ALL you wanted to know about Company Deposits

Company Deposits are simply nothing but fixed deposits in companies that earn a fixed rate of return over a period of time. Company deposits are really down-to-earth products. The influential advantage of the company deposits is its plain simplicity. Company deposit is understood even by the most novices among the investors community.

Have you ever wondered the logic behind why pure vanilla flavored ice cream sells more than any other flavor? Similar logic is just as true when it comes to the company deposits vis-a-vis many other modern investment options.

With the meltdown of NBFCs almost a decade ago, company deposit market had a major slow down, but volumes still remain significant and there are loyal investors who prefer company deposits to other investment products.

Advantages of Company deposits:

• Assured return.
• Higher interest when compared to bank deposits.
• Low risk when compared to stock market investments.
• Service at your doorstep.
• Lock in period in most of the cases is 6 months only.
• If the interest income is less than Rs.5000 in one financial year, then NO TDS.

Risk in Company Deposits:

Company deposits are basically unsecured. That is if the company defaults in repaying the interest or principal, the investor will not be able to recover his capital. As a company deposit holder, you don’t have any lien on any asset of the company, in case it goes into financial difficulties. This makes the company deposits a risky investment option.

Identifying Risky Company Deposits:

One of the important tasks in investment planning in company deposits is to identify the risky company deposits and avoiding them. If you find any of the below symptoms in any of the company deposit scheme, then it is better to avoid such company deposit schemes.

• Poor credit ratings like A or lesser ratings.
• Companies making losses.
• Companies that skip dividends.
• Companies that offer higher than 3% to 4% of bank deposit rates.

Checklist for choosing right company deposits:

There are some good investment options in company deposits. Also there are some bad investment options. If you know how to select the right company deposit then company deposits can be really an interesting investment option in your portfolio.

• You need to ignore all the unrated companies and need to choose companies with the rating of AA or higher.
• Choose the company with better reputation within a given rating grade. If you read business papers and magazines periodically, it is not difficult for you to check the credentials of the company.
• Take the help of the qualified financial advisor in choosing the right company deposit. But mind you, there are very few reputed and qualified financial advisors.
• Company deposits need to be spread over a large number of companies in different industries. By this, you can diversify your risk. Irrespective of the rating and reputation of the company, don’t invest all your investments in a single company deposit scheme.
• You need to check on the servicing level and standard of the company. You need to ignore companies that don’t care or care little about issues like sending interest warrants and principal cheques.
• After investing in a company deposit, you need to constantly track the company’s credit rating. The times are uncertain and downgrades are rampant.
• Check the company’s balance sheet for its asset back up, profitability, reserves, existing borrowings and loans.

Every investment has its distinct features and benefits. Likewise each investor has specific risk taking ability and personal needs. Professional investment planning needs matching of the product benefits and features with the financial objectives of the investors. So one need to weigh the various alternative investment options like bank deposits, debt funds vis-a-vis company deposits before making a choice.

The author is Ramalingam K, an MBA (Finance) and Certified Financial Planner. He is the Founder and Director of Holistic Investment Planners (http://www.holisticinvestment.in/mutualfund-sip) a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in.

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Where good ideas come from..

People often credit their ideas to individual "Eureka!" moments. But Steven Johnson shows how history tells a different story. His fascinating tour takes us from the "liquid networks" of London's coffee houses to Charles Darwin's long, slow hunch to today's high-velocity web.

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Real Estate Investments Made Simple:

Gold and Real estate are very traditional investment avenues. Gold has evolved from its traditional investing and found its place in the modern sophisticated investment world via Gold ETFs. Similarly Real estate is also emerging as an investor friendly avenue with less hassle via PMS route or private equity route. Have you ever thought of investing in real estate will one day be as simple as investing in mutual funds? If no please read on….

Real Estate as an Investment:

Buying a dream house or flat to reside ourselves is basically not a real estate investment. Buying real estate with a view to generate income and capital appreciation is considered as Real Estate investments. Real Estate investments can be further classified into residential, farm house, commercial, retail, leisure. Leisure is a relaxation place where one can spend their free time or vacation.

Depends upon his/her risk tolerance and time horizon one can invest in real estate at different risk levels. It can be at the time of converting a rural land to urban land, or at the time of building development stage or in already developed city area.

