Strategy of Marketing

Market strategies
Developing a clear and profitable strategy relies on balancing your company's competencies and abilities against the market opportunities into the future.

We offer a strategic development process that starts with strategic analysis and takes you through to implementation. Our marketing effectiveness studies look at how your marketing expenditure can be optimised to maximise your marketing ROI.


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Strategic analysis
Many marketing plans happen by hunch, but there is a better way. Strategic analysis forms the groundwork for the development of market strategies and involves looking at your customers and markets, your competitors and your competencies to identify the areas of opportunity and threat based on what your customers really value and what you can cost effectively deliver.


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Marketing effectiveness
Increasingly financial analysts are looking at how to get the best from marketing budgets and marketing is now no longer just the preserve of the marketing department but impacts on operations through TQM and customer satisfaction, on IT through customer databases, on sales through CRM and sales management and on finance through customer profitability analysis. With so many people now involved in marketing and so many ways to market, marketing effectiveness is a major question.


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Brand development
Brands are no longer just products, a brand may be the company itself and how people think about the company brand affects them as employees as well as customers. Developing and understanding brands is a core part of company management.


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Focus areas
If you have specific areas of marketing that you want help developing, we have experience in

Technology markets
Business markets
Brand development
Market segmentation

Marketing Technology

Internet applications
With the Internet playing an ever increasing role in reaching customers and sharing information about customers, particularly as companies want to understand their customers better and develop new ways of partnering with customers using the range of interaction tools.

More particularly, the Internet is providing a key route for information, comment and feedback from customers to the supplier and between customers about the supplier.


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Focus areas
Our focus on Internet Applications is on helping share information over the web, whether it is through websites aimed at customers, or using the Internet to build knowledge and information within your business. We develop:

Web applications
Market knowledge databases
On-line communities such as social networking groups
IT Tools for marketing
In addition we can provide IT tools to support your marketing, for instance GIS, project management, competitive intelligence gathering or data analysis tools. See some examples of what we can do.


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Websites
A website is practically a prerequisite for even the smallest businesses. Customers will look to your site so they can find out more about your company and check you out before they buy. The quality of your website must reflect the quality of your business and it must offer more than just the text in your brochure, and it must be kept up-to-date and relevant. We can provide professional websites that show your business in the best light online, but with a range of tools that make it easy for you to keep information up-to-date. Alternatively we have DIY one-click website solutions that provide fast, easy, low-cost feature-rich sites (see Notanant)


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Web-applications
With the drive towards second generation Internet web-sites (Web 2.0), it is becoming more important that sites are functional, interactive and not just informational. We develop a range of practical, easy-to-use, distributed web-applications for managing on-line services, from information publishing, to private shared address books, to distributed information systems to subscription based services.

Our web-applications are designed with the Internet in mind and are not merely copies of internal systems. They are standards based and are often available both as PC-based and WAP-based systems without the need for modifying the data.

Our flagship web-application is Notanant which can be used to manage any form of website with members.


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Customer and market knowledge databases
To support the use of information and analysis as a marketing tool, there is a need to build databases to hold information, so that they can be analysed easily and allow for information to be shared and sorted, for instance to support customer knowledge activities.

We develop bespoke market knowledge databases for the collection and dissemination of customer and competitor knowledge. Typically these are web-based systems based around a browser interface and industry standard applications. This allows us to collect and disseminate information through a wide variety of devices allowing for access and use outside the office environment. A demonstration will be available shortly from this site.

One specialist design is self-maintaining databases. For these type of databases, customers have access to and can manage and update their own information. This has the benefit of reducing the chances of data entry error, whilst allowing customers to tell you information from their perspective.


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On-line communities and web-sites
Web-site development and e-commerce need to be in place as another arm of your channels of distribution. The most effective web-sites are those that provide customers with a space to communicate and share information among themselves and with your employees.

These on-line communities can be an extension of your loyalty programmes or customer feedback programmes, or they can just be autonomous in their own right. Some companies worry that by providing a forum for customers to talk to each, problems will be highlighted. But the evidence suggests that open and honest communication is the single most effective way of generating loyalty, particularly if you are taking steps to fix problems.

