Indian corporates all set to cut jobs to remain afloat !!

If recent views from Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) d to believed, many Indian corporate houses are planning to cut 25% of jobs in next 10 days. The companies wanted to initiate this process prior to Diwali but for humane reasons it was deferred. The key industries which will be impacted include real estate, steel, cement, IT enabled services and financial services sector. This would ideally mark the beginning of real economy slow down with average people facing the real brunt. There are currently no measures taken up by any of the trade organizations to avoid this since the problem is spreading like a plague across the corporate world.

Word of caution "Stick to your current jobs and prove your worth to the organization where you are working"

Online Photo companies -Marketing Strategies

The Online Photo Printing companies use different types of market strategies to attract user attention. Some of these include:

1. Integration with other photo management sites: Some of the online web sites offer integration with Yahoo photos or Picassa in order to import photos into the user's site specific account. This allows the user especially NRI's to deliver photos in prints to India without re-uploading the files.

2. Referral Schemes: many e-tailers provide the user's with referral schemes. A user can get "N" number of prints free if he provides genuine referrals to the web site.

3. Signing Offer: Almost all the web sites offer free 5 - 10 photo prints to a registered user on its web site.

4. Affiliate model: Some of the web sites are also offering affiliate relationship in order to drive traffic on their web sites

5. Selling Consumer's Photos: Another strategy which is used by these web sites is to allow the registered user to sell his photos through its web site. The consumer is given a commission on every sale that is being made through the web site. This is a pretty decent incentive for consumer's to upload their creations on these web sites.

6. Photo Contests: Some of the web sites also organize events like photo contests to drive traffic

Business Models in Online Photo Gift Products business

Online photo gift product business is slowly gaining momentum in Indian market place. The key market players are this space include picsquare, iTasveer, snapfish, snapgalaxy, photohugs, zoomin, merasnap, printcamp and gkvale. A closer look at the background of these online shops brings out the nature of business models which are in play in this space. Broadly, you can see the following models:
A) e-commerce: Most of the players in this space largely generate revenue by selling photo based products online. Mainly, these involve taking online orders for printing of digital images uploaded on the portals and selling personalized photo based products. However, many of these portals do not have their own photo labs and have partnered with various local or regional photo studios that print and deliver these photos on behalf of these portals. The key cost centers for these portals include:
- Procurement of products like mugs, key chains, mouse key pad, T-Shirts etc. which are used for building personalized photo products.
- Printing of photos on these products
- Printing of photos by a third party studio
- Distribution cost
- Web site management cost
B) e-Stores: Some of the web sites also provide its users to set up online stores for uploading and selling its designs which the customers can use for personalizing their products. Companies like Pringoo.com are providing users with the capability to set up their online stores and earn commissions on sale of every product which goes out to customers with their designs.
C) Brick and Mortal model: The existing photo studio labs are the next emerging players in the online personalized photo product business. Regional companies like G K Vale, Bangalore have emerged as one of the strongest players that have cost advantages due to its age old photo printing business.