Multiplextortion

Hi All,

It's just amazing that so many of us want to view films in a comfortable manner which results in a race to finish or fastest finger fist kind of scenario. First and foremost to get tickets for watching a movie in these multiplexes on a weekend means you have to get the bookings done at least by Wednesday else you cannot watch the movie you would like to. So planning for weekend movie begins on Wednesday when you hardly have an accurate idea of your weekend plans and the rider is that these tickets are non- refundable. Also did I forgot to mention that watching a movie on a weekend is almost 30% expensive than on weekdays, phew. Anyways the real extortion gives way once you reach the parking and you realise that you have to pay Rs 40 (??) for parking alone i.e. for 3-4 hours that you will spend catching a movie. Then you move to to the "food lounge" or "candy bar" as they call it and when the real extortion hits you and hits you hard. A mineral water bottle costs you a cool Rs 15/- for a 500ml which you get for Rs 7/- in open market which translates to a more than 100% markup !!. A 400 ml soft drink comes for Rs45/- which in open market costs Rs 16-18 so a markup of almost 250-275%. So a movie for two leads to a total expense of Rs 590 ( Rs 400 for two tickets + Rs 40 as parking charges + Rs 150 for water, soft drink & popcorn)

So what do these things indicate to ? One, it is prohibitively expensive to watch movies in multiplexes and the people who are at the receiving end of this extortion wince every time they fall prey to this extortion but they have no choice but to accept it. Good, clean wholesome entertainment comes at a price which is climbing faster that petrol prices.

Two, monopoly market, about which I read and understood in my MBA classes make so much sense whenever I visit a multiplex. Demand for such movie halls is huge and supply is really scarce. Even after so much overcharging people are forced to view movies in these movie halls due to a lack of options. Some would argue that if you want comfort you need to pay for it, I agree with that but I am sure people demand a differentiation which goes beyond a simple comfort of air conditioned movie hall or glitzy toilets. When I recently visited Inox the food counters had only half the items and the soft drinks and mineral water being sold was not even cold!!. So is this the comfort that we are paying for? I think not.

So looking at the scenario I think consumers would love to go to a low cost place to watch movies. So are we on the brink of an entertainment industry explosion, maybe something on the lines on what happened in the airlines sector with the advent of Air Deccan. I think another chain resembling PVR/Inox etc. and which offer basic services but at an affordable price can blow the market.

Also this indicates another disturbing aspect - many people want to raise their concern about it but don't know where and how. The questions that somebody needs to answer is that isn't there any way by which we consumers can voice our concerns about such practices in a convenient manner. Why isn't there a simple procedure to log in a complaint regarding such issues, maybe even by a e-mail. It is the duty of the authorities to investigate and justify it to the citizens of the country.

Why are we living in the age of innocence or ignorance?

And before I forget if you haven't figured out yet and are still wondering about the title of the article then, the title is a combination of multiplex and extortion.

A

Media Frenzy - is it a need or is it a demand ?

Hi All,

Recently I had a lot of free time so I caught up on all that I had missed for the last few years, which is basically catching up on TV, movies, newspapers and good homecooked food. Although I enjoyed this phase thoroughly I noticed one disturbing trend - namely the huge media frenzy over anything small or big. So I thought I will write about it.
Media literally means "A means or instrumentality for storing or communicating information". So keeping the definition in view the media has a huge responsibility of keeping the citizens of India i.e. the general public INFORMED and I should not be off the mark to say that the information provided should be "unbiased". However the various news channels I managed to watch were not exactly unbiased nor were they catering to the Information responsibility. I would also like to say that not all channels are trash but sometimes even the better news channels fall for the ploy of reporting soundbites with no content.

Some incidents which I saw over the last few months and will remain etched in my memory due to their weirdness,craziness or superlative reporting are:

1. AbhiAsh Wedding: This takes the icing on the cake for its sheer drama which wasn't actually there. All news channels had a field day reporting the event with hardly any visuals or content. Some shots which were taken were repeatedly shown a zillion times. Even the run-up to the wedding took a lot of media space but what did a average man gain from it - nothing, zilch.

2. Shilpa Shetty-Gere Episode: Another incident which should be a prime example of making a mountain out of a mole hill. I agree that the visuals were not very decent to look and bordered on viewing a molestation case but as far as I know if the two people involved are fine with it the media should not have drawn it's on conclusions. I happened to view the "kissing scene" on a particularly famous hindi news channel and after viewing the same the anchor intelligently concluded that Shilpa Shetty was responsible for it !! Amazing, I too watched the scene and could not conclude how was Shilpa responsible for it, but still these are the ways of our dear hindi news channels.