We have in-house skills in all the major web-technologies and can help you generate your own on-line community. FieldShare was entirely developed in-house including the database and discussion forum elements.


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IT tools for marketing
In addition to bespoke software development (for example our Questionnaire Wizard), we are also able to configure and supply specialist tools for marketing project management and automated competitive intelligence gathering. In addition we can advise on the selection of data analysis tools for the statistical analysis of market research and database data and can provide training if necessary.

One example are Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is simply a mechanism for plotting database information on maps. Much existing business-to-business information contains geographic components and it can be incredibly useful to look at customers and orders by geography both to help with sales management and to provide key analysis to support marketing through seminars for instance.

For instance, if you knew that nearly half of corporate businesses have their headquarters in London and the South East, this would help you focus your marketing to look at solutions local to this area.

Marketing Communication Strategy Development

Raising awareness of your product in your target market is where sales begin, and this is where marketing communications activities begin the selling process.

With today's multiple channels for content to reach potential customers, the art and science of marketing communications has become increasingly important.


The marketing communications function (commonly called "marcom") has many communications tools available. Some companies in an industry might rely on paid advertising in print and online media. While other companies in the same industry might rely on a very different media mix, such as public relations and events.

However, no company can be sure they are using the most efficient media mix without creating a marcom strategy that is aligned with their overall strategic marketing direction.


Turning the strategic direction into marketing messages
The marketing communications strategy process usually begins with creating a "messaging strategy" -- determining the consistent theme or fundamental selling message that will he used in all marketing materials.

Another key part of the messaging process is creating the positioning statement. This two sentence statement tells what you sell, to whom, and why customers should buy it.

As you move through the process of creating a positioning statement, you'll want to capture your brainstorming results, such as in your marketing strategy mind map. Then, refine and test those creative approaches until you settle on your company's positioning statement.

Your positioning statement is critical to making all of the other parts of the marketing communications strategy work well. This is because every awareness-building and product information program needs to paint a clear, concise picture of what you sell and how customers will benefit from using your products.

Selecting effective marketing programs
Once you have settled on a strong positioning statement, you can develop sound strategies for your marcom programs. For most companies this means considering programs such as:

Public relations
Advertising
Web site
Seminars
Conferences and trade shows
Downloadable materials
Direct marketing (offline & online)
Packaging
Event sponsorships
Merchandising promotions
A mind map is a good way to capture ideas about which programs look like they will be most effective. Add these programs to the Marketing Communications section of your strategic marketing mind map. Later, evaluate each program to see if it should be in your final strategic marketing plan.
In large companies where each marketing program has its own manager, you can link your main strategic marketing mind map to each program's own planning mind map.

In companies where the whole marcom strategy is implemented by one team, you can add details about marcom programs in the team's main marketing mind map.


Benefits of a sound marcom strategy

The process of creating a marcom strategy has gotten more complex as more marketing activities move to the Internet. This has made it even more important to understand customer segments and how to communicate with those potential customers.

When you develop a marcom strategy based on a sound strategic marketing view of your market your marcom program will be more effective -- and customers will have a better, more consistent brand experience.

New Marketing Trends in 2010

There are several new marketing trends for 2010 that will have an impact on practically every marketing organization because of new trends in customer behavior, such as:

Shift in consumer mentality from recession to recovery
Changes in how customers make purchase decisions
New technologies for communicating with customers
Let's take a look at the major marketing trends for 2010 that will affect both business-to-business (B2B) and consumer (B2C) companies so we can update our marketing strategies for 2010.


Spotting marketing trends

When something becomes a "hot trend" it does so for two reasons. First, it's a product or activity that has been proven and refined. And, second, it's growing in adoption. The hot marketing trends for 2010 are all visible as we enter the year, and these trends are growing to the point where we need to adjust our marketing communications and sales strategies to take advantage of them.

