel treatment at the hands of the Binder who had total disregard for moral, social and cultural mores. Tendulkar won the battle with the Censors clearing the play.
• India is second-largest seller of carbon credits globally
• India has emerged as the second-largest seller of carbon credits in the global market with 6% share in 2007, while China tops the list with a huge 73%, according to a World Bank report. Certified emission reduction (CER), which are traded on the global climate exchanges, are carbon credits issued by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) executive board for emission reductions achieved by CDM projects and verified under the rules of the Kyoto Protocol.
• World Athletics Day meet
• The Karnataka Athletics Association (KAA) will conduct the Boost World Athletics Day meet 2008 for the second successive year at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium, on May 20 and 21.
• About 1,200 athletes are expected to participate in five age categories — under-8, 10, 12, 15 and 17.
• What is this controversy about Shah Rukh Khan not being allowed into his teams' dug out?
• I am sure all of you would have by now know about it. Those of you who are like me and have not followed the story on TVs, please do take a look at it here.
• BTW what is a dug-out? It is the name given for ‘pavillion’ in the T20 format of cricket. This term is used originally in baseball.