Real Estate and Risk:

Most often investors assume real estate prices will not fall down and they only go up year after year. It is not so. During the mid 2009 some of the real estate investments were quoting below 30% to 40% from their 2007 prices. Real Estate investments are also prone for price fluctuations.

Real estate Vs Stock market:

Real Estate is a complex and complicated investment when compared to stock market.

Non-transparent: There is no transparency in the price. It is not easy for a buyer or seller of real estate to identify the last transacted price in the same locality. There is no price discovery mechanism.

Illiquid Asset: Selling a real estate is a time consuming process. It is not liquidable easily. There is no organized market for the buyers and sellers to meet.

Impact Cost: Stamp duty and registration charges are really very heavy when compared to the other investment products.

No Regulator: There is no regulator for the real estate participants and intermediaries. Anyone can become a builder. Technical qualification is not mandatory. Also anyone can become a real estate intermediary or advisor. There is no certification or training to be completed before practicing. As there is no qualification requirement for participants as well as the intermediaries, it is very difficult to see best business practices.

Real Estate hassles:

The other hassles with reference to real estate investment are documentation, maintaining the asset without any encumbrances, and genuineness of the title deed.

There are some practical problems with diversification. Normally an investor invests in a real estate in his own locality. It is very rare to find someone in Chennai investing in the real estate properties located at Mumbai, Delhi or Kolkata. Affordability also limits diversification. An investor may not be able to diversify his investments across various cities with Rs.25 lacs or 50 lacs.

It may not be possible for an individual investor to buy a land and develop a viable project in that land and sell it in the market. Managing the project development need some kind of expertise. Even if an individual is able to do it, he will be doing it in his limited ways and means.

Is there a solution for this? Of late yes.

There are some collective investment vehicles. These investment vehicles will be promoted by an investment management company. The investment management companies collect money from investors. Being professionals, they will identify good projects and do joint venture with the project developers. They will be able to diversify across various cities as well as various types of real estate investments such as housing, commercial, hospitality and the like. These investment management companies charge a reasonable management fees.

At times they collect money via PMS route and at times via private equity route. The minimum investment ranges from 10 lacs to 25 lacs. This amount needs to be invested over a period of 3 years. That is they will collect money from investors in 4 or 5 installments. After 3^rd year whenever they exit from a project they will repay the principal employed in the project as well as the profit generated out of that project. End of 6^th year or 7^th year, the investment management company will exit from all the projects.

The advantages of this collective investment vehicle are

• One can invest into real estate without any hassles. All the hassles will be managed by the professional investment management companies.
• One can invest in various real estate projects at a time.
• One can geographically diversify his investments across India.
• One will be able to apportion his total investment into small sums in large projects like township development, Technology Park, industrial estate, health city…
• Cost advantage because of economies of large scale operation

This is really an investor friendly investment vehicle. Apart from the regular stocks, mutual funds and fixed deposit investments investors can consider investing in these real estate products also. This will give better diversification to your overall portfolio. Also Investors need to be careful in choosing such investment options. Background of the investment management company and their transparency levels are more important. Investors can seek the advice of the professional financial planners before investing.

This investment vehicle is in its primitive form only. It still needs to go a long way. As of now there are only a very few companies in India which specializes in promoting collective real estate investment products. But in a few years time these kinds of products will be available from various investment management companies and in different varieties like our present mutual fund schemes.

The author is Ramalingam K, an MBA (Finance) and Certified Financial Planner. He is the Director and Chief Financial Planner of Holistic Investment Planners (www.holisticinvestment.in) a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in.

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Roundup of Cloud Computing Forecasts and Market Estimates, 2012

The latest round of cloud computing forecasts released by Cisco, Deloitte, IDC, Forrester, Gartner, The 451 Group and others show how rapidly cloud computing’s adoption in enterprises is happening.  The better forecasts quantify just how and where adoption is and isn’t occurring and why.

Overall, this year’s forecasts have taken into account enterprise constraints more realistically  than prior years, yielding a more reasonable set of market estimates.  There still is much hype surrounding cloud computing forecasts as can be seen from some of the huge growth rates and market size estimates.  With the direction of forecasting by vertical market and process area however, constraints are making the market estimates more realistic.

I’ve summarized the links below for your reference:

• According to IDC, by 2015, about 24% of all new business software purchases will be of service-enabled software with SaaS delivery being 13.1% of worldwide software spending. IDC further predicts that 14.4% of applications spending will be SaaS-based in the same time period. Source: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=232239

• Mobile SaaS Market will reach $1.2 billion in 2011 and grow to $3.7 billion by 2016, with a five-year compound growth rate (CAGR) of 25.8 percent. The ability to integrate business applications on smartphones, tablets and other wireless devices is predicted to accelerate SaaS adoption in the corporate business environment. Source:http://www.analytics-magazine.org/special-articles/454-corporate-mobile-software-as-a-service-forecast-

• The cloud computing marketplace will reach $16.7B in revenue by 2013, according to a new report from the 451 Market Monitor, a market-sizing and forecasting service from The 451 Group. Including the large and well-established software-as-a-service (SaaS) category, cloud computing will grow from revenue of $8.7B 2010 to $16.7B in 2013, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24%. https://451research.com/

• The US cloud computing market for medical imagery was at $56.5M in 2010 and is forecast to grow at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 27% during 2010-2018. Link: http://www.medicaldevice-network.com/features/featuresnapshot-the-us-cloud-computing-market-for-medical-imaging/

• The U.S. Federal Government cloud computing market enters into double-digit growth phase – at about 16% CAGR over the period 2013-2018, with annual federal cloud computing market to hit $10 billion landmark by 2018. Link:http://www.marketresearchmedia.com/2009/05/20/us-federal-cloud-computing-market-forecast-2010-2015/

• Forrester forecasts that the global market for cloud computing will grow from $40.7 billion in 2011 to more than $241 billion in 2020. The total size of the public cloud market will grow from $25.5 billion in 2011 to $159.3 billion in 2020. Link to report excerpt is here.

• Deloitte is predicting cloud-based applications will replace 2.34% of enterprise IT spending in 2014 rising 14.49% in 2020.  The  slide below  is from an excellent presentation by Deloitte titled Cloud Computing Forecast Change downloadable from this link.

• Cisco predicts that Global cloud IP traffic will increase twelvefold over the next 5 years, accounting for  more than one-third (34 percent) of total data center traffic by 2015. Source: Cisco Global Cloud Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2010–2015.   The following graphic is from the analysis:

• Gartner predicts Small & Medium Business (SMB) in the insurance industry will have a higher rate of cloud adoption (34%) compared to their enterprise counterparts (27%). Gartner cites that insurance industry’s opportunity to significant improve core process areas through the use of technology.  The following figure from the report, 2011 SMB Versus Enterprise Software Budget Allocation to Annual Subscriptionsindicates the differences in software budget allocation for annual subscriptions by vertical market from the report:

2011 SMB Versus Enterprise Software Budget Allocation to Annual Subscriptions

• Gartner is predicting that the cloud system infrastructure (cloud IaaS) market to grow by 47.8% through 2015. The research firm advises outsourcers not moving in that direction that consolidation and cannibalization will occur in the 2013 – 2014 timeframe  The providers named most often by respondents were Amazon (34%), SunGard (30%) and Verizon Business (30%). Of the global top 10 IT outsourcing market leaders, only CSC appears on the list. Source: User Survey Analysis: Infrastructure as a Service, the 2011 Uptake Claudio Da Rold,  Allie Young.

External Service Providers Being Considered for IaaS (or Cloud IaaS)

Courtesy - Louis Columbus

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Slow Down…..It will help your speed….

Do we have too much energy in the system....or are we stuck to the notion of being speedy....We simply want to speed up the process of what we are doing and how we are doing....But in the pursuit of speed aren't  we also speeding ourselves to exhaustiveness, fatigue, burnouts...

Hence it forces me to wonder that having aim or a target is important, getting there is equally important, but then its more important how and what you do on the way or pursuit to that target. Do we loose people, or gain; do we take or give; do we plant happiness or sorrow.....and at what speed we go about our target hunger and what we are paying for the same...

I remember a line from the movie "Car" - "its important to slow down every now and then"....With that thought sharing a piece of content by Carl Honore on why its important to slow down in the world which now seems to be meant for speed.....It may be dated but certainly relevant at anytime....

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Transactions and Complex Selling: Strong Catalysts of Cloud Computing Growth

Enterprise software vendors need to challenge themselves to deliver significantly more value if the potential for cloud computing is going to be achieved .

Instead of just going for  the low-end, easily customized processes within analytics, CRM, supply chain management, ERP, pricing or service, vendors need to take on the more challenging, complex hard-to-solve problems enterprises have.

As I am completing more research on personas, I’m finding what CIOs really look for in SaaS apps.  Flexibility and ease of workflow support, intuitive user interface design without sacrificing functionality, and support for analytics, business intelligence and knowledge management systems integration are all mentioned often.

Nearly all of them also mention that the existing generation SaaS applications on the sell-side, from CRM to order capture and order management aren’t taking on the more challenging areas of their strategies.  The result is the CIOs are still relying on legacy, on-premise apps in areas of their companies that are ready for change to SaaS-based applications.  Cloud platforms are taking on these more complex, challenging problem areas, yet innovation still lags the needs in the market.

Transactions Are The Fuel of Cloud Infrastructure Growth 

CIOs are focusing on how to exceed the expectations of their internal customers at the workflow and interface level while infusing SaaS apps with analytics, business intelligence and knowledge management support.  What’s missing is the killer transaction platform layer and transaction-based applications.  Gartner’s report, A Workforce Without Humans: Three Ways Technology Will Eliminate Skilled Jobs in the U.S. Through 2020 by Kenneth F. Brant by Johan Jacobs has the following graphic which shows CIO’s estimates of migration to cloud-based IT infrastructure and applications which supports this point.

Source: Maverick Research: A Workforce Without Humans: Three Ways Technology Will Eliminate Skilled Jobs in the U.S. Through 2020 by Kenneth F. Brant by Johan Jacobs

Much of the report is based on the results of Gartner’s 2011 survey of U.S. CIOs. Additional insights from the survey include the following:

• Virtualization and cloud computing are the two top-ranked U.S. CIO technology priorities for 2011.
• 83% of U.S. CIOs estimated that more than half of their transactions would be conducted on a cloud infrastructure by 2020.
• 79% of the respondents predicted that more than half of their transactions would be completed on applications leased using the SaaS platform by 2020.

For cloud infrastructure platforms and SaaS applications to deliver that level of transaction volume and support, there needs to be a major shift in how enterprise vendors develop software. Making better use of analytics, business intelligence and knowledge in the enterprise is key. Designing applications that make information and knowledge sharing intuitive is critical.

The following figure from the same report cited earlier shows the relationship of technologies to potential business value.  Many CRM and sell-side vendors tend to focus on being a substitute or just barely delivering increases in human productivity.

Going after the hard work of optimizing pricing strategies, call centers, making multichannel selling strategies profitable and getting the most out of social networks to make the customer experience exceptional will deliver major gains in productivity.  It’s been my experience during the persona interviews that for any SaaS vendor to really excel here they need to get beyond human productivity and make it possible for enterprises to deliver exceptional customer experiences daily.

Creating SaaS applications that take on real complexity earns trust too, which no amount of pure efficiency can compete with.

Source: Maverick Research: A Workforce Without Humans: Three Ways Technology Will Eliminate Skilled Jobs in the U.S. Through 2020 by Kenneth F. Brant by Johan Jacobs

An Example: SaaS in Manufacturing

The following table compares the strategies and systems used in a typical manufacturing company.  Enterprise apps vendors for the most part are focused on make-to-stock and assemble-to-order automation and efficiency (SAP ByDesign for example).

As the continuums move from left to right, the process, systems and strategy challenges exponentially increase.  As a result there are only a few vendors who can manage the more complex engineer-to-order requirements in manufacturing for example. Transactions there are very small in number, yet orders of magnitude more profitable.  This is just an example of many areas in enterprises that need major improvement.

Instead of just focusing on the easy processes and strategies on the left, vendors need to go after the more difficult, complex selling and transaction challenges on the right.  This is why CIOs want SaaS applications that are easy to customize from a user interface and workflow standpoint, while at the same time supporting analytics, BI and knowledge management.  The goal is to slot them into these more challenging areas of their business and transform their company’s intelligence and expertise into profitable growth.

Bottom line: The true catalyst of cloud computing growth isn’t just SaaS economics; it’s how effectively enterprise software vendors address the very difficult transaction, order management and selling challenges their potential customers face all the time. When that happens, the many optimistic forecasts of cloud adoption in the enterprise will take a step closer to being fulfilled.

Courtesy - Louis Columbus

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We Have Problems But then "WE" are the Solution

India - A country that I call home.... Every time I travel and interact with people across the globe, the one common question or discussion I had is about India...The common thread is with so much of problems, cast, religion, thoughts, even to the extend festival, styles, beliefs, and so on; how this country is still managing to prosperous.

My usual response - One of things that I learnt being in this country that We have problems but then its "We" are the solution.. Imagine if one pledge to help one another person....now you do the math.

Then comes a common question - I am one and what changes I can make....Well I have many answers but you can watch this amazing video on how insignificant people can bring significant changes....

Don't wait....Lets Do......

Kindness

Kindness know no boundaries.....provided you don't define or create one. You move people's | person's attitude tremendously through the unspoken words of kindness, and mind it, it does have a viral effect, just like shown in the video.

 

Its equally important not to restrain your kindness based what caste, creed, financial status, young or old, etc the person or individual belong. It should be more like the the child's smile. If you smile to a child, the child smiles back....he/she doesn't have any inhibitions about the person to reciprocate the smile.

 

So let the kindness flow the way it should be.....Please don't dampened by creating internal dam(s)....let it flow...

 

Enjoy the video if not already seen.

 

Related articles

• ~there goes the quotes~ (wordycolorization.wordpress.com)
• Do An Act of Kindness Every Day (wisdomwithinus.wordpress.com)
• Ripples of Kindness (spilledcookies.wordpress.com)

Never look down on anybody, unless you're helping them up.

To realize the value of a sister/brother
ask someone who doesn't have one.

To realize the value of ten years:
ask a newly divorced couple.

To realize the value of four years:
ask a graduate.

To realize the value of one year:
ask a student who has failed a final exam.

To realize the value of nine months:
ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn.

To realize the value of one month:
ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby..

To realize the value of one minute:
ask a person who has missed the train, bus or plane.

To realize the value of one-second:
ask a person who has survived an accident.

Time waits for no one.
treasure every moment you have.

You will treasure it even more when
you can share it with someone special.

To realize the value of a friend or family member:
LOSE ONE.

The origin of this letter is unknown,
but it brings good luck to everyone who passes it on.

Remember....
Hold on tight to the ones you love!

Marketers – What is the best time to send your emails?

Sometime back I was working on an analysis/ techniques on how can we increase the open and click through rate of email marketing…While we were analyzing a data of open and click through rate there were certain patterns emerging. We were able to identify that certain countries were more receptive toward plain text messages vs the HTML version. Equally, we were able to identify a pattern on what is the day/time to deliver messages for which country and so on. Now, we as marketer need to ensure that our messages are being received and read by our recipient….and hence to make it more effective it’s a worth while exercise to identify trends that may be emerging in your open/click through data with your target audience ….

While researching for more info on similar techniques, came across an organization that were testing the hypothesis of timing the emails for best results. I was intrigued by their hypothesis and possible results that it can achieve…something thought worth sharing….

A study by online retailer, eBags, used an innovative tactic to work out the ideal time to send emails to individual users to ensure optimal deliverability and engagement.

Choosing the best time to send out email is a key issue for email marketers, but the optimal time of the week is usually selected on a general one-size fits-all basis. However, research by eBags aimed to analyze the best individual times to send out email. The research worked on the hypothesis that if users were available to sign up to an email list at a certain time, then they would be far more receptive to receiving an email at the same time as when they signed up.

eBags individually calculated the best time to send the email by looking at the behavior of each user within the email list, recording when the exact time when they signed up to the list.

eBags found that sending the individually timed emails resulted in:

• Click-through rates increasing by 20%.
• Conversion rates increasing by 65%.
• Average value per order increasing by 45%
• Overall average revenue per recipient increased by 187%.

Whilst the email campaign was incredibly effective, eBags did not employ this technique in all of their campaigns.

Whilst the technology doesn't‘t currently exist (as far my knowledge) to fully automate the process (meaning that sending the emails is highly time-consuming and therefore impractical), nevertheless, individually choosing the best time to send emails in an example of an innovative email-marketing tactic with demonstrably effective results.

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Now this is taking Viral Marketing to the Next Level

The three people were spotted flying around the skies of lower Manhattan last Friday, causing a lot of double-takes and dropped jaws from onlookers.

But while it appeared to be a sight straight out of a comic book, it was actually a clever bit of viral marketing for this week's upcoming film "Chronicle." Those aren't people in the air, but some very intricately designed radio-controlled airplanes. Watch the video of their flight, to learn how it was done.