Big marketing trends for 2010
Some of the hot marketing trends are rather obvious, such as the growing use of social media. But it's important to identify the "big marketing trends" for 2010 that can help define effective marketing strategies for 2010.

Big Marketing Trend #1: Personal — Communicate with individuals to carry on conversations about meeting their needs and solving their problems.

Big Marketing Trend #2: Local — Participate in personal, face-to-face meetings, events, and activities near where your product will be used because fewer customers will be flying to national events and conferences.

Big Marketing Trend #3: Mobile — Reach customers anywhere at any time with the 24/7 connectivity of mobile devices.


These three big marketing trends for 2010 overlap and reinforce each other to provide marketing opportunities to connect with your customers and increase revenue.

Marketing trend opportunities for 2010
Here are four ways you can combine these big marketing trends to create actionable marketing strategies that your competitors may not have thought of yet:

Marketing Trend Opportunity #1: Personal + Mobile — Provide personalized product, service, and solution information when and where customers are thinking about their problems and needs

Marketing Trend Opportunity #2: Personal + Local — Tailor marketing messages based on each person's purchase process, starting with their information gathering and continuing through their searching, purchasing, and reordering.

Marketing Trend Opportunity #3: Mobile + Local — Deliver product and solution information to customers at the location where the purchase decisions are being made using mobile devices and local Internet searches.

Marketing Trend Opportunity #4: Personal + Local + Mobile — Use one-to-one marketing to treat different customers differently — anywhere, anytime, and using any medium they want, whether it's text, telephone, Web, mobile app, or video.


Adapting to new trends in customer behavior
The current economic climate has caused both B2B customers and retail consumers to change how they make purchases in 2010. A longer sales cycle requires greater frequency of contact. Increased price sensitivity requires providing greater value. And, increased customer mobility requires that marketers use new technologies to stay in contact.

The year 2010 will provide marketers with significant opportunities for growth by adopting marketing strategies based on the "new normal" for customer behavior.

Brand

The word "brand" is derived from the Old Norse brandr, meaning "to burn." It refers to the practice of producers burning their mark (or brand) onto their products.

A brand is the personality that identifies a product, service or company (name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them) and how it relates to key constituencies: Customers, Staff, Partners, Investors etc.


Some people distinguish the psychological aspect, brand associations like thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images, experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and so on that become linked to the brand, of a brand from the experiential aspect.

The experiential aspect consists of the sum of all points of contact with the brand and is known as the brand experience. The psychological aspect, sometimes referred to as the brand image, is a symbolic construct created within the minds of people and consists of all the information and expectations associated with a product or service.

People engaged in branding seek to develop or align the expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impression that a brand associated with a product or service has certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. A brand is therefore one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace. The art of creating and maintaining a brand is called brand management. Orientation of the whole organization towards its brand is called brand orientation.

Careful brand management seeks to make the product or services relevant to the target audience. Brands should be seen as more than the difference between the actual cost of a product and its selling price - they represent the sum of all valuable qualities of a product to the consumer. There are many intangibles involved in business, intangibles left wholly from the income statement and balance sheet which determine how a business is perceived. The learned skill of a knowledge worker, the type of mental working, the type of stitch: all may be without an 'accounting cost' but for those who truly know the product, for it is these people the company should wish to find and keep, the difference is incomparable.

A brand which is widely known in the marketplace acquires brand recognition. When brand recognition builds up to a point where a brand enjoys a critical mass of positive sentiment in the marketplace, it is said to have achieved brand franchise. One goal in brand recognition is the identification of a brand without the name of the company present. For example, Disney has been successful at branding with their particular script font (originally created for Walt Disney's "signature" logo), which it used in the logo for go.com.

Consumers may look on branding as an important value added aspect of products or services, as it often serves to denote a certain attractive quality or characteristic (see also brand promise). From the perspective of brand owners, branded products or services also command higher prices. Where two products resemble each other, but one of the products has no associated branding (such as a generic, store-branded product), people may often select the more expensive branded product on the basis of the quality of the brand or the reputation of the brand owner.

