Strategic tools for the practising manager

KIT

THIS WEEK: CONSUMER SPENDING PATTERNS "" PREMIUM TIMEWEAR

The Indian luxury time wear market is worth about Rs 5,386 crore. Among the affluent urban consumers, the penetration level last year was 77 per cent for men and 31 per cent for women.

This indicates that watches are more of an accessory for women than a chronological device. Comparatively, premium watches are a style statement for men.

The per capita annual spend on premium watches is Rs 23,000 for men and Rs 42,000 for women.

Buyers up to 30 years incur the highest spends on luxury time wear. In this segment, women buyers account for spends of Rs 46,000 and men for Rs 76,000 per head.

Male buyers living in metros spent about Rs 27,000 per head on buying premium watches. This is a conseque- nce of a trend wherein metro consumers opt for designer brands priced above Rs 25,000. Comparatively, men living in non-metros spent about Rs 15,000 per head on premium watches.

Men from north India account for the highest spends, spending about Rs 31,500 per head. Men from western India are the second-highest spenders on premium watches, spending about Rs 20,000 per head.

Similarly, women from North India tend to incur the highest spends on watches, splurging about Rs 38,000 on watches per head. They're followed by women from South India who spend about Rs 22,000 per head on luxury timewear.

Selections from management journals
NUGGETS

What portion of your cell phone's myriad features do you use? Market research shows that most mobile phone owners use less than 20 per cent.

The innovation that matters isn't what the innovator offers; it's what the customer adopts. And as companies recognise this, they're starting to use their customers as a source of innovative introspection.

In industry after industry, a shared model for innovation adoption is emerging. The most valuable "platforms" "" the tools and techno-logies used internally to discover, design and test new products and services "" can be creatively and cost-effectively sold or lent to customers, clients and prospects.

Customers get a chance to "try before they buy". They can adopt and test new ideas and technologies before investing in them. And the purveyors of new technologies rapidly gain insights into the potential value of their wares' insights that might otherwise take years to gather.

My customer, my co-innovator
strategy+business, Summer 2006,
By Michael Schrage

Read the complete article at http://www.strategy-business.com/magazine/

With more people buying used stuff, comp-anies now have to rethink everything from a product's durability to the terms of their warranties.

Here's a disturbing thought: Your customers may be perfectly happy to buy your products used.

You probably already knew that, though you may not have articulated it in quite that way. Today more people are buying stuff used than ever before, either out of economic necessity or for environmental reasons.

$44 billion worth of merchandise, much of it used, was sold via eBay in 2005, marking a 30 per cent increase in volume.

Dozens of product-specific auction sites are also booming, and Google and Microsoft recently started services to compete with Craigslist "" a classifieds and forum website, where you can find jobs, housing, goods and services, social activities, a girlfriend or boyfriend, advice, community information, and just about anything else for free.

These massive e-garage sales have galvanised thousands of self-styled entrepreneurs and spawned a new genre of get-rich-quick books.

Three scary words: Buy it used
Inc Magazine,
September 2006, Max Chafkin

Read this article at www.inc.com/magazine