GROWTH IDEAS PATH

There are significant benefits to becoming a listed company, including access to public market capital to fund growth, research and development, new product introductions, and acquisition opportunities. An initial public offering (IPO) can also have a significant impact on your company’s brand and ability to compete in the marketplace. However, ensuring you are actually ready to operate as public company is critical before making the leap. With regards to main board IPO the conventional wisdom says that growth companies get ready to go public when they reach a certain revenue threshold in annualized sales and has at least few years and quarters of profitability under their belts. This theory is based on the idea that a company must be large enough to both: (a) withstand competitive pressures and (b) earn a large enough market value to enable the company to sell enough stock to institutional buyers in its IPO, without suffering massive dilution in the process.   However...

Every organization in today’s IT led world is witnessing unforeseen levels of competition for clients, customers, capital, talent, resources and space in media for message communication & coverage. Combine it with various challenges and uncertainty in business and economic environment, it’s not easy for your organization to maintain desired level of goodwill, reputation and growth.    To prevail these situations reputation becomes one of your most crucial assets and a critical factor for success. Your organization can actively plan and build a good reputation through Public Relations and effective Message Communication. Public Relations is about reputation — the result of what you do; what you say and what others say about you. Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation with the aim of earning understanding, support and influencing opinion and behavior. Drivers of Good Reputation. Business wisdom says that businesses can be built overnigh...

Bill Gates was once quoted famously saying “If I was down to my last dollar, I would spend it on Public Relations ” If the richest man on Earth values PR so much, why many of us still take a myopic view of the discipline that has been part of human evolution journey. PR is all about relationships and without it human evolution would have not been possible. We have often come across public relations function treated as an insignificant cousin of marketing or corporate strategy. We are often the first consultants on the chopping block when a share price takes a nose dive and cash flow is under the microscope. However, the good thing is this reality is slowly and steadily changing. There are scores of company directors today who take opposing view and understand that when the going gets tough – that is the time you need PR the most. It is the time you need solidarity, support and solution to deal with adverse situation.  You see when it comes to PR – it’s all about laying the...

I ndia is country of 1.4 million small and medium enterprise (SME) businesses. As of now there are over 300 companies listed on the SME platform of Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange and several hundred companies are expected to list in the near future. I happen to interact with the top management of many SME companies and majority of them were confused about the value PR can bring to their businesses and reputation.   Although most big companies today understand public relations is important, but for SMEs PR is still an obscure concept. The question SMEs often ask is how will PR help me take my business to the next level? The simple answer is when it comes to modern organisations business plans, public relations (PR) represent an important tool in the marketing mix, actively and continuously differentiating brands from the competition and speaking directly to audiences. Here are just a few reasons why PR is a must-have for every SME communication strateg...

Integrated Marketing Communications is a simple concept. It ensures that all forms of communications and messages are carefully linked together. At its most basic level, Integrated Marketing Communications, or IMC, as we'll call it, means integrating all the promotional tools, so that they work together in harmony. Promotion is one of the Ps in the marketing mix. Promotions has its own mix of communications tools. All of these communications tools work better if they work together in harmony rather than in isolation. Their sum is greater than their parts - providing they speak consistently with one voice all the time, every time. This is enhanced when integration goes beyond just the basic communications tools. There are other levels of integration such as Horizontal, Vertical, Internal, External and Data integration. Here is how they help to strengthen Integrated Communications. Horizontal Integration occurs across the marketing mix and acros...

Gone are the days where PR was measured on the basis of quantum of coverage got from press release disseminated, attendance of hundreds of media at a press conference or for that matter calculation of MAVs & CCMs of coverage. Companies are now opening up to the idea of running creative PR campaigns which can be aligned to meet its business and communication goals. Similarly, PR agencies are also evolving themselves to craft creative and effective PR campaigns which are backed with intensive research, understanding of the company, industry, trends, socio-economic and cultural scenarios etc.. So what could be some factors to be considered to create a compelling PR campaign? 1.         Target Audience First and foremost understanding the target audience of your client is of utmost importance. We should thoroughly understand the consumer segment the company would like to reach out to, what they read, their choices, their key influencers etc. T...

  Hindi newspapers   sold the largest number of copies among   daily newspapers   in all languages in India, clocking a circulation of a little over 15 million during the   July-December 2012 period. This was followed by English newspapers with a circulation of over 9 million during the period, according to   Audit Bureau of Circulations   (ABC). Among other languages, Marathi newspapers came third in the pecking order with a certified circulation of 5.4 million, while the fourth spot was taken by Malayalam newspapers with a circulation of around 4 million. Tamil and Telugu daily newspapers took the fifth and sixth spot with a circulation of roughly 3.9 million and 3.7 million, respectively, while Bengali newspapers came seventh with 2.7 million. Kannada newspapers took the eighth spot with a circulation of around 2 million. Punjabi with a circulation of 8.4 lakh was ninth on the list, followed by Oriya with a circulation of 4.8 lakh on the 10t...