Brand Awareness

Brand awareness refers to customers' ability to recall and recognize the brand under different conditions and link to the brand name, logo, jingles and so on to certain associations in memory. It helps the customers to understand to which product or service category the particular brand belongs to and what products and services are sold under the brand name. It also ensures that customers know which of their needs are satisfied by the brand through its products.(Keller) 'Brand love', or love of a brand, is an emerging term encompassing the perceived value of the brand image. Brand love levels are measured through social media posts about a brand, or tweets of a brand on sites such as Twitter. Becoming a Facebook fan of a particular brand is also a measurement of the level of 'brand love'.

Global Brand

A global brand is one which is perceived to reflect the same set of values around the world. Global brands transcend their origins and creates strong, enduring relationships with consumers across countries and cultures.

Global brands are brands sold to international markets. Examples of global brands include Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Marlboro, Levi's, Shell etc.. These brands are used to sell the same product across multiple markets, and could be considered successful to the extent that the associated products are easily recognizable by the diverse set of consumers.

Benefits of Global Branding

In addition to taking advantage of the outstanding growth opportunities, the following drives the increasing interest in taking brands global:

Economies of scale (production and distribution)
Lower marketing costs
Laying the groundwork for future extensions worldwide
Maintaining consistent brand imagery
Quicker identification and integration of innovations (discovered worldwide)
Preempting international competitors from entering domestic markets or locking you out of other geographic markets
Increasing international media reach (especially with the explosion of the Internet) is an enabler
Increases in international business and tourism are also enablers

Global Brand Variables

The following elements may differ from country to country:

Corporate slogan
Products and services
Product names
Product features
Positionings
Marketing mixes (including pricing, distribution, media and advertising execution)
These differences will depend upon:

Language differences
Different styles of communication
Other cultural differences
Differences in category and brand development
Different consumption patterns
Different competitive sets and marketplace conditions
Different legal and regulatory environments
Different national approaches to marketing (media, pricing, distribution, etc.)

Local Brand

A brand that is sold and marketed (distributed and promoted) in a relatively small and restricted geographical area. A local brand is a brand that can be found in only one country or region. It may be called a regional brand if the area encompasses more than one metropolitan market. It may also be a brand that is developed for a specific national market, however an interesting thing about local brand is that the local branding is mostly done by consumers then by the producers. Examples of Local Brands in Sweden are Stomatol, Mijerierna etc...

Ambient Brand

An Ambient Brand is a movement, where the brand is organized around values and social needs instead of promoting a specific product. It is a virtual space, defined by values and occupied by a community of like minded people. Whereas a traditional brand is entirely independent of products and their parent corporations, an ambient brand is an independent social movement that companies can participate in. They are not selling products, they are allowing their company to participate in a social movement and allow their brand to be identified with this. It exists as a shared values space where consumers gather, converse and ultimately transact with organizations that are in alignment with the values associated with that community. Corporations do not create ambient brands. They must qualify for inclusion within them by demonstrating that they share the values and will service the interests of their associated communities. The brands develop organically as a result of emerging social and cultural codes and are materialized through peoples ability to organize around them through the use of mainly virtual communities on the web.

Brand name

The brand name is quite often used interchangeably within "brand", although it is more correctly used to specifically denote written or spoken linguistic elements of any product. In this context a "brand name" constitutes a type of trademark, if the brand name exclusively identifies the brand owner as the commercial source of products or services. A brand owner may seek to protect proprietary rights in relation to a brand name through trademark registration. Advertising spokespersons have also become part of some brands, for example: Mr. Whipple of Charmin toilet tissue and Tony the Tiger of Kellogg's. Local Branding is usually done by the consumers rather than the producers.

