So, we all love Flipkart!
Clap Clap.
It’s delivery to small towns is amazing, and its responsiveness to business & consumer service is great.
Yipeeee!!!
Now, say 1 year later, when Rediff, Amazon, Infibeam, Crosswords.com (if at all), etc etc have the SAME service – how valuable will any one Company be JUST on the basis of great service?
Case in point:
Jet Airways replaced the crappy Indian Airlines and made horrible Indian Air Travel lots of fun!
Jet was the BEST thing that happened to the Indian Skies and thankfully still remain ‘air borne’.
BUT check the business and financial challenges of Jet Airways. Each quarter is a STRUGGLE for them to remain profitable and be valuable to the Stock Markets.
Remember KINGFISHER Airways?
It was supposed to be the BAAP of Jet Airways:
Hot Air Hostesses, free pens, in-screen entertainment, free ear phones etc etc
It was the BEST wrapping paper you would have ever seen.
But as the Present got slowly unwrapped and unveiled, its seemed to be a HOLLOW BOX.
Kingfisher is Bankrupt.
They had everything right but a business!!!
Now throw in Indigo…
They DONT SERVE COFFEE AND TEA in the flight. The seats are restrictive. Even a sandwich costs money. Its the ANTI THESIS of Kingfisher.
BUT THEY ARE 100% FULL – and the MOST profitable airline in India.
THEY HAVE AN AMAZING PRESENT – wrapper paper or not.
WHAT’S MORE VALUABLE? THE GIFT OR THE WRAPPING PAPER?
My point is:
– Sooner than later, nice ‘enhancements’ of an existing consumer product will surely catch consumer traction. The point is WHAT WILL SUSTAIN IT?
Remember Crosswords totally changed the ways books were bought and sold in India!
We slowly but steadily all became Crossword fans.
But today a 1 year old website – flipkart.com threatens to bring a 15 year legacy – Crosswords on its knees
The SUSTAINABILITY comes from a Sound BUSINESS MODEL ( read lowest cost of consumer acquisition + operations with MORE REVENUE).
Read carefully!
I dont SAY MAX REVENUE – I mean who the F**** flies Business Class in a Mumbai – Delhi flight other than spoilt VC’s and some Govt. Babu’s??
Indigo is much lower revenue per seat – BUT EVEN LOWER in COST in making that seat fly!!!
So, mota moti – if you can be RELEVANT and PROFITABLE – its a good wicket to be on.
Crossword was profitable but lost its relevance BY NOT GOING ONLINE. That was their tragedy!
– I think the concept of ‘CONSUMER DELIGHT’ is very very soon going to become a commodity – a common lowest denominator. Something that EVERYONE will expect from any brand!
I mean just informing me that my order is in the courier or a hostess smiling when I enter a plane or an operator greeting me properly on a call is going to be COMMON STUFF. TAKEN FOR GRANTED.
And that’s because we all see openly what’s around us that delights us and simply copy it and make it better.
Yet NO ONE except a select few know how to run a SOUND BUSINESS.
It will be making sure that each business is conceptually profitable and more importantly SUSTAINABLE.
***
I used to love Kingfisher Air Hostesses, but I can live without them.
I love being home for dinner and Indigo makes sure I do that. So if I can pay less, not stare at an air hostess (who anyways never spoke to me) and be at home all in the same day, I will move to Indigo over Jet or KF – no matter what the silly distractions.
Just focussing on the PRESENT is all it takes. Wrapped or not
******
Pradeep Chaudhary
Awesome post and Quite agree with “Just focussing on the PRESENT is all it takes. Wrapped or not”
Akshay 'Backpacker' Chhugani
And as usual…..yet another brillant post……a very important point put down in the most simple words 🙂
kinnari thacker dave
After a point gift [aka products & services] would become commodities. Thus, wrapping is imp. It’s more correct to compare Indigo with SpiceJet….at the same price, some of us still prefer an Indigo over Spice.
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
is spice on time? (i’m curious – never flown it yet)
kinnari thacker dave
They have improved….i flew with them recently [one of my clients booked it….Hyderabad ;)]. Though i’m Indigo fan.
Samir Datar
I don’t think it is about how some have failed and some succeeded. It has more to do with the evolution process and staying current with the evolving audience. A case in point would probably be Madonna. Over the last 30 years (or a little less), she always stayed relevant and kept evolving. Pretenders have come and gone but she is still around and creating news. In the case of airlines, Jet or Kingfisher continued to believe that air travel would be the preserve of select few and the open sky policies won’t really have an impact because air travel equals to being pampered. But it was the new consumer who was willing to travel… not too bothered about the bells and whistles who embraced and helped the LCCs grow. The point being, it is the environment that leads to products, services & technologies become either obsolete or take wings…
Anand
“Simply fly” like capt. Gopinath rightly puts it. No wonder simply fly was still flying as long as it was air Deccan but after merging with kingfisher it has so aptly become ‘kingfisher red’ and is grounded!!! We obviously retain the content whole the cover almost always goes inside the bin