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multivitamins
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Should Multivitamins be Tailored to Gender?

The range of choices available in the multivitamin market has never been as varied as it is today.  Some options are easy to choose between but some can be confusing.  More and more we are seeing multivitamins that have been tailored for men or women.  Is this really necessary?  After all we are all human beings!  None of the other food and medicine we consume is designed only for one of the genders.  So do we really need to select a multivitamin according to our gender or is it just a marketing gimmick?  If we take a vitamin tablet designed for the opposite sex will it cause harm?

How Do Male and Female’s Nutrition Needs Differ?

The place to start is to consider how male and female bodies differ.  Although very similar in lots of ways there are definite differences.  Our reproductive systems are obviously different and therefore have different nutritional requirement and suffer from different diseases.  There are other physical differences too.  For example, men usually tend to have more muscle mass than women.

Women

multivitaminsIn practice this means that a multivitamin aimed at women will typically have extra Iron to compensate for that which is lost during menstruation.

However men are more susceptible to accumulating excess Iron so their multivitamins will not have extra Iron.  A woman who is pregnant will need Folic Acid as it helps with the babies development and prevents birth defects.  Since almost half of all pregnancies are unplanned, women’s multivitamins usually contain Folic …

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November 10, 2019
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BP’s dilemma: In uncertain emerging markets, is it better to partner with the private sector or the state?

BP’s dilemma: a choice between partnering with the private sector versus the government in Russia! Is one alternative better than the other in uncertain emerging markets like Russia? It is not as clear cut as one might think. Before elaborating, however, let me underline that I am not talking about emerging markets in general, but about uncertain emerging markets, such as Russia.

BP is selling its stake in a business that was a partnership with the private sector—AAR, BP’s partner in TNK-BP was a consortium of Russian billionaires. That relationship on the one hand was lucrative for BP, as it received close to $19 billion in dividends against its investment of around $8 billion a decade ago. Moreover, In the current deal, it has been reported that BP will end up with a stake of around 20% in Rosneft as well as cash of the order of $12 billion. So, all in all, BP will make about $35 billion after 9 years on its initial investment of 8 billion. A very good deal indeed, as it turns out.

However, the BP-AAR relationship has been fraught with acrimony– In 2008, reportedly in a fallout with the AAR partners over payout of dividends versus capital investments, Mr. Dudley ended up suddenly having to leaving Russia, due to his visa status not being renewed, and only last year, the same partners went to court to block BP’s bid to participate in a drilling joint venture with Rosneft, in Russia’s Arctic, leading BP to …

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May 26, 2019
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Apple Inc., Leadership Brands, and Team Brands

The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported a shake-up at Apple (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204840504578089102411834238.html?KEYWORDS=Apple+Shake-up+signals+Tim+Cook+era) with several executives leaving the organization. The article reported that some of those leaving, e.g., Mr. Forstall, the head of mobile software, had irreconcilable differences with other employees, to the point of not even talking to each other on projects that required their joint inputs. The Wall Street Journal reported “Messrs. Ive [head of hardware design] and Forstall clashed so severely in recent years that they avoided being in the same room together… ‘They didn’t cooperate at any level,’ one of the people close to the matter said. ‘They always let Steve decide.’” This highlights a key challenge for organizations that are highly centralized behind an iconic leader, as was the case for Apple, until recently. How does one manage the transition in leadership that inevitably must come?

Before we go there, let us describe the nature of such brands which we call leadership brands. Leadership brands are brands that are built around the ideals and aspirations of the leader, who is also often the founder of the company. Such leaders are often dictatorial and hands on, making every critical decision themselves. Whether they are right or wrong, strong leaders, like Steve Jobs, bring with them strong personalities that distinguish them apart from the competition and it is also their strong personalities that attract like-minded employees and intrigue the consumers of their brand.

When the leader around whom the leadership brand is constructed steps aside, the brand and the …

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January 17, 2019
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Back to focus, focus, focus!

Sitting in New Delhi airport waiting for my flight to Bangalore my thoughts moved to the recent turmoil in Vijay Mallya’s business empire. United Distillers, one of the pieces of the puzzle, and the world’s biggest distiller by volume, had to sell a majority stake to DIAGEO for a much needed infusion of some $2 billion! In the words of the great bard, William Shakespeare, for Vijay Mallya, “Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen!” Losses in its Kingfisher Airline business have had the flamboyant Indian tycoon on the ropes for a while, and a solution along the lines of that inked with DIAGEO was all but inevitable.

What remains interesting to me is the lack of understanding of the need for focus among entrepreneurs and business leaders. Strong businesses are focused. Having a portfolio of businesses spanning distilling, brewing, airlines, and sports (Bangalore Royal Challengers T20 team) doesn’t allow for the depth of understanding of either the target consumers or business models to serve them, to compete in a sustainable and successful way. We see the same across markets. Consider China’s BYD, BYD’s shares have plummeted as they moved from the battery business in to automobiles and the firm has gone from being the darling of the stock market to pariah status in short order.

One hopes that businesses will take the lesson of focus to heart. Focus helps target a firms resources and cement a clear brand identity in consumer’s minds. Thus, for instance, Coca Cola has …

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December 13, 2018
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Global Consumers–Still Coming of Age in India

Standing inside the Palladium Mall which is the posh part of the Phoenix Mall in Mumbai, at the site of the old Phoenix Mill—a textile mill that became defunct a long time ago, one sees how the retail landscape in India has changed in the short course of 20 years, since liberalization was ushered in 1991 under the Narasimha Rao government. Emporio Armani, Boss, Canali, Chanel, Zegna, Gucci, DKNY, Diesel, Swarovski, Rosenthal, Tag Heuer and other names synonymous with luxury jostle for space as a pianist strikes up relaxed tunes on a grand piano under the soaring ceiling.

At the same time the youth of the transformation is visible. Right next to Chanel and across the aisle from Burberry, right next to the main entrance sits Zara, the fast fashion giant that while hugely successful can hardly be called “luxury”. Wander a little more and you see a Giordano outlet! This is even lower end than Zara and hails from Hong Kong where I remember buying cheap clothes when I lived in Hong Kong some 16 years ago! Clearly, the mystique of luxury and the mystique of “foreign” have become confounded in the burgeoning consumer culture in India. In time, with maturity, perhaps such oddities will disappear. Or, perhaps, in India, Zara and Giordano will become “luxury”. Now that’s a thought.

 …

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August 8, 2018
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