Types of brand names

Brand names come in many styles. A few include:
Acronym: A name made of initials such as UPS or IBM
Descriptive: Names that describe a product benefit or function like Whole Foods or Airbus
Alliteration and rhyme: Names that are fun to say and stick in the mind like Reese's Pieces or Dunkin' Donuts
Evocative: Names that evoke a relevant vivid image like Amazon or Crest
Neologisms: Completely made-up words like Wii or Kodak
Foreign word: Adoption of a word from another language like Volvo or Samsung
Founders' names: Using the names of real people like Hewlett-Packard or Disney
Geography: Many brands are named for regions and landmarks like Cisco and Fuji Film
Personification: Many brands take their names from myth like Nike or from the minds of ad execs like Betty Crocker

The act of associating a product or service with a brand has become part of pop culture. Most products have some kind of brand identity, from common table salt to designer jeans. A brandnomer is a brand name that has colloquially become a generic term for a product or service, such as Band-Aid or Kleenex, which are often used to describe any kind of adhesive bandage or any kind of facial tissue respectively.


Brand identity

A product identity, or brand image are typically the attributes one associates with a brand, how the brand owner wants the consumer to perceive the brand - and by extension the branded company, organization, product or service. The brand owner will seek to bridge the gap between the brand image and the brand identity. Effective brand names build a connection between the brand personality as it is perceived by the target audience and the actual product/service. The brand name should be conceptually on target with the product/service (what the company stands for). Furthermore, the brand name should be on target with the brand demographic.Typically, sustainable brand names are easy to remember, transcend trends and have positive connotations. Brand identity is fundamental to consumer recognition and symbolizes the brand's differentiation from competitors.

Brand identity is what the owner wants to communicate to its potential consumers. However, over time, a product's brand identity may acquire (evolve), gaining new attributes from consumer perspective but not necessarily from the marketing communications an owner percolates to targeted consumers. Therefore, brand associations become handy to check the consumer's perception of the brand.

Brand identity needs to focus on authentic qualities - real characteristics of the value and brand promise being provided and sustained by organisational and/or production characteristics.

Multi-brands

Alternatively, in a market that is fragmented amongst a number of brands a supplier can choose deliberately to launch totally new brands in apparent competition with its own existing strong brand (and often with identical product characteristics); simply to soak up some of the share of the market which will in any case go to minor brands. The rationale is that having 3 out of 12 brands in such a market will give a greater overall share than having 1 out of 10 (even if much of the share of these new brands is taken from the existing one). In its most extreme manifestation, a supplier pioneering a new market which it believes will be particularly attractive may choose immediately to launch a second brand in competition with its first, in order to pre-empt others entering the market.

Individual brand names naturally allow greater flexibility by permitting a variety of different products, of differing quality, to be sold without confusing the consumer's perception of what business the company is in or diluting higher quality products.

Once again, Procter & Gamble is a leading exponent of this philosophy, running as many as ten detergent brands in the US market. This also increases the total number of "facings" it receives on supermarket shelves. Sara Lee, on the other hand, uses it to keep the very different parts of the business separate — from Sara Lee cakes through Kiwi polishes to L'Eggs pantyhose. In the hotel business, Marriott uses the name Fairfield Inns for its budget chain (and Ramada uses Rodeway for its own cheaper hotels).

Cannibalization is a particular problem of a "multibrand" approach, in which the new brand takes business away from an established one which the organization also owns. This may be acceptable (indeed to be expected) if there is a net gain overall. Alternatively, it may be the price the organization is willing to pay for shifting its position in the market; the new product being one stage in this process.

Politics & Marketing in India

I see attack politics and attack marketing as pretty much the same thing. Or, a distinction without much of a difference, anyway. Politicians generally attack enemies who threaten their getting elected or getting some policy implemented. If you aren't a threat, though, you are basically ignored in that system. And if you are a little guy trying to attack powerful politicians, you are generally ignored, too. This is why collective protest is a necessary prerequisite for change. Strength comes in numbers. You have to make yourself a threat to even get noticed, and that has to happen well before you have a shot at changing things (whatever your thing is). But from the politicians point of view, since they have the power, it seems the attack principle dictates that they shouldn`t want to give too much exposure to a competitor or group they don`t support, so many politicians actually tend to attack pretty carefully. The rhetorically skilled know this very well. They think out a few moves ahead. Who should do the attacking? What`s the venue of the attack? What will the counter punch look like? Where will it come from? And when? What does it mean when no counter attack comes back at all and instead they are met with silence? And heck, what if the opponent praises in return instead of attacking as expected? The answers to these questions are imprecise at best.

