SP JAIN GLOBAL BLOGS

“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.” – Ernest Hemingway

Topics: Leadership & Entrepreneurship, Thought Leadership

The backdrop provided a picturesque setting. The ninth-floor conference hall provided a panoramic view of the Mumbai backwaters. The fragrance of lavender wafted through the hall and ably complemented the aroma of the steaming coffee provided; the ambience was stimulating and refreshing, though nine in the morning might have been too early to discuss the hackneyed issues that were on the agenda. Mr. Rahul, Managing Director of one of the leading Indian corporate giants, was keen to take the previous evening’s unsettled debate to a logical end. “So what do you say, Mr. Bose, still confident about your proposal?”, remarked Mr. Rahul.

Topics: SP Jain School of Global Management, Thought Leadership, Faculty Insights

What is Neuroscience?

Reactions occur in a fraction of seconds. The brain functions and responds to the stimuli even before one consciously has the time to comprehend what happens. The cortex allows you to speak fluently and coherently, to plan for what you are going to say next, to focus your thoughts, to calm you nerves, and to respond to questions. Most of that is going on beyond awareness.

Topics: Thought Leadership, Disruptive Technologies

In many occupations, there are mandatory professional development requirements. Practitioners have to satisfy accreditation boards in terms of their self-education with respect to prescribed hours of attendance at seminars, workshops and conferences or completing on-line modules of study and various formal or internet exams. Others, for whom there are no prescribed hours of further study, are motivated and interested in ‘lifelong learning’ which has been defined as the ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. However, what has been little studied is the extra out-of-class self-directed learning that takes place while students are formally enrolled in a full-time university course.

Topics: Thought Leadership, Faculty Insights

With India’s continuous shift towards digitalisation of payment transactions, cybercrime has become more and more lucrative for cybercriminals. If the magnitude and multitude of data breaches reported worldwide in the recent past is any indication, India has a lot to be concerned about. It is reported that cybercrime is projected to reach $2 billion by 2019, which is a four-fold increase in the cost of security breaches over 2015. Likewise, during the last year, unknown malware downloads rose by over 900%, with more than 970 downloads per hour compared to 106 in the previous year.

Topics: Thought Leadership

Total advertising spending in the US is on an ever-increasing curve. In 2014 American businesses spent over B$180.12 (Emarketer, 2015). Globally in 2015 over B$540 billion was spent on advertising, a 4.6% increase over 2014 (Adage, 2015) with the general public being exposed to an increasing number of the ad. In 1985 the urban American would see around 2,000 ads per day with this number shooting up to 5,000 ads per day in 2016 (NY Times, 2015). Yet out of a sample of 350 ads watched per day only 153 ads would receive attention for more than a few seconds (SJ insight, 2014). Measuring advertising effectiveness has always been the greatest challenge of marketing and advertising professionals. There are two main methods for measuring advertising effectiveness: One focuses on measuring indicative marketing metrics such as awareness, preference, customer satisfaction, loyalty, and the other focuses on measurement of tangible marketing metrics such as sales, market share, profits, return on investment, cash flow, firm value. The complexity of measuring advertising effectiveness increases if the variable “emotion” is introduced. An emotional message in advertisements increases the audience attention toward the ad and product, boost product attractiveness, and generates a higher level of brand recall and various research have found that that emotion is a predictor of advertising effectiveness. There are various methods to evaluate emotion in advertising research. The emotional response can either be measured using self-report or autonomic measure. The visual self-report requires the respondent to choose a cartoon character matching his or her emotional state, while in verbal self-report respondents answer an open-ended question or rate their emotional state on a Likert-type scale. Self-reports usually capture the conscious state of the individual while the autonomic capture the body’s reactions. Body’s reactions such as heart rate fluctuation, or variation in skin acidity are most of the time beyond the conscious control of the individual while self-report or surveys suffer from heavy bias, for example, the Theory of Social Desirability posit that interviewees will tend to avoid socially unacceptable responses or will tend to provide answers which he or she perceives to be matching the value system of the interviewer. SPJAIN Neuroscience lab uses noninvasive facial recognition software to investigate the potential link between emotion and advertising effectiveness. Facial muscle involved in expressions are linked to the cerebral cortex through the corticobulbar track and reflect the activation of the brain’s amygdala region which is responsible for all potential value of all facial expression. In this research we uses GFK-EMO Scan, facial recognition software developed by Munich based Franhofer institute. GFK-EMO can record over 20 frames per second enabling an accurate measure of real-time emotional responses. Two safe driving ads from the UK were shown to a group of 60 participants and their emotional reaction were recorded. Both ads convey the same message about the danger of speed and road safety. While one ad used a highly affective message strategy, the other ad relies mostly on rational strategy. The high emotional video presents a dramatic car accident with casualties, and convey a high level of negative emotions including grief, fear, and shock. The low emotional ad delivers scientific facts about the danger of speed. Right after watching the ads and two weeks after watching the ads the students were requested to answer a survey adapted from the National Survey of Speeding Attitudes and Behavior (NSSAB).

Topics: Marketing, Thought Leadership

With demonetization and the predominant shift towards digital transactions, people are likely to be FORCED to move online for many e-transactions. According to RBI, the percentage of Internet Banking transactions in banks rose from 75% in 2014-15 to over 85% in 2015-16. An article in the Times of India dated 16th January 2016 states that India is ready for a 4-time jump in digital payments. With the economy moving to cashless, people are increasingly exploring payment alternatives such as UPI, e-wallets, and USSD based mobile banking through different platforms, which are directly or indirectly linked to the user’s bank account.

Topics: SP Jain School of Global Management, Thought Leadership, Disruptive Technologies

The stage is set for the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at Las Vegas, the world’s gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies, from January 5th to January 8th, 2017. Virtual Reality (VR) is going to be a prominent show stopper and attraction for individuals, corporates, consumers, and developers. In VR, it is the show floor where the business is done. The ‘virtual’ developments can only be realised when the real thing is shown and projected in the respective head mounted devices, 360 degree domes and screens. At such places, people gather to find the new leap in the VR hardware and software capabilities.

Topics: Virtual Reality, SP Jain School of Global Management, Thought Leadership, Disruptive Technologies

One of the hottest current trends in the world of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is “chatbots”. These are software entities that can carry on a conversation with a human, using voice or text. An article published in The Economist last April suggests that a marketplace for bots may soon overtake app stores as the fastest growing software segment.

Topics: Thought Leadership, Disruptive Technologies