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A successful profit-driven organization is one that achieves a good level of profitability. In order to do this, there is a need for an effective supply chain management software. The efficacy level of the said chain relies greatly on the supply chain management software as a services.

Defined as the control of materials, information, finances and other resources as the output moves from the supplier to the manufacturer to the wholesaler to the retailer and finally to the customer. The entire network that involves these different elements is referred to as the supply chain. Each stop gives out an additional value to the product and at the same time, benefits from its passing by.

Management of the chain is focused on making sure that every single party involved in the chain is able to get the optimal level of benefits that can possibly be accessed in the whole process. It is necessary for an individual to understand this basic concept to get a good shot at how an organization’s logistics and operations go.

The product is the most important element in supply chain management. It is essential to consider various factors when determining and manufacturing the product. One of which is the demand. A product is useless if it is not something the customers want. More so, the time it takes for the product to get into the customers’ hands is also something to take note of.

Demand is possible only if the customer has access to the information pertaining to the presence and possibility of the product. Within the supply chain, information involves the different parts of the different processes the product has to go through before it gets to the hands of the consumer.

Last comes financing. It plays a major role in the supply chain since each step of the process entails specific costs. The manufacturers, for instance, gets to deal with the suppliers concerning the possible payment arrangements pertaining to the supplies of raw materials and similar needs.

Certain problems can occur within this management. These can include the distribution strategy as well as the distribution network configuration. The cash flow and inventory management can also be sources of issues within the chain.

For a business end product to be successful, an effective supply chain management is definitely a must-have. It is all about the different operations and processes that take place within an organization. Hence, it is a necessity to maintain its presence and well-being.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Need to make an urgent call and you realised that you are out of balance. Ever thought you shall be able make a call from mobile? Gone are the time of free sms, bring in the Free phone calls!

Aryan Global Networks, an Ahmedabad based startup has launched PhokatCall, its a India’s first free calling service from mobile which would be helpful in case of emergency. And for this free call all one has to do is to listen to a 30-40 seconds audio advertisements prior to connecting to their desired number. PhokatCall” is a unique service for providing free calls for prepaid mobile users especially in case of a zero balance.

Callers and Advertisers both will get benefited from this service as callers shall get free talk time and can use this service anytime, anywhere in India free of cost without downloading any single application in their mobiles and without creating any mobile payment account or prepaid wallet and Advertisers can now reach their audience and can effectively communicate their target segments without wasting and spending much amount on traditional media.

At present the service is limited to Ahmedabad and shall reach other metros very soon.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Now buying your favourite fruits and vegetables is just as simple as ordering pizza, Thanks to Vegwala. Its an online vegetable & fruit shop, its a Bangalore based service started by Mitera Agrotech. I have earlier tried other similar services but discontinued because of various reasons- service wasn’t prompt, need to meet their minimum order amount etc.

Couple of weeks back I tried Vegwala and was impressed with their service, within 1 hr of ordering it online i received the items. Vegwala charges extra Rs 10/- as delivery charges for bill below 200/- and no delivery charges if bill meets 200 or above.

Salient features of Vegwala-

• Products are competitively priced.
• Directly delivered at user doorstep, just a click away.
• Fresh vegetables and fruits soured everyday.
• Handpicked, hygienically packed and ready to be placed in refrigerator, user is saved from cleaning etc.

To save time for users in selecting vegetables and fruits, Vegwala has packaged box system containing vegetables/fruits/mix of fruits & vegetables for a nuclear family of 2 or 4 person. Great packaging and bundling by Vegwala.

Bookmyshow certainly wants to ante their revenue by luring the mass audience who operates in offline mediu.  Oxigen Services India Pvt. Ltd, an IT-enabled multi- services platform and distributor of Recharges, Prepaid subscriptions and Bill payments, today announced a tie-up with Bookmyshow.com, India’s premiere E-commerce provider, a one stop shop for entertainment ticketing.

The association will offer easy transactional service to the customers who do not own credit, debit cards or net banking accounts and prefer using a cash based payment mechanism to purchase their entertainment tickets online. This would be done by using a stored value OxiCash e-wallet or OxiCash Cards to make secure payments. Consumers will now be able to Pay for tickets for Movies, Plays, Concerts & Live Events using OxiCash e-wallets and OxiCash cards.

Announcing the tie up, Mr. Pramod Saxena, Chairman & Managing Director of Oxigen Services India Pvt. Ltd. said, “With this tie up our customers, specially Movie & Theatre goers, will have the unique advantage of buying confirmed tickets at any of the Oxigen’s web enabled retail touch points, or directly by using their OxiCash Wallet/ Cash Cards. We see huge potential for growth in Entertainment Retailing. The association with BookMyShow reiterates our commitment of leveraging the platform of e-commerce and technology to bring futuristic, value-added services to the customer’s doorstep.”

Speaking on the tie up, Mr. Ashish Hemrajani, Founder-CEO, Bigtree Entertainment said, “BMS is constantly looking at providing innovative ticketing options and extended reach and accessibility to BMS customers and partners. This association with Oxigen adds a lot of value for both the establishments as well as customers, who will now have, “Anytime, Anywhere” availability of Entertainment tickets.”

With this tie up with Bookmyshow, Oxigen will provide easier access and convenience mainly for entertainment seekers who can now buy tickets by simply logging on to www.oxicash.in or www.bookmyshow.com on the PC and pay for tickets for a large variety of shows. This affiliation is one of the many initiatives taken by Oxigen to expand the base of it’s services to its customers.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Ezeego, the online travel market place, has tied up with Oxigen Services India Pvt. Ltd., to provide easy travel bookings and other travel related services. The tie-up enables the OxiCash users and Oxigen retailers across India to transact and buy travel products from Ezeego.  This tie up will certainly boost Ezeego to provide easy travel booking services to the masses of India, ezeego definitely wants to catch up with Makemytrip, Cleartrip and Yatra in the travel booking space.

The association will offer easy transactional service to the customers who do not have credit/debit cards, net banking accounts or cannot get access to PC’s to purchase their travel online or prefer using a cash payment mechanism online.  The tie up will also enable the 25,000 Oxigen web retailers to automatically become Ezeego1′s travel agents.

This gives an option for a walk in customer to purchase their ezeego1 travel tickets by paying cash over-the-counter. OxiCash e-Wallet and OxiCash Card users can now choose from the wide range of holiday packages, flight options and hotels available on Ezeego1 website. The customer will get the option of paying through OxiCash after an easy standard registration and booking process.

According to Neelu Singh, COO, Ezeego1.com, “We have always been pioneers in introducing new services and with Oxigen we found a unique opportunity to strengthen our distribution among the masses that prefer cash as a means to transact. It will enable the customer to have the opportunity to book instantly using the online medium even as he uses the cash mechanism.”

Speaking on the occasion of this tie up, Pramod Saxena, Chairman, Oxigen Services India Private Limited stated, “Oxigen is geared & committed to add value whilst enhancing its bouquet of services that the common man can access. We can now help the Customer who is not computer savvy, nor has a credit card to access online travel services, to transact with ease. This tie up will also make Oxigen web retailers, extension counters, for ezeego1′s Travel Agent network”.

-Deepti, vcBytes.com

Now you can play fantasy cricket game on your mobile that too with supported commentary (voice based). Reliance Communications has introduced a new way of playing cricket called ‘Cwicket’, a multi-lingual and fully featured voice based mobile cricket game. In order to play the game, Reliance users have to call and subscribe at 505101065.

Cwicket features audio based matches in the India Ka Public league, subscribers can choose one from 10 different teams – Kolkata Kite Flyers, Bangalore Techies and Chennai Super Annas to name a few.

A user is allowed to choose to play the game in either English or Hindi. The commentary is pivotal as users need to listen to the commentary and decide the shot he wants to play. 1000 points are awarded for every game played, 400 extra for a win and 100 each for every six or wicket. The points can be redeemed to enter virtual tournaments, power plays, real prizes and custom bats and balls.  Service charges for this Cwicket game are Rs 15 for 15 days.

What are the driving points for Reliance to come up with this fantasy game -

• Reliance communication has around 200M subscribers.
• Cricket is not a game but a religion in India, Indians love to watch, play and support cricket in any form.
• Reliance is targeting 5% of its subscriber base which can yield them Rs 300Million if played for 30days.

Cricket games have been available on Internet and mobile through WAP. India being a multilingual country, Reliance Communication has partnered with DialFy Technologies, a Voice based Services Company to launch Cwicket, the first major voice based service to play cricket on mobile.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Aircel, India’s fifth largest GSM mobile service provider with a subscriber base of over 47 million becomes the first telecom service provider to Launch 3G experience zone in Chennai for the consumers to get a first hand feel of third generation mobile telephony and its wonders. Aircel is now present in all 23 telecom circles. With a subscriber base of over 47 million, Aircel, is the fifth largest service provider.