I used to do competitive marketing, and I went through this exact same process. However, I always told my clients that attacks are best done by third parties and only in response to a precipitating attack. In other words, you don`t attack first. It`s not worth the headline. Instead, you be the one responding. Here`s why: those who attack first generally give away at least some of their position, and that gives you much more flexibility to respond. Unskilled politicians and marketers make this mistake all the time when they shoot their mouths off, but the concept holds up pretty well over time. I`ve said before that I think people attack for basically two reasons: (1) they are afraid that someone smaller than them may grow up and kick their butt, or (2) they are small themselves and want to pick a fight with a big guy to get attention. Either way, if you study your attacker you can learn a lot.

It's a game, granted. And everyone in it knows this. Most attacks can be quite easily turned around with some basic facts and logic. But rationality is irrelevant in the arena of delivering really good emotional propaganda for the purpose of influencing behavior. That's why attacks can work in some cases if they generate a strong reaction from the attacked. Attacks spread fear. And many times that fear shapes how people think if it`s not characterized properly. In fact, the term used to describe this process is sometimes called FUD -- fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It`s a silly sounding term, but it should be taken seriously because the best propagandists out there can be rather dangerous people if they have a power base and resources supporting them (a country, a company, an interest group, a foundation, a university, a union, whatever). In other cases, however, attacks and fear mongering backfire badly, and we saw this in the recent political campaign in our country where pols on both sides(BJP & Congress) took some things too far and the people (remember the people?) called them out on it.

So, what should you do if you are attacked in the marketplace? First, stop. Think. Don`t react immediately with the first counter attack you can think of in the first publication you can find. You`ve been attacked so you now have the upper hand for a period of time (not forever, though). What is the attack telling you about your attacker? Is he or she responding go your attack? If so, you deserve the counter attack so enjoy your stupid little fight. If not, though, something else is going on and you may be in a much better position than you think. It means that you got someone`s attention for some reason. You may have not even intended to get this attention, but that`s what the attack may mean and that`s valuable competitive intelligence if you can confirm it. Remember, if you were really irrelevant, chances are you`d be ignored. So, dig right there before responding and respond to defend and deflect not to attack back. And if you can praise the attacker (or his product or community or company or whatever) so much the better. Attackers are generally simple minded and angry and unable to deal with praise as a response. Alternatively, your attacker could just be engaging in bad marketing or politicking. Consider that too. Either way, you have the upper hand if you do the responding, not the attacking.

The New symbol of Indian Currency

The Indian Cabinet finalized a symbol for its currency, the Indian Rupee on Thursday July 15th 2010, denoting the strength of its growing economy joining a select club of countries whose currencies have a unique identity. The Indian Rupee today became the fifth currency in the world to get its unique symbol which is an amalgam of the Devnagiri Script 'Ra' and the Roman capital 'R' without the stem and two parallel lines running at the top symbolizing an equality sign.

India retains the reputation of developing the concept of coinage and issued some of the earliest coins in the history of mankind, which were the base for other currencies of the world. Continuing on the trails of its golden heritage, the Indian Rupee, the currency of Modern day India has formalized a new symbol for the Indian rupee, which reflects and captures the Indian ethos and culture. The Indian rupee is one of the well-established currencies in the world and in terms of sheer volume, the Indian Rupee is one of the most widely used financial instrument in the world currently being used by almost 20% of the world's population. With India becoming the hotbed of financial investment in recent times, the Indian Rupee is now ready to write a new chapter to complement its glorious past heritage. The significant strength exhibited by the Indian rupee in the recent years along with the continued good performance of the Indian economy have raised the issue of greater internationalization of the Indian rupee. Developing an important brand for the wider Indian economy among international investors and highlighting India's increasing global economic ambitions, the country has joined an elite group as the Indian cabinet approved a new symbol for its national currency emulating the pound, the euro, the dollar and the yen in having its unique distