Sunday 16 September 2018

IKEA Hyderabad - Crowds

Dear Reader,

IKEA opened its new store in Hyderabad, the first in India. There was much pomp and flair before the opening with IKEA promising a grand shopping and eating experience. There was much advertising and marketing of the store before the opening and that got the city rallied up for a grand opening.

News of the crowds at IKEA started spreading on the day of the opening with short videos of the queues, visiting crowds, and customers spending a lot of time just getting into the store. IKEA, as its brand stands for, did a great job of managing the crowd and ensured that every customer was delighted. However, I think they underestimated the size of the crowd on the first day and also on subsequent weekends.

Here are some online links to news articles on the same topic,




Clearly, IKEA did not anticipate the volume of people that will turn up to visit its store in Hyderabad. With more and more millenials shopping online it would have helped IKEA to launch an online presence and supplement their brick and mortar store. Below is an online article that touches upon the same subject. 


Segmenting their customer base into those that 'do purchase online' and those that 'don't purchase online' would have allowed IKEA to attain higher sales while at the same time provide a great, slightly different, IKEA shopping experience to both segments. For example, customers that fall into the 'don't purchase online' segment would want a full blown brick and mortar shopping experience at their store. Whereas, customers that fall into the 'do purchase online' segment would probably be fine with browsing through the IKEA online catalogue, selecting the items they want to purchase, making a purchase and visiting the store to collect the items - that way, they get the IKEA shopping experience, save time and also avoid the crowds.

IKEA catalogs have always been a key part of the IKEA shopping experience. I as a kid, my family and I used to spend hour browsing through the catalog and ogling at the furniture designs and home furnishings. It was only when we were certain we wanted to purchase something we ended up visiting the store. Saved a ton of time and money!

In India, a majority of the customers would fall into the first segment i.e. those that 'don't purchase online' and I also think visiting a store like IKEA would be a first time experience for them. Just the sheer number of items on display and the ability to touch them and feel them itself is part of the IKEA experience. Most wouldn't even buy anything nor would they even have any intention of buying anything in the first place. For some it is a day long getaway to experience something new with a high brand value.

An online presence would definitely make IKEA a best seller in India. Hopefully they learn something from their store launch in Hyderabad and make better plans for their store launches in other cities.

Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think in the comments section.

Until next time.

Jyothin


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Monday 5 March 2018

Wait




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Wednesday 31 January 2018

NF Rap - Powerful lyrics








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Location: Hyderabad, Telangana, India

Sunday 28 January 2018

Learnings from my first computer

Dear Reader,

Everyone remembers their first experience with a computer. Mine was in the year 1984 when my dad bought our family's first computer. It was an IBM 5155. Here is a picture of it.


It was portable by those days standards and came pre-installed with PC DOS. It didn't look like a traditional computer with a separate monitor and a separate CPU (most of my friends had those kind). However, it packed a punch when I loaded GW-BASIC onto it and games like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, etc. I was excited every time it beeped and booped.

Here is another picture.
It had two floppy drives (not one as shown below) and made a lot of noise. Compared to today's (2018) computers it was VERY slow. But it was ton of fun. Just putting in a new floppy and waiting for something to show up in anticipation was so much fun.


The computer was designed in such a way so as to fold the keyboard into the front, close the back panel with a shutter, pull out a handle and carry the computer around like a briefcase.




It came with 3 manuals from IBM with so many instructions. I don't think any one in my house ever read even a single page from the manual. As with all electronics gadgets, its best for kids to watch and learn from someone else using it. I had a whole gang of friends who also had computers and were watching each other play games or load stuff on the computer and do other cool things. Eventually I became the master of the computer at my home.






It was not until I was in 6th grade that I started using the computer for more productive uses. I was taking computer classes at school and we were taught how to program in LOGO and BASIC. Creating all kinds of figures with the turtle in LOGO. We competed with each other on who could write a program to draw a cooler figure. Loops, variables, drawing stuff using GW-BASIC and do calculations on the computer. I had a school project to complete in the 10th grade and I wrote programs to do all kinds of statistical calculations; mean, median, mode, standard deviation, max, min, correlation coefficient, and draw all kinds of cool charts like pie charts, bar graphs, line charts, etc. I even made cool animations of the charts with them shrinking and growing as the numbers changed. And I loved every moment of it.

What I've come to realize is that everyone has a different way of learning but generally they can be classified into 4 kinds,
  1. Learn by Yourself: read up, try something, try something again differently, read up again, and eventually you understand how stuff works. This is also the self learning kind or in the corporate world learn by trial and error (fail fast and iterate). This is also where one can get more creative.
  2. Learn by Watching: this is the best way to learn initially until you get a hang of things. You watch your friends how they do things and then imitate them. This is kinda like group learning or group study. In the corporate world this is pair programming or mentor-mentee learning.
  3. Learn by Training: this is where you take structured classes, do formal exercises, get graded and then become a master in the subject. This is also the typical classroom style learning or in the corporate world, learning by undergoing training/certification.
  4. Learn by Fun: this is where you get adroit at something by exploring the fun side of a subject. Like playing games on a computer or solving math puzzles, etc.
Going back to how I first learned to use a computer. Initially it was all 'learn by fun', I played  a ton of games on the computer, without wondering too much about how it all works. And when we learned something new, we were like 'I didn't know it could do that!'.  There were also elements of 'learn by watching' during this time. After some 'learn by training' in school, I began to appreciate the other uses of a computer. Eventually, I started 'learning by myself' and got really good at it. Today, I do a mix... depending on the situation and circumstances.

If you cannot learn by either of the above methods... you've really lost the love of learning.

Are these methods applicable even today? Absolutely. Even today, managing a team of software engineers I realize everyone has a different way to approach solving a technical problem but generally they fall into one of the above buckets. Most people in India typically fall into the third bucket as that is the general learning methodology followed in schools in India. And its very hard for someone used to one learning style to switch to another learning style.

What is your unique learning style? Let me know what you think in the comments section.

Jyothin

 PS: Here is a picture of me hacking away 😉

And another one with my childhood friend Prashant.




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Location: Hyderabad, Telangana, India
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