Mr. Gurdeep Singh, Chief Operating Officer, Aircel said, “At Aircel we have always had a clear focus on the future and have diligently been the first to introduce, products and services that address relevant needs of the consumers be it the Aircel Pocket Internet, Aircel Pocket Apps store and the Aircel Apollo Mobile Health Care. It has been our constant and consistent endeavor to offer our consumers best in class on the Mobile anytime anywhere. The launch of 3G experience zones in Chennai is a step towards the same as it would equip our consumers and provide them first hands on experience on 3G services and open to them a world of possibilities.”

There will be four Aircel 3G experience zones spread across Chennai (Atrium2, Spencers Plaza; Fun City, Express Avenue; Atrium Citi Centre & Aircel Store PH road ) for the consumers to access and get to know what 3G is and what it can do for you. The consumers can walk in and they will be taken through the services available such as the Aircel IVVR (Interactive Video Voice Response), Aircel 3G PocketInternet portal and Video calls.

These services address all segments be it the youth, a housewife, a professional or a senior citizen. There is something for all which 3G addresses, with a 3G phone and access to the 3G network at the Aircel experience zone you can make peer to peer video calls; access the vibrant, colorful Aircel 3G PocketInternet portal with easy access to news, sports etc. ; and through the Aircel IVVR watch your favorite movie songs or dialogues of your favorite stars for e.g. Rajinikanth, Suriya, Vijay etc. At Aircel we shrink the world for you with a promise to offer you a world of possibilities anytime, anywhere.

Canon couldn’t resist the temptation of retail growth story and has forayed into retail space with the launch of its 1st store in NCR region and will be known as Canon Image Square.

Canon Image Square aims to be one stop destination for people with imaging needs, enabling increased visibility and reach across the country with an objective to boost sales. The Indian customer is demanding better products, higher lifestyle quotient, good quality selling interface and state-of-art after sales service of international standards. The store will offer solutions for customers seeking high end photography and printing solutions where both click and print products from Canon will be available.

Canon Image Square showcases a wide range of consumer products that includes cameras, camcorders, photo printers, D-SLR’s and lenses, inkjet printers, entry level laser printers, consumables and accessories. Each store has over 80 SKU’s on display. The wide display of products allows the customer to enjoy a rich technological experiencewith an environment to make a purchase.

Canon, in India, plans to inaugurate 5 such stores by December 2010, followed by 95 retail stores in 2011, 100 in the year 2012 and another 100 stores in 2013 taking the count to 300 stores in the next 3 years. The company is planning to make an investment of about Rs 50 lakh per store and an investment of Rs 150 crore in the next three years towards the remaining stores. The company expects estimated revenues of Rs 30 lakh, per store, every month from Canon Image Square.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Google has launched music service in India. So beside searching for music user can listen to live streaming of Hindi film songs online. Prominent players in this space are Raaga, Guruji and very popular Songs.Pk Google India has partnered with companies – Saregama, In.com and Saavn which owns the legal content. User can search by Artists, movie, albums on Google music search and can also sort it by date.

I searched for ‘Aishwarya Rai’ and here is the results page

User can play around with the view – Standard, Grid and List view, sort the resultants by date

Music is played in separate window and Ads running on this pop up window. Google is monetizing revenue from the Ads and there is strong possibility of revenue sharing between Google and Music licensee companies.

In recent past there were many litigations with respect to content streaming and distribution, T-series had filed case against YouTube and Guruji also had tough time dealing with music licensee companies.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Its been quite sometime i have bought books from offline stores since i generally don’t browse the bookshelf and buy books, i know which books i need to buy and i order it through online bookstores since its quite convenient and they offer decent discount. Before ordering i check the pricing and availability across all of them, and this process is certainly tedious and time consuming.

Indiabookstore is here to address the need of a average buyer like me,  Indiabookstore enables user to check the pricing of book, availability of book, days to deliver the book across various online bookstores. 

Indiabookstore is one of the first online book shopping aggregator to hit the market. Its a hobby project stated by Animesh Jain, founder of iTasveer and it is generating good traction.

This meta book search compares online bookportals at a time and It pulls textual data through its servers while images are fetched from the online stores at the client’s end which increases the speed of searching. I searched for Chetan Bhagat’s ’2 States’ and here is the result set -

UI is simple, clutter free and quite user friendly. Search speed is amazingly quite good and user doesn’t encounter any lag. Search results are based on relevance and ISBN. Indiabookstore supports 8 online bookstores and via affiliate programs Indiabookstore generates revenue.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com