Strategy gone wary??

Some companies in India never seem to learn. ...my focus currently is on two such companies, Fiat and Yamaha. These players

have been in India for dog years, yamaha had its two stroke success with RX100, really nice bike...loved it. Fiat had its sad looking Padmini, circa 2007 these companies are dishing out new models with the same engine? Don't believe me ...take a look at Yamaha Gladiator 125 cc bike...looks decent...but engine? Remember YBX? It had the same 125 cc engine, just retuned and redesigned. Globally the Gladiator(as I read in an auto mag), looks yummy, could make a Bajaj Pulsar turn a shade or two green with envy.

Italians are known for their robust design and amazing engines. Fiat launched its FIRE based Uno in the Indian Market in 1999, and today they have re-introduced the same in Fiat Stile (2007) which is more of an upgrade of the Palio, albeit a smaller engine to meet Govt regulations. I really hope they do well at least with the Punto, otherwise it is wiser to look for an exit option,ditto for Yamaha with their bigger bikes!!

I strongly believe the Indian consumer knows that these companies have better variants to offer, just wish the companies do too. Local players such as Bajaj and Maruti are speeding ahead with greater market share with interesting innovations and amazing models.

Tabloid Celebrities!!

Rakhi Sawant, Shilpa Shetty, AbhiAsh and a few other are today's top news makers....and no we are not even reading Punjab Kesri (whose staple is news on celebrities) we are talking other mainlines too! Time and again we see that the real news nowadays has been pushed to the brink. Editors might say "this is what people want" or "skin and sex is what makes our paper reach out to the youth of India". Right, we are all morons and our next generation will only get Dumb and Dumberer thanks to such useful information such as whose slip showed and who kissed whom. Please do not put these in a GK quiz.

A few days back I saw "We the People" which was discussing how media is nowadays becoming the paparazzi and hounding and probing people's lives a bit too much....the final analysis showed that we still do have sane people in the world who would like to read,hear and see news that really matters! Amen to that, hope the media itself also does realise it too!