Economic Reforms to Make In India – This man deserves his part of Credit

half-lion-book-reivew

I was a kid in 1991 when P V Narsimha Rao became Prime Minister of India. Unaware of what a prime minister is and unaware of political system I was used to laugh at him for his look and oratory. By 1995 I have started understanding the stuff a bit and I precisely remember that 13 day government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. India has seen two prime ministers after that and I would say that was the time I started understanding the technicalities of voting, parties and forming governments. How come a person like Narsimha Rao could remain as PM for full term if not all these people including Vajpayee? A question I had in those days. I was a teen having patriotism at its height like almost every other Indian when in 1998 India tested its nuclear weapons. Seeing Missileman APJ Abdul Kalam as President of India and reading the stories of India’s weapon development program was a charm. When i was seeing the roads getting developed under PM Vajpayee’s government it was like dreams being built. I never could understood how hard it was to start a business before 15 years when I started mine in year 2004.

Human history is actually the accumulated impact of several people’s action and decision. You never can understand how much impact your presence do have from a person or action from past. Could have Vajpayee tested those nuclear weapons? Could have Mulayamsingh as defence minister remained present in many missile tests India did? Could i have started a business as easily as i could? Could Narendra Modi launch a campaign of Make in India? Had there been not PV Narasimha Rao as our prime minister…..

These questions i have raised and self answered only after reading the book “Half Lion” written by Vinay Sitapati. I do question very few of the points in book but it’s a wonderful political account of a man who never got credit of his part. The book touches almost all aspects of this man who has been removed from the chronicles of the Congress Party completely.

If the text of the book tobe believed, Vinay has done a great service to the nation and specially to PV Narasimha Roa by uncovering this Hero out of dust of political games.

In 2015 Modi Government has got constructed and inaugurated the Memorial of this man after 10 years of his death. India has seen 26 years now and has gone through a long way started with “Economic Reforms” to “Make in India” today. And yes PV Narasimha Rao deserves his part of credit.

Quotes and Statements on Customers and Customer Importance

A business survives if customer is there. Customers are being considered as the King for any businesses and a lot of Management experts, thinkers and business leaders have defined importance of customers and customer service in their own way. Here is a compilation of all such top 10 Quotes and statements I personally like.

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.

Mahatma Gandhi

Make a customer, not a Sale. – Katherine Barchetti
A customer who complains is my best friend. – Stew Leonard
A customer is the only one who can fire us all. – Sam Walton
Never underestimate the power of an irate Customer. – Joel E Ross and Michael J Kami
If we are not customer drive, ours cars won’t be either. – Ford Motor
Good customer service costs less than bad customer service. – Sally Gronow
The Best companies dont create customers, they create fans. – Ken Blanchard
In the world of Internet Customer Service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away. – Doug Warner
There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. – Roger Staubach

Shapath Lena to Saral hain…. How Winners make difference

शपथ लेना तो सरल है
पर निभाना ही कठिन है।
साधना का पथ कठिन है
साधना का पथ कठिन॥

शलभ बन जलना सरल है
प्रेम की जलती शिखा पर।
स्वयं को तिल-तिल जलाकर
दीप बनना ही कठिन है ॥१॥

है अचेतन जो युगों से
लहर के अनुकूल बहते
साथ बहना है सरल
प्रतिकूल बहना ही कठिन है ॥२॥

ठोकरें खाकर नियति की
युगों से जी रहा मानव।
है सरल आँसू बहना
मुस्काना ही कठिन है ॥३॥

तप-तपस्या के सहारे
इन्द्र बनना तो सरल है।
स्वर्ग का ऐश्वर्य पाकर
मद भुलाना ही कठिन है ॥४॥

Option 1) It is very easy to find a way forward for ourselves in the darkness. It costs few seconds.
Option 2) Removing the darkness and spread the light which will help all others, needs A LOT OF GUTS, SKILLS AND COURAGE TO MAKE A CHANGE

Option 1) Going outside for breakfast with a dissatisfaction with quality/ quantity is very easy. It costs just few bucks.
Option 2) But correcting the breakfast system inside takes A LOT OF GUTS, SKILLS AND COURAGE TO MAKE A CHANGE

Option 1) When someone is dissatisfied it is very very easy to boost that dissatisfaction saying “Yes you are right and should be like that only”. It costs just few seconds and words
Option 2) Maintaining the integrity of organisation and correcting the system which causes that is real challenge, because it needs A LOT OF GUTS, SKILLS AND COURAGE TO MAKE A CHANGE

Winners take 2.

