اخبار 1

Does man (and woman) have a foot fetish ? I think so. What is it about feet that makes people get completely bowled over by the marketers and pamper and cosset it. No I'm not talking about the ridiculous pedicure . I'm talking about footwear and the amounts we splash on it.Each one of us is an Imelda Marcos - before you snigger, go and count the footwear in the shoe rack. Hyperbole dominates the footwear marketing industry. To think that by wearing "LeBron Zoom Soldier", I'll be able to dunk a basketball is pure fantasy, but it appears I am willing to buy the dream for $299 or thereabouts.  The sight of a Rajalakshmi tottering on high heels on the mistaken assumption that it makes her a 6 footer is equally humorous - I don't have the heart to tell her that her width is somewhat more than her height ! But surely the game has been taken to an altogether new level by Under Armour . Under Armour is a sports outfit company. They mostly make sports clothing, shamele...

By any reckoning, this should be an extremely successful business. You have a fantastic distribution set up - reaching every nook and corner of your geography that nobody else can - in what is essentially a distribution business. You have an envious relationship with the consumers. In many places your representative was a trusted friend and confidante. People looked forward to his arrival. You had a state sanctioned monopoly. You have a significant price advantage. You enjoy innumerable fiscal benefits that no competitor enjoys. You have a great brand , so great that collection of your merchandise was a major hobby with an English word specifically only for this. Songs have been written about you that have reached the top of the charts - here (this is the first version - the Beatles and the Carpenters came later) , in case you are musically inclined.  With such advantages. you should be roaring away to glory, shouldn't you ? And yet you are a colossal failure and a sitting duck in...

There is one ritual that happens in all companies periodically without fail - an organisation restructuring. Old structures and divisions are thrown out of the window and new structures are announced. HR types take great pleasure in redrawing organisation charts, rewriting job descriptions and the like. Communication types have an orgasm designing communication packs and writing words like "restructuring to stimulate growth", "bringing the organisation closer to consumers" and such other waffle. CEOs like to stand up to the press and announce the change , to make up for lack of anything else to say about their companies. MIcrosoft did just that today , the trigger for this post. Steve Ballmer's version of the blah blah is "We are ready to take Microsoft in bold new directions". Balderdash. I have never seen a more futile activity than an organisation rejig. And yet companies do it all the time. The pattern is all too predictable. If the current organis...

Apparently men are heavier than women.  Did you know that ?  In many parts of the globe, that is probably true, but in India ?? Can you believe that Rajalakshmi, she of the considerable proportions, is inferior to Ramamritham, when it comes to the weight stakes ?? I somehow, seriously doubt that. But not, it appears GoAir, an India based airline.  This is the news from GoAir , that set off this post. Cabin attendants, flight attendants, stew, whatever name you wish to call them, are predominantly women, everywhere in the world. It all started in the initial days of flying. A pretty young air hostess was part of the decor of the plane. Nervous travelers, usually pot bellied men, could relax by looking at a smiling pretty face. As the years went by, the pot bellied business traveler remained the same, at least pot belly wise, but the nervousness disappeared. The flight attendants meanwhile aged, and age discrimination laws in the US and Europe ensure that these days its a matronly woman ...