3. World Cup Cricket: The coverage of the cup was worst I have seen for a long time mainly due to too much focus on the advertisements than the cricket match.For god sake it was the World cup, the only game India is enthusistic about and the viewing experience is shattered by the innumerous advertisements shown. The advertisements ate up all the intelligent commentary during the match and usually the first ball of overs. This is pathetic, I think BCCI should put some rule into place for limiting this. Another interesting thing was the deliberations that the Extraa Innings used to do befoer every match. They were so predictable and lacked imagination and also I think this was the only World Cup cricket in which there were no highlights shown to satisfy people who could not wake till 2-3 AM to watch the match.

4. UP Elections: BSP simply proved all media wrong and emerged truimphant. This also is an interesting aspect of all media hype before a elections in which a lot of opinion polls and exit polls are shown which take up a lot of media space and precendence over other important issues and finally everything comes to a naught !! So it brings us to a very crucial aspect of these polls i.e. are they administered in the right manner and do they indicate a representative sample. I think not.

5. Placements in B-Schools: I believe media is mainly responsible for creating the unhealthy competition of average salaries among all educational institutes in India. Nowdays people look at insitutes as some factories which produces products(students) which are lapped up by the industry. I believe that this is a wrong picture being depicted by the media. They should dwell more on the struggle done by students to reach there, the inspiring stories behind every small achievement instead they go for the "masala" and just print the monetary figures which is unjustified for many who don't make the cut or for those who cannot make it due to various reasons.

6. News Channels or Bollywood News Channels?: Almost all news channels everyday focus on bollywood big time. I tend to believe that it is the lifeline of all news channels. Every small nuance of the bollywood is discussed in great detail. The irritating thing is that already loads of news channels are covering bollywood in great detail then why do news channels join the bandwagon? They should restrict themselves to news/information period.

7. Hindi News Channels: I am particulary disappointed by the news carried by various hindi news channels. The reporting quality is really bad and the stories they show are weird and mostly deal with rape, murder, infidelity and molestation reports. They mostly aim to titillate the audience and have reports like 1 person murdered in a particular city while I am sure that in all cities across India someone is murdered everyday then why a particular murder is reported? The Ans is just because they had a correspondent there, too funny. Also the breaking news and their conclusions are weird at times.

So the MEDIA which was supposed to inform us about the various burning issues the society is facing instead focuses on Bollywood, Masala events, titillating news, wrong projections and shoddy media reporting.I think there is a serious need for some good talent to join the media industry or for grooming the existing ones. We being the citizens of a democratic country have to respect the freedom of expression which we enjoy yet there has to be some quality checks on the content. In the end, I would also say that channels are not entirely to blame as the audience also demands it. Yet I think the media should be more responsible and take the onus of making India more aware.

As you would have noticed the article is all negative in flavor, much in line with the news shown in the media.

A

Poor Service from Tata Indicom Broadband

I am writing after a long time and largely because of the internet problems I was facing for some time.

I have settled in Bangalore and my plight started with a naive decision of taking up a broadband connection largely dependent upon the fact that Airtel had no free connections in my area, BSNL had a waiting time, Hathway doesnt have service here and glowing accolades from the Tata Indicom Braodband Salesman (Vinod) . So although i wasn't convinced completely I took up the 6 month pre-paid Tata Indicom broadband connection paying Rs 2348 which had free installation while for 1 month connection you pay Rs 1000 as installation fee and for 3 month installation you have to pay Rs 500 as installation fee.

Now the nightmare started -

1. Small Problem: The installation was to happen in 3 days and it took 7 days and 7 phone calls to the Tata Indicom sales guy.

2. Big Problem: The second day internet stopped and I registered a complaint which was solved in 2 days flat. Remember that they promise service in 24 hours max.

3. Bigger Problem: So after 6 days I had surfed the internet for 2 days and had registered complaint twice and have called Tata Indicom every day for 10 days. I sit down to surf again after 6 days and again the net is down and again I register a compalint with Tata Indicom. Now the mayhem starts:
Day 1 : No one from Tata Indicom came, I contacted Salesman (Vinod) who gives number of a certain guy Khalid Khan who is maintenance guy and will help. I call Khalid and he says he will send someone but no one came.