Totto Chan – The Little Girl at the Window, Book extract

Recently i have finished reading Totto Chan a master piece book in the domain of education. The book is written by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, a famous television start from Japan. Just in a year of launch more than 5 millions copies got sold in Japan and millions of copies are sold till date in more than 50 languages around the world. The book is about her experiences learning at an unconventional school named Tomoe Gakuen. After reading the book the only feeling I had was a wish to have hundreds and thousands of Tomoe and Mr Kobayashi – the founder and principal of the school. This wonderful gem got distroyed during second world war.
Here are the excerpts from the book.

  • A child if does any mischief would be because of her curiosity and excitement about the new stuff. It would be of temporary nature and would be corrected automatically. Our job is not to control that behaviour but to observe and find ways to satisfy the curiosity.
  • A child wants to talk with you. Motivate them and give enough time to talk and ask questions. Complete growth of a child depends on how many questions they ask and how many you can answer well.
  • Teacher in morning can provide a list of things tobe done and and let students choose whatever they want to start with. Teacher observes the activities and finds further interest of child and helps them grow that while cultivating other interests too.  All Tasks tobe finished on that day but students can decide the order without a daily time table.
  • Songs and stories are very important for children. Anything you want to teach them and instruct them should be conveyed in form a sweet song or a story.
  • Let child work amongst them selves and let them be in nature. It will help them learn better and faster.
  • Let child do whatever they do. Teacher and parents are to observe only.
  • Let child experience everything they can. Construction, Chemicals, Travel, Industries, illness and etc.
  • To remove the fear let them be amongst the fear
  • Provide a platform so thy can be in communication and work relation with people of different kind and different nature.
  • Music is very important to learn for children and eurythmics and Lazim, can be a great tool for overall growth of children.
  • A Child should understand life death and care. Let them be amongst live of plants, pets and humans. This builds emotional intelligence.
  • Children will make cloths dirty and will torn them as well. Don’t make this an issue and let them enjoy that.
  • Motivate child for public communication.
  • Child should have a sense of earning. They may win a vegitable as gift for great performance and when all at home eat that, it would be a different feeling.
  • Train child to become global citizen, to accept all nationality and religion.
  • Have plenty of tours and picnics so child can have many interactions.
  • Books are very important for everyone. Cultivate habit of reading.
  • Train for agriculture, farming and gardening. Show them how food grows and how new lives takes place.
  • Teach to cook food occasionally, specially in group.
  • Teach them to cleaning their rooms, toilets, class rooms etc.

End of Reading Challenge 2015

 

Book Titles3The reading challenge of the year is about to end. I want to remind that reading challenge was about to read at least 12 books with around 3600 pages in total. The year is ending and I have finished my reading challenge and surpassed the page target by almost 40%. Apart from books several magazines also contribute into this number.

Here is a brief overview what I read in the year along with my recommendation. This is just a partial list and does not cover every book I read in this year.

1) The corner office: A fiction on dirty games of corporate world. I would prefer to watch movie Corporate rather reading this.

2) Sahara The untold story: Why Subrato Roy is in Jail? this question is almost as mind boggling as “Why Katappa killed bahubali” lolzz. Though the book doesn’t answer it exactly but at least convinces us that there is no specific answer of this question. It epilogues the the events finely and aspiring professionals and fresh managers should read this book to understand the importance of values and business best practices.

3) How google works: A great book written by great leader of google Eric Schmidt. The book allows you to look inside the famous google culture. Startups should read it.

4) The day I stopped drinking milk: Sudha Murthy is once again fantabulous with this book. More than anything else she is a great story teller and this book doesn’t let you put it off unfinished. Good read for everyone.

5) The Best place to work: Ron Friedman has done research on work environment, working patterns, disciplines and organizational cultures of some of the famous organizations of silicon valley. He has compiled this book with his findings. Interesting read for HR people.

6) Symphony of Krishna: I had read Gujarati version of this book written by Gunavant Shah. The book is actually his critics on Bhagvad Gita. Though good, there are multiple other options as well on same subject.

