Ok, I have been going around retail stores (More, Vijetha) in Hyderabad to see the shelf space Durga ghee occupies and to get product feedback. Overall I have been getting unanimous replies from the store members that Durga is the choice if you want a ‘nice’ ghee.

Yesterday, I wanted to see if Durga has any shelf space and to enquire the feedback of the ghee in a posh area where typically the people are from middle class/upper middle class and are generally informed of the product choices they make.

I have been to ‘Hyper City’ mega mart located at Inorbit mall, Madhapur – the posh area this side of Hyderabad. I was pleased with what I saw.

Durga shares significant shelf space equal to Amul! (Second pic below, 3 rows each). As per store members both Amul and Durga sell but Amul might have a slight upper hand. Here too the lady said, but sir, if you want a nice ghee, go for Durga. I thanked and came.

Key conclusions are:

1. Management really are doing what they are upto as Durga started having better brand visibility when compared to couple of years back.
2. Having equal shelf space with Amul in a super competitive retail market is a feat. With time, this should contribute to revenue growth.
3. In the local area stores, there are imitation brands like ‘Nand Gokul’ (Nand Gokul copies Durga packaging as is except for hologram, Crane Group Logo) which shares shelf space with Durga BUT in the Hyper mart, there is no such competition from local imitators.
4. Ok, so brand visibility is improving, with time the sales growth and its associated disproportional bottomline growth (due to high RoCE, Low Capex) should pan out.

I hold Virat Crane and this is not a buy/sell suggestion. I’m just doing the ‘brand visibility’ scuttlebutt to confirm that product exists and sales do happen really as part of my conviction building process.

EDIT:
If you zoom the second picture, you will see the prices of Amul and Durga ghee. Amul sells at 385 INR per KG whereas Durga Ghee sells at 465 INR per kg which is 20% higher, which is huge premium. This ought to tell us something apart from high quality/aroma of Durga Ghee, what is that?

Couple of pics:

IMG_7250.JPG480×640 93.8 KB

IMG_7249.JPG2448×3264 2.76 MB

P.S: On a lighter note, I took my family saying its a surprise outing and they don’t know the main reason is my scuttlebutt thing, thankfully, my wife does not read the forum yet

Another pattern to be wary of
6. 95% + posts from a person are on a single business

Will shortly put up an example of forum abuse that came to our notice

Content Services 2012: Journal Production Services: Changes, Trends and Future Directions – a dated 2012 article by Nishith on Publishers weekly

Selected excerpts. – helps in understanding the scope of work for MPS then, and how its moving. Maybe useful to track developments in these directions – where it has reached today. @manoj – we can look at articles like this to grasp the Journal/Technical Books Production Services market

Automation is key to journal publishing of any discipline. Special tools need to be scripted to reduce processing time and manual intervention while providing good and consistent quality output for on-time delivery. As such, MPS has a group of technologists and software specialists dedicated to developing tools for any process imaginable: file receipt/downloading, metadata extraction, template authoring, XML creation, pre-editing, copyediting, graphics processing (including auto-resizing of images), page composition, proof correction, bibliographic information/issue makeup, index generation and linking, quality control, and even file delivery. “We use an in-house tracking system to monitor each step and manage end-to-end production activities. Extensive reports are available and integrated with other production tools, along with real-time online status reports. And wherever possible, we integrate our tracking system with our client’s system.”

Many publishers these days are moving toward an online-only publishing strategy, thereby eliminating printing and distribution costs, says Arora. “The publishing model has shifted from ‘print then distribute’ to ‘distribute then print if required.’ The increased usage of mobile and handheld devices also means that publishers can get their content across to more readers than before. It is now possible to package rich multimedia and interactive content—something that readers have been looking for—as part of the article or issue. Obviously, for the print version, such content would have to be hosted separately and provided as links to readers.”

But journal publishers are way behind book publishers in moving content to mobile and handheld devices. And one main reason behind this tardiness, says Arora, is the popularity of the traditional subscription model. “As for delivering content over mobile and handheld devices, publishers are adopting different strategies. Some are providing tools for searching content on mobile or handheld devices with full content access available via the host website. Some are using Adobe Digital Publishing Suite to create issue-based rich-media journals that take full advantage of the functionalities offered by such handheld devices as tablets. Others go for native app development for iOS and Android platforms. Then there are those looking for a hybrid iOS and Android compatible app—which supports both images and HTML5-based embedded content—that can be used as a wrapper for a single issue or multiple journals.”

Thanks @Donald, @ayushmit, @aveekmitra and @rohitbalakrish_

It was great to read the management Q&A as well as the BQ and MQ docs prepared by you all. My takeaway is that, yes there is a huge opportunity size. I had begun to doubt this part as the revenue growth seemed to be missing. I am invested for more than 2 yrs. Thanks for helping me sustain the conviction in MPS. Waiting for the tipping point when the outsourcing by the publishers would really gather pace.

Thanks to @ayushmit @rohitbalakrish_ and @aveekmitra for the Q&A

I totally agree with @mahesh points. I dont have any doubt that the management is just excellent. Its a delight to hear the management in concalls. However, low organic growth is a sour point for me. I dont understand why the story is not reflecting in the numbers. Management hasnt come out with convincing reasons for this inspite of saying many times that the opportunity is huge.

Discl: Close to 10% of my PF