Day 2: No one from Tata Indicom came I again called up Khalid and he said he is sending some guy Ramesh and said YOU call him and ask I had to ask Mr Khalid to himself do the honours.

Day 3: No one from Tata Indicom came I had to call Ramesh and blast him so he sent someone who came saw the router, cable etc. and said that he is going to fix it and went and DISAPPEARED. He never came back and when I called him he said he is searching for the cut in the cable.

Day 4: No one from Tata Indicom came I again called up Khalid who didnt pick my phone, I called up Vinod who also did not pick the phone and Ramesh picked and lamented that he is a new guy and he told someone to come and he didn't come. I was naturally furious it was 4 days and no help from any corner and the helpline said they will fix it and Tata Indicom has a stupid rule that says that as long as a complaint is not solved the 6 month pre-paid account is extended by that duration and I thought my 6 month duration connection was in danger of becoming a year long connection. Such pathetic service !! The workforce claiming that people are not doing what they are told to ?? I think Tatas needs to focus on local issues then to go for the big deals. I never could imagine such abysmally low levels of service from a brand that belongs to the famed Tata Group.Anyways....

Day 5: I had lost all hope yet as no one from Tata Indicom came I again called up Khalid who didnt pick my phone, I called up Vinod who also did not pick the phone and Ramesh also didnt pick the phone. I called up the Tata Indicom Helpline and demended a refund and asked them to take their stuff away. Now comes the clincher, another strange Tata Indicom rule no matter what happens if you have gone for a pre-paid braodband connection from Tata Indicom you cannot get the money back in any circumstances. I was naturally infuriated but decided to take a break and it was Saturday.

Day 6: I had lost all hope yet as no one from Tata Indicom came I again called up Khalid who didnt pick my phone, I called up Vinod who also did not pick the phone and Ramesh also didnt pick the phone. I called up the Tata Indicom Helpline and they reiterated that there people are in the field trying to solve the problem, by this time I had started feeling bad for the poor guys in the field, searching for a cable cut for a week and unable to locate it, awesome !!.

Day 7: I had lost absolutely all hope yet as no one from Tata Indicom came I again called up Khalid who didnt pick my phone, I called up Vinod who also did not pick the phone and Ramesh also didnt pick the phone. I went to the local Tata Indicom office and gave a good dressing down to the guys there. Foud out that I have to go to Brigade Office to fight it out as corporate office is there. Awesome and we say red tapism exists in government so is the Tata group a government enterprise ?? I don't think so yet the unfathomable levels of service indicate to a much larger problem which I would discuss later in the post.

Day 8: Finally when I was thinking of going to the corporate office as the customer have no senior to complain to even on helplines or direct numbers so the best bet seemed going to the main office and wasting my precious energy, time and spoiling my mood. I was thoroughly disappointed. Finally due to the shouting I did at the Tata Indicom office a poor guy Manohar came who fixed the problem in 15 minutes and told me that "Khalid and Ramesh usually switch off their phones when customers call".

Anyways so this long saga of Tata Braodband connection finally ended and touchwood it has been ok till now. The above incident apart from leaving a bad taste brings a number of things in perspective. Let us look at the above problem with a little more detail.

1. Sales team: The guy Vinod did an awesome job of calling me everyday before I gave him the cheque confirming the connection. So is the sales team justified in promising when they are fully aware of the fact that their claims will fall flat on their faces. Is it ethical ? Is their no law in India which caters to such issues of false promises? Can this be claimed as a fraud?

2. Policy makers: The really sad policies made by the policy makers of Tata Indicom. How can Tata Indicom make such policies that if Tata Indicom doesnt live upto their word of providing service in 24 hours nothing happens and if the customer is distraught he cannot even take his money back??

3. Workforce: The Tata Indicom incident brought some other aspects which have infested the service industry i.e. there is a serious gap between the expectations of the customer and the employees. Also there is a severe lack of customer focus on the part of employees and they perceive themselves as an entity which is different from the organisation and there is a serious disconnect between the employee's goals and the employer's goals and the organisation goals seem to be poles apart from employees. What does this imply? Does this mean we need to include a serious module on the salient features of customer service in the induction modules or a part of proffesional courses or does it indicate a more serious issue of a talent gap? Do we Indians who are proud of the fact that we are becoming a service driven economy actually should be proud of it? Do we have the wherewithal to sustain the advantage we have just about built in the last few years?

For the sake of India, I sincerely hope this is not true...............

Be Good !!
A