7) Jay Somnath: K M Munshi the famous historian, author, political leader and teacher has written Jay Somnath on the event of Muhamad of Gazani’s attack on Somnath temple. Consider yourself anything but not Indian if this book does not increase the force of blood, tears and shame in your eyes. MUST read.

8) Glass is Half Full: A very small collection of sweet memories and stories about professional life of the author. This fast and witty read would be available only in AMA book store at Ahmedabad I guess.

9) Leadership:  A collection of quotes, stories, case and incidents on leadership by Mukesh Patel. Again a Publication of Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA).

10) How google tests software: I strongly recommend this book to every young technology graduate entering in to the world of programming and software. It helps you learn how could google launch such exponential number of products with extreme quality standards. This may help every programmer become fundamentally better.

11) The everything store: The story of how Amazon and jeff bezos has evolved in last almost 20 years. Have a very quick view on this book if you are really interested. As far as corporate learning is considered, you can skip this.

12) Market your way to growth: The Kotler “baba” is back with this book and as like every of his past Marketing books he leaves you full of thoughts. Great!

13) Zero to One: An all time great book on startups, entrepreneurship and business. I don’t think it needs any review as I would be amongst the last chunk of readers of this book.

14) Richest many in Babylon: Age old book on financial wisdom. It is something like Panchatantra and Hitopdesh we do have in India. Author has formed stories of babylon to teach best practices to stay financially healthy. Good for young graduates.

15) Malti Madhav: Malti madahv is Sanskrit fiction written by Bhavbhuti before almost 1300 years. This helps you understanding the human psychology, and timeless principals of love, hate and politics. Refreshes you.

16) Yugdrashta: The Marathi writer B D Kher has written this book in a form of story on the life of Chanakya. The man him self is a fascinating personality and book helps you understanding his life and views in better way. In fact it motivates a lot. I must admit that this book only has prepared me for my Bangalore stints!

17) 64 Summar Hill: A sizable novel written by Dhaivat Trivedi and same was published in local news paper as a weekly series. I have heard praise for this book from several people and indeed it deserves same. But typically not a book of my taste.

Thus is end of my reading challenge of this year. Preparing for the 2016. Stay tuned!

10 Things you should do before being a Professional (Do these as Student)

Though education is a never ending process and one should remain a student for life, actual student life for everyone ends anywhere between 20 and 26. Yes 30 is too old but in few courses it happens. Core focus of our education is always the grades and marks. We start learning the lessons of life once we come out from university and actually go into the professional world. In my career i have seen students or freshers not knowing things like

  1. How to take print outs from a word document
  2. How to save a PDF file from internet and bring it to a different PC
  3. Counting a bundle of notes of mix denomination
  4. Depositing their first salary check in to the bank
  5. Getting beans sprouted for next day breakfast
  6. Formatting a computer

This proves our Education has prepared us for university exams but not for life. There are several other things which educates us for life and i recommend teenagers and youngsters doing these as early as possible in their lives. You would never get a chance to do majority of these things after student life.

Here is my list of 10 things every student and fresh graduate must accomplish before they enter the professional career.

1) Work long hours and nights

Work life balance is just a sweet phrase and a bitter lie, specially for achievers. You have a lot of free time with almost zero responsibility. Put up your consistent 24 hours, 34 hours or 40 hours for something, some interesting project or activity without sleeping breaks (Mind your health as well). Do it at least 2 times in a quarter. Increase your limits, increase your efficiency. Build a desire to “Finish” something and feel satisfied with that. This will actually help having some work life balance later in the life when you have a spouse and kids to share your time with.

2) Talk in Public

Yes communication and public speaking is essential for corporate growth and i have seen hundreds and thousands of aspiring professionals struggling with this, hence with their career. It is very easy to get a chance to speak in public as a student. You have several options like college functions, class talks, competitions, project presentations and discussions within your own groups. Be courageous and build some guts of public speaking at this age. There would be too little chance to learn this essential corporate skill in corporate world.

3) Visit companies and people

Do you if any company in this world will let you enter their shop floor while you are working as a software engineer with some different company? absolutely not, but as a student you have that privilege to get through the scrutiny and see various factories, companies, offices and institutions. You can absolutely start this with organization where your parents work. Go inside,  meet people, see those giant machines and understand the processes. Interact with professionals not only of your domain of interest or education but with all others. try to meet few good doctors, few architects, supervisors of factories and software test engineers of IT company. this will broaden your vision and help you making better career decision. Yes only thing you need to learn prior is better human antiquates and skill of asking right questions.

4) Do Jobs, Projects and Training with industries

Being an Intern is a matter of pride and working on various projects with or without any payment is a great way to learn. Again you should diversify your training experience starting from a cake shop to a restaurant to a factory to an accounting firm to a software company to a great startup like Milople to a huge organization like Google. Everyone will help you for sure if your behavior is polite, you are sincerely committed to your work and your intentions are good for being there.

5) Getting fired

I have fired fresh graduates sometimes and learnt that getting fired is an important event in life. I have observed people getting fired in one job doing very well in their next job. Because they have learnt “What not to do” at profession. Be it a performance issue or behavioral one, getting fired should be considered as a lesson with punishment, which otherwise you might not learn. So if you are getting fired, thank god for this and learn everything you need to learn here. Yes this should not happen second time ever in life!

6) Managing Accounts of Time

Be it money or time, managing accounts of everything helps you tracking how you actually use (and misuse) your valuable resources. You should keep a book or app in which you can write about your usage of time and money and make totals everyday. Build a spirit to improve it on everyday bases. This may make you most productive person from the day one of your professional career.

7) Be an expert

Start with smallest thing like sweeping your room and expand it to anything like repairing a complex wrist watch. Be an EXPERT of something. There are hundreds and thousands of functions in this world tobe entertained and you should start being an expert of many things right away. Be an expert in cleaning the home, preparing garden, repairing bicycle, algebra, graph theory, machine drawing, shopping from streets, preparing breakfasts, designing web sites and making mobile applications. Anything but many things of your choice.

7) Cultivate many hobbies

Having hobbies is good and being an expert is superior but being a student you have more options to do at this age. You are not yet fixed into a professional discipline and hobbies will give you closer view of many disciplines and identify your real talent. Don’t limit yourself to one or two but expand your hobbies and get interest at least for sometime even if it doesn’t interest you at all. Gardening, sports, swimming, chess, painting, making movies, photography, playing flute, learning new languages. There are many.

8) Be a backpacker

Being a backpacker and wondering the streets of unknown places is a ultimate teacher. We have very very little or tends to zero awareness in India for this but I feel one of the main reasons of success of western countries is backpacking culture of their people. Arrange for your own expenses. be in group or be alone and leave the home for sometime anywhere between 1 to 4 months. Yes travel is a costly stuff but you can make it cheapest. Travel by general class of train, leave in Dharmashalas, Eat beans and vegitables, walk 10-15 kilometres everyday in the city, these are all the ways to save a lot while travel a lot. Nothing will prepare you for life better than this. Believe me this is something I regret most for not doing in my life at student age. This I realized during my early days at Banaglore.

9) Reading

Apart from your studies, you should read a lot of other stuff. Cultivate the habit of reading a daily newspaper first. Go for magazines and books then. By any means you should spend an hour every day for reading new things. Books, magazines and authors I strongly recommend to read at early life are

  1. Shreemad Bhagvad Git. Dont chant, read and try to understand.
  2. Biography of Swami Vivekanand and at least 5 other people
  3. Safari magazine which comes in Gujarati and English language
  4. A magazine or Blog of your domain of education
  5. Few books on Indian history
  6. Chanakya, Savarkar, Shivaji, Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, K M Munshi, APJ Kalam
  7. Robin Sharma, Warren Buffet, Dipak Chopra, Joseph Murphy amongst International authors
  8. Stories of organizations like Tata, Google, Apple, TCS, Amazon

10) Educate others

You should learn lessons from social and charity work specially by educating someone. This passes knowledge to next level and helps you improving your communication, having empathy being a good manager and a future leader.

I wish if we can have many students trying to accomplish all these during early life when they are students. This will not only help them kick starting their career well but also help us building a better society and stronger country.

Though there are several other things you can do as student, my list covers 10 most important things as per my knowledge and beliefs. One can suggest more new topics as well as discuss the points I have written in comment section bellow.

All the Best!

A new challenge for buyers and e-commerce companies in market place model

Indian ecommerce is booming and growing leaps and bounds every day.
Smaller players are coming out every day and selling niche products. Yet market is not very mature for specialized products stores like western countries. e-commerce is dominated by 2-3 large players only and they are now adopting marketplace model.
As ecommerce companies like FlipKart, Amazon and Snapdeal is changing their model to Marketplace, it is rising a new challenge both for companies and users. People experience different prices of the products on search result and on product page it self.
Flipkart and Amazon
This is being experienced because of different algorithm implemented to fetch e best price for the product. When buyers observe this specially on FlipKart it seems like they are putting all responsibility on seller and buyer only. This approach to marketplace model may hurt the business as buyer has an additional responsibility to check seller’s credibility as well and not only of product quality. Earlier we were all set to buy a product on the name of ecommerece site it self but that is no more a fact. You will have to settle for lower price against a seller who you don’t know how exactly is. E-commerce companies need to find a way to help buyers making buying decisions easier and faster.

As per the screenshots Amazon algorithm is a bit better and they also mention range or start point of price from various sellers. “Amazon fulfilled” is also very important sign for buyers

Here now the comment section is open for discussion about Pros and cons of Marketplace model. Happy Discussion!

Who Exactly a Milopler is?

It is Saturday night, I am alone in the office working on some stuff which otherwise is not possible to attend in regular days.

Even though it’s Saturday Bhupendra and Jaydeep were here almost for the entire day, working on some Angular.js application. I have not invited them neither forced them to be in the office on this off-day but still, they joined me for the day to learn things and move an important product ahead. All credits go to them for this enthusiasm they are showing towards their work and Milople.

At Milople, we are creating the largest happy organization on the planet. We are creating something that impacts millions across the world, that is huge and extraordinary in nature. And one who does this is Milopler. To create something different the people involved are also required to be different.

I would love to share today the real definition of “Milopler”, How do we want them to be and what we would be looking for while recruiting a new one. Any person not fitting these fundamentals is not a good fit, at least for Milople.

While explaining this I will randomly use “He” or “She” to address Milopler.

Excellence

He is an expert of what he does. Technology, Marketing, HR, Designs, Programming or anything, he is the master player of the stuff he is doing. He has the burning desire to be one and to remain there for long. She knows how to use technology and tools she has, to render the excellent output. We don’t expect her to be an M.Tech by education but a Master by profession. anything less than that is not acceptable.

Learning

Either of 20 or 80, a person who does not learn is dead. A Milopler is a learning animal. She travels a lot, meets new people, keeps interacting, reads extensively and surfs the web and experiments a lot, to learn new things in her own domain and explores outside it too.

Execution

She is the master executor of plans and projects. He just not talks but converts ideas into actions and actions into results. He knows how to convert knowledge into output. He believes in delivery and he is committed to deliver, irrespective of time, place or anything. He is obsessed to finish stuff at its best and feels restless until he does so. He performs brilliantly, not just in 9 to 6.

Innovation

He is the fire hose of new Ideas. He starts his day with a lot of new ideas and ends with a lot of work done. She finds problems everywhere and loves finding creative solutions for these. She is passionate about doing this in the most innovative and creative way.

Business Smart

She loves data and knows how to analyze this data to make better business decisions. Be it preparing menu for the Annual day dinner or delivering the next version of a product, he senses data very well and makes better business decisions based on that. He is business smart and knows how to bring knowledge or innovation to the user and convert it into profit. Milopler is not a clerk waiting for the next task and instructions to be performed every hour. She knows how to use her time in the most profitable way.

A Born Leader

He is a change agent and hates things not being executed well. She takes initiatives, hugs the challenges and carries the responsibilities. She does not wait for a title in order to make an impact but makes an impact because she feels her existence is useless otherwise. He builds a team of A-Grade people around him and builds super successful solutions for consumers.

Excellent Individual

He is not great just at work but at life. he is passionate not only for programming but for many other things as well. Be it cooking, driving, repairing bicycles, football, cricket, playing guitar, dancing, teaching or anything, she is passionate for stuff, she is passionate for life. The meaning of quality for her is living a wonderful life with discipline and not just a job profile. She can not be a potato couch ever!

Collaborator

She collaborates with the team. For learning, for training, for better customer experience. He communicates well. He expresses his knowledge and idea in a flourishing way during one-to-one and one-to-many.

Motivation

Yes, Milople promises for the finest rewards and remuneration in the world. But all these she is doing is not for money but for work. She is not motivated by money but by work. This is something which I have said to Jaydeep while awarding a project. I don’t want a person whom I could tell to work late nights and on weekends. Rather I want a person who keeps working days and nights just because he is obsessed with things he is learning and results he would be delivering. A day doesn’t end for him till he achieves this.

Brand Ambassador

She is the supermodel and brand ambassador for Milople. She is the power user of all the products we deliver and passionate to keep the cultural bar highest at the company. He bites any action or behavior that is unhealthy for the company immediately and would not tolerate anyone breaking sterling standards of the company. Business values of Milople are at her heart and follow herself and make others following same.

Impact

Every person may not have 100% of all these but they strive to achieve these as part of living a successful life. With all these, a single point agenda is to make an “Impact”. Their Impact on the company, society, customers, and the world. He consciously knows how much impact the vision of Milople would have on this world and he is consciously striving and acting to make her own impact on this Vision itself.

The way forward is much clearer now and I hope for the current and future Miloplers too. I would be happy discussing your views and suggestions in the comments section below.

Google, Facebook, Airtel, Reliance, Flipkart are you Net Neutral?

Since last few days a debate about Net Neutrality is going on among Netizens. Airtel Zero, TRI, Government, DOT, Flipkart, Inertnet.org, Facebook and Reliance geo are the important entities involved into this. Let’s see what the case is.

The public infrastructure should be equally accessible to everyone. Irrespective of gender, nationality, or wealth a person should be able to access the same which others can. This is the fundamental of Net Neutrality. Internet should not be governed and controlled by anyone and you should not be forced to see or not to see any content on the Internet. The Free Internet is a term related to accessibility of it and not Cost.

Now we know the ideology of equality and Neutrality exists in theory only. Be it temple, roads, air or water the richer have more privilege then the poorer, or at least one would have to settle with less or no choices. You love to drink Pepsi but still you will have to settle with Coke, why? Because you get it “free” with the burger you are buying. Though it is not free, you are already paying cost of soft drink in burger only. But you still will have to buy it because you are forced to pay for it. In some cases you can buy Pepsi as well but at additional cost. And again only if they sell both.

That is what Airtel Zero, Facebook’s Internet.org and Reliance Geo is doing.

They are offering free internet access to users. But finally we know not even meals are free how Internet can be. There are many apps, websites, stores and Internet based companies selling their products and services online. The Telcos and these so called “Free Internet” providers charge these companies. Companies would be paying to be accessible on the Internet and against which the Telcos will block their competitors or will charge users if they use them. Like on Facebook’s free internet you will access Bing for free and that way Microsfot would fulfill their dream of being “No 1” Search engine. Or may be on telcos’ free internet you will be able to access Flipkart.com for free and wont be able to access amazon.in or will have to pay to use it. Mind will they will block hundreds and thousands of smaller sites as well during this.

The primary rules of Net Neutrality are:

  1. All sites and services must be equally accessible
  2. All sites must be accessible at same speed
  3. The cost of access must be same for each site

But none of the big or small companies are in mood of following this.

There are multiple views and consequences of this and here are my thoughts on it.

  • Cash reach Companies would be able to block competitors and this way will kill competition
  • There are chances Internet Startups having less cash in their pocket wont be able to compete for bandwidth. So this kills Startups and young entrepreneur with less financial backup.
  • Users are getting free internet access but wont have many choices. Will have to settle with whatever they are receiving
  • There are chances free internet plans would be slower and will open up a new consumer segment who gets used to Internet and will move to faster, paid plans.
  • Free internet will help Internet companies increasing their customer base and revenue.
  • Companies would be diverting their marketing money to block competition so advertisement segment may impact adversely
  • As competition is removed there are chances of buyers receiving inferior quality of products and services

Flipkart.com was part of Airtel Zero actually and after being criticized heavily, Just in 48 hours Flipkart has started talking about Net Neutrality. Telcos are really being hungry eating out superb revenue flow of Internet based companies and trying out all the ways to do so. When and how? It is just matter of time.

In the society where the access to god is even not neutral, how can we talk on Net Neutrality.

5 important aspects about Facebook pages

While passing by the journey we come across a point where the roads get diverged and both the paths lead to its desired destinations having their own advantages and disadvantages. In that case we are left with a little option to ask the other people passing by about which path we should take for a better result!

The same happened with us while we were re-branding from Indies to Milople. We re-branded ourselves successfully on website. We were almost done until we reached at a diverging point. The point was social media. Yes, the most important aspect of Marketing and branding for any IT or non IT Company. Social media can make or break your re-branding strategy and online presence.

We have planned differently for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Youtube and other social media platforms as target audience and needs are different for all these. We decided to merge our multiple profiles into single page but the tough question was what to do with HR profile which manages recruitment, events and other HR related activities. While target customer segment of Milople is quite different, it also needs to be in live touch with college grades and Young professionals. We also organize an HR event named “Avishkar” to engage with young graduates. We understand this would be case with many of the IT and Non IT companies as well and hence here is excerpts of our discussion and conclusion.

Considerations:

Audience: An IT company’s target audience on HR front comprises of Students, IT geeks and developers. So, posts such as Current openings, latest digital news gather more engagement then that of corporate posts. Considering students and early developers as target audience, will they be interested in Technology and corporate posts? Obviously yes, since both the segments will be curious in knowing the latest news related to HR, their favorite area updates and overall information about the company. So, providing separate pages for HR and technical areas will make them distributed leaving nowhere with half-information. Single page solves the problem as needed information gets available at single platform itself.

Event post: Milople like few other major IT Companies conducts IT-fest/Tech-fest events in order to encourage students in their favorite area of expertise. From company’s perspective, it’s an HR cum branding event. Infosys has got AAGAAZ, TCS has got SHAASTRA, and we have AVISHKAR. So, whether to have a separate Facebook page of these particular event was the next question! It looks good at first sight. Separate page will have overall branding of the event. All the posts related to the event would be made available on a single page and many other boons, too. But, the question is for how long will you make your Facebook event page active with the posts? During the season of events, we will be having a perfect flow of the posts. But, what once the event is over? What will we post? Will the likers still like the post if it’s not related to event? To answer this question we came up with the solution to make event posting on the single corporate page itself and create a Facebook event for the same. Doing this will make the audience know about the event and they will even get additional information such as company details, HR news, technical knowledge etc.

Data Analysis: The most important and crucial analysis of having a single page. We can track posts, its reach and user-engagement. Accordingly, conclude on the following points:

  • Which type of post fetches more “likes”?
  • Best suited time for posting according to post reach
  • What’s the overall user engagement of the page?
  • Who are our active users?
  • Segment the right target audience

Postings: Sometimes it happens (especially when you are dealing with product side) that one of your products is updated and we need to show the updated benefits on Facebook. If we are managing multiple pages then same post needs to be done on multiple pages such as corporate page, customer page and even the technical page of that particular domain. This results into division of reach resulting into decrement of the post visibility. Moreover, the common likers of the above mentioned pages might get irritated and leave the page. So, maintaining single page will solve the above issue. But, single page is liked by everyone – Whether student mass will accept these kind of post? Whether it will attract rising developers? Most probably yes, because seeing today’s world people are more attracted towards practical knowledge then that available from books.

SEO: When a company has its presence of different verticals such as Ecommerce, Web and software, Mobile apps, Magento etc. it becomes difficult to maintain single Facebook page from SEO’s perspective. Because single page will have diversified post with none of the two posts having same keywords in sequence. Now, it becomes tough for Google while ranking company’s Facebook page. Whereas, the same is not the case if you are into single vertical (say for example Magento) or have multiple Facebook page. Here, each page will have its own uniqueness and thus it will become a cake walk for a company from SEO’s perspective.

At the end of the day it doesn’t matter whether a company maintains single Facebook page or multiple pages. What matters most is the user-engagement, the conversions and the reach. Infosys maintains a single page whereas Congnizant have multiple pages. But, both the companies are successful in their own takes. Finally, we took decision of maintaining a single Facebook page with name Milople after a crazy, long discussion. The above mentioned facts were all discussed in that meeting which we thought should be passed by and thus marked this blog. And yes one more thing, there was one valid point from brand’s perspective: “It’s good to have 25k likes on a single page then to have 5k likes on 5 different pages ;)”

Note: I Thank all my fellow Miloplers tobe part of this discussion and specially Het Vaghela for drafting this post.