and Micro blogging too!

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Back in Business!

With more professionals joining hands with us, We are happy launching our website ( www.capitalmoney.in) and relaunching our business, with a more sanguine model…

CapitalMoney- Lets add wings to our dreams!

GST- as I Understood

Disclaimer : Am not a tax professional/CA..so, pl let me know if I have wrongly interpreted anywhere!

As more and more news and issues are coming out of GST implementation, I wanted to understand what it is all about and how it can change the life of a consumer, manufacturer, exporter and most of all government.  In my search for information, I was astonished the way the tax personal (Tax dept, auditors/CA’s ) use language.. Right from the tax laws/rules and the interpretation given by the tax domain experts, are all in some language, which is very difficult for a layman to understand..donno, whether they are accustomed to that language, that they can’t speak simple English or talk in simple terms, am telling it was quiet hectic and I was literally using English dictionary  in parallel .

So, this is what I understood from all my readings on GST:

To start with, the current scenario is;

• We have multiple tax rates for every product  
• The tax rate is different for goods ( mfg goods  etc) and  services ( service tax)
• Every state has diff tax rate  ( if u are a ardent follower of chief statistics officer of Tamilnadu Mr. Karunanidhi J , you will get to know why petrol prices are different in different states and how cheap it is available in TN )
• It creates a problem of some goods cheaper in few places , and costlier in other places, creating indirect revenue loss for states ( take for example the liquor pilgrimage from TN to Pondicherry..)..

To curb all these, the government introduces a centralized tax regime, covering both the goods and services at the same rate of tax, abolishing all the other tax rates levied in diff rates in diff states and called it as Goods and Services Tax (GST).

 The main advantage is covering more goods and services under one umbrella, ease of tax methods, increased revenue for the government, and more importantly, one tax rate for the whole of country, easing the way the business is done. But there are other issues like

• States will lose out their revenues ( after this rule, only a share of GST collected will be shared by central govt with respective states )
• SEZ ‘s will not have the competitive edge completely
• Supply chain of manufacturing companies will be disturbed and will be realigned ( a lot of companies who has their market in TN had their mfg units in Himachal and few other states which gave tax exemption etc)

Will analyze each of the implication with respect to all stakeholders of the government in the next post!

Social Media

As a followup to my earlier post on Social Media, i have given the abstract on what the paper says, and the complete white paper here .

Abstract:

The most imperative lesson banks and financial services firms should learn about social media is how to be part of the discussion rather than to attempt to shape the discussion. Banks need to adapt and evolve and embrace a new epoch of consumer-to-Business communication in order to survive and thrive. This paper provides bankers with the background needed to understand the world of social media and to determine how to best navigate within this changing online demography. It is intended to provide a blueprint of what social media is today and how it can be harnessed for banks and financial services firms. The paper also discusses a model with recommended practices for the successful implementation of social media planning strategy.

The following topics are addressed in the paper:

• What is social media
• Why is social media important for banks
• What are the challenges associated with social media
• How a bank can strategize its social media plans
• Advantages of social media for a bank

The paper discusses the social media impact with a real life case of a bank which is practicing the social media tools effectively and also analyses a hypothetical case for a private bank to implement social media strategy.

Sources of information for this study included numerous newspaper and magazine articles as well as marketing firm reports, white papers and social media websites and seminar information. 

Thanks to my Co-Author ,Ms. Pavithra, for her consent  to publish this in my blog.

 To read / download The full version of Whitepaper, click here

Social Media, banks, consulting firms,Indian companies and Me..

A long title though..

The tweet from MCkinsey says they have joined hands with Nielson, to concentrate on social media ( www.nmincite.com). a great move,bcos, a very first time for Mckinsey to join hands with someone -that too with a cobranded initiative.. seems they smelt the big business in coming years….
There are a lot of indian firms trying to get the attention of indian banks and big enterprises to get into social media, and yes , now after paying millions as consulting fee,the indian firms will appoint Mckinsey&Co, to give them the same advice .Even i have presented a paper to one of my employer on social media and banking industry where they can get new business, but they dont even realize what it is , while magazines like wsj publised that .. (sadly though.. seems wallstreet journal doesn’t have any work like my bosses ) but every quarter, the CEO doesnt fail to address the media that they are looking into consulting business as a new growth area..This can happen only if all the consulting firms abroad buys CDS or sub prime mortgage securities and get busted…hell with these ppl…

planning to publish the paper in the blog too..

Hospitals, pharmacies.. contd…

• You could have seen few things which might not look in a synchronized way but give it a deep thought.

• Lots of Chain of pharmacies launched. (Like Apollo, med plus etc)

• If you have noted down, they will provide electronic /computerized bills even if you buy an action 500 tablet.

• They would have asked you for name and age and we will happily give it because we can get tax claims out of that and also we feel happy that we are not cheated.

• Lots of hospitals have started feeding the patient data in computers. So whenever you go there they can pull your file and give a print out to you and we feel happy there also, since there is no need for us to carry all medical bills and prescription with us. (What a customer/patient delight…)

• Many private hospitals have entered into joint venture with foreign insurance companies and launched insurance schemes of their own.( Apollo, lotus, KMCH, Fortis etc)

• Few cash rich insurance providers have started hospital chains. (STAR insurance –clinic.) And they have branches in all cities and tie up clinics in most of the sub urban. Now think. Every day at least 10000 people by medicines/visit clinics/undergo check up in any of these places? So, they have a valuable data base and effective client base of 10000 people every day. They can market their products specifically to you alone. You might wonder some day you will be getting a call from Apollo hospitals asking you to come and check for the viral fever you are suffering with. The only reason is you would have purchased two crocin and a cetrezen a day before. Also, they provide medical insurance to you and make sure you cannot hide existing illness, and they can reject your claims stating that on 23 Jan 2009, you have purchased an action 500, and that might be a reason for your current illness, since it was not prescribed by a doctor.

This, as Philip kotler would want to describe as  the Smart & innovative business idea

Hospitals, Insurance companies and supply chain…

the new change happening in the indian medical scenario, is the supply chain integration of medical services, led by international players.

supply chain integration?? simple terms , one will control the entire flow of process back and front. in this context, I will have a pharma factory to produce medicine, i will have medical store to supply medicines to patients, i will have hospitals to check patients, my doctors will recommend my medicines, you will buy medicines from my pharmacy, and if it is a seroius illness, i will sell you an insurnace policy, again from a insurnace company i own. so, money can never go out of my pocket, and obviously the patient..

now think of ranbaxy, fortis, apollo, star … does any one of these people dont have any of the supply chain units with them? and of course, a million crowd of patients too….