Posts Tagged ‘case studies’

The Entrepreneur Spotlight for January 2012 is on Sumitra Senapaty, the spunky lady behind the WOW Club- Women On Wanderlust

 

Name: Sumitra Senapaty

Name of your Venture/Enterprise: WOW Club – Women On Wanderlust.

Office Address: 703, Anand Lok CGHS, Mayur Vihar Phase I, Delhi 110091

 

Email: me@wowsumitra.com

 

Website: www.wowsumitra.com

 

When did you start your venture? Summer of 2005

 

What did you do before you started it? Worked in leading hotel chains of India, worked in leading media companies, worked as free lance travel writer and life style writer.

 

What prompted you to start it? It was my passion for travel that I wanted to share with women who have the same passion but are unable to travel.

 

Any inspirations/role models: Women of contemporary India

 

What qualities do you possess and believe are the main reasons why you took this step? Training in hospitality business, my knowledge of leading tourist destinations, and passion for travel and to share my experience.

 

Do you belong to a business family/are you a first generation entrepreneur? First generation entrepreneur.

 

Where did you look for finance? My savings

 

How long did it take to break even? 6 months.

 

Comment on your support system: friends/family/spouse/customers. spouse, customers: I had the full support from my family without which WOW wouldn’t be what it is today.

 

How do you use the internet to promote and run your business? Extensively. The entire business works on it till the final stages of actual booking.

 

What would you have done without the internet? Would have taken lot of time, personnel and money to get to where WOW has reached

 

What are your future plans for expansion?

• To have regional offices in India, franchisees in major metros, and overseas.
• To have a social element attached to WOW.

 

How much interest have you generated in the media/customers? Immense interest in media and among the customers as WOW is the pioneer for providing such a platform to women in the country.

 

Where do you see yourself five years down the line? To be able to achieve what I have set out to do – expand WOW throughout the length and breadth of India, and even the world through support offices in metros and franchisees.

 

What’s your advice to budding entrepreneurs? Follow your heart.

 

If you had to do things all over again what changes would you make? None.

 

What problems did you face? The only problem is how to reach out to the millions in a cost effective manner.

 

How did you overcome them? By informing the press of this concept and the rest was done by word of mouth by those who traveled with WOW and swear by it.

Any more creative ideas on the anvil? Yes, sure there are loads of ideas. Some surprises coming up shortly.

 

What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

S is my sincerity.

W is my not being able to find more time for WOW.

O millions of upper middle class women wanting to experience freedom and me time through holidays… getting away from it all.

T ‘Me-too’ products that have started copying and may not deliver thereby destroying the credibility of this concept.

 

What innovative ways of doing business are you using? Using the inexpensive medium of net to do business, keeping staff strength low to ensure the commitment and conviction of the staff and right message to the travelers, using media to spread the work instead of advertisement, cementing the loyalty with plenty of events, which also helps in brand building.

 

What are your views on customer relationship management? Retain them at any cost because getting business from one own’s customers is a lot cheaper than finding new ones. They also bring in more customers who are already sold on the idea.

 

What tech savvy initiatives do you hope to use in future? Too early to comment as new technology keeps surfacing almost on daily basis

Do you have any experiences that you’d like to share with others? Innumerable to note down here, I am writing a book for this.

 

What makes you different from your competitors?

• Very personalized and safe for women.
• Based on good faith and trust.
• Well researched itineraries.
• Single window for all travel related products.
• WOW is not merely a travel agency – WOW is a complete travel facility and social platform for women.

In times when technology pervades every aspect of human life, when people are connected all the time, when gadgets, gizmos and applications are a big part of our existence there are some businesses which are excelling as they go back to the basics.  I’ve always been one for standing out in the crowd and today let’s talk about standing out in a crowded marketplace with a product that’s simplistic and yet manages to grab attention.

Here’s why good business today is really about going back to the basics, taking a leaf out of the traditional drinks market in India…

Fresh not Tinned or Canned

The scorching summer heat really gets people across India down and very thirsty.  No amounts of aerated drinks quench your thirst the way a glass of sugarcane juice does.  Considering the fact that most people crave a glass of sugarcane juice but are put off by the sheer lack of hygiene at sugarcane stalls, the gap in the market…a cool place to drink fresh sugarcane juice was discovered by Srinivas Rao and his son Santosh.

Cane-o-la, a chain of air-conditioned kiosks serving fresh, hygienic sugarcane juice, strategically positioned across residential areas and IT parks is the place to find fresh sugarcane juice blended with lime, mint, pepper, chaat masala.

The father-son duo grow their own sugarcane in Mandya, Karnataka, and Kadappa, Andhra Pradesh and serve up fresh juice in clean environments to sell over 1,000 glasses each per day, at Rs 10-12 a glass.

What you can learn from Cane-o-la is that people are always looking for simple things to solve their problems or quench their thirst.  Sometimes lack of freshness or hygiene act as deterrents and you can service this gap with a basic product tweaked to meet the need of the times.

A Simple Lifestyle Change

Since this piece was inspired by the traditional drinks market in India its only natural that I give you another example of a business model built on a traditional drink.  This time its packaged coconut water.

Savinay Jain and Mayank Sethia, the duo behind Coco Loco, a coconut water brand hit upon the idea as they used to watch corporate executives queuing up at the roadside coconut water-seller in Gurgaon. They hit bulls eye with the coconuts, ‘quality-checked’ and graded, come from Gujarat and West Bengal and a health conscious crowd which is looking for a lifestyle change.  Coconut water served up in a sanitized environment.

Probably something that the Jumbo King vada pav brand did too.  Adopting the Mac Donald’s model of hygiene, product packaging, extension and delivery it took the Indian burger to a new level.  People are looking for lifestyle changes and it’s not necessary that they would want to eliminate a product or service which is traditional or staple.  You have to find a way of giving them that.

Capitalizing on Culture

A visit to an Indian home is incomplete without a traditional Indian drink.  Apart from tea, coffee people serve buttermilk (sweet and sour), lime juice and the like.  Capitalizing on this cultural aspect are some small players and some really big brands.

Amul’s spiced buttermilk, thandai and flavoured lassi, Coca Cola’s lemon drink Minute Maid Nimbu Fresh (“Bilkul ghar jaisa”) and PepsiCo has desi cooler, Nimbooz, with the tagline, “Ekdum Asli Indian”. 

If you are thinking of setting up a business, look for simple solutions that make people’s lives better, save time and deliver quality.  You don’t have to be too futuristic; a basic product with small changes should do just fine!

 

Image:  http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2888

 

This is a guest post by Alvina Lopez

 

The unfortunate passing of Steve Jobs signals a great loss not just for the technology industry, but for the millions who were inspired by the various revolutionary products that we all now enjoy thanks to this great mind. But Jobs was more than just a tech-wiz. He was an incredible innovator and forward-thinking entrepreneur. Here are a few lessons we can learn from his example:

1.      Your career path doesn’t have to be planned out.

One thing that Steve Jobs reiterated when he had attained his fame and fortune was that you can’t conceive of your career as something linear. When Jobs was young, he never finished college, he went to India for an extensive period of time to find himself, and he was generally never worried about how his “career path,” something that many entrepreneurs fret over. If you feel anxious about the way that your job history looks, just remember that it won’t all come together immediately.

2.      Presentation of the product is just as important as quality of the product.

Apple is arguably the most successful company in the world, but interestingly enough, its products aren’t necessarily the very best. There are various smart phones on the market that can do more than the iPhone, but what has made the iPhone and so many other Apple products more successful is that the packaging—the design– and the overall user experience is better. 

3.      Failure is necessary for success.

In one of those most public firings of all time, Steve Jobs was essentially let go from Apple in 1985, despite the fact that he created the company. Although he admits to being incredibly devastated for a few months, he picked himself up and went on to found two other companies, NeXT and Pixar Studios. Eventually, Jobs was reinstated as CEO of Apple in 1996, after which Apple went on to be wildly successful. Of course, being discouraged by failure is normal. Learning from failure is the next necessary step to improve your abilities as an entrepreneur.

4.      Do what you love.

You’ve probably been told this millions of times, but it’s amazing how so few people truly stick to doing only what they are passionate about. Steve Jobs was relentless about pursuing work that interested him. It’s the only way to keep you sustained and motivated enough to succeed. As such, if you want to be successful, don’t focus on success. Focus on your passion, and success will follow you.

While we mourn the death of one of the greatest minds of the 21^st century, let’s follow his vision as we hope to take our businesses and success as far as Jobs did. It all starts with dreaming big!

By-line:

Alvina Lopez is a freelance writer and blog junkie, who blogs about accredited online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez @gmail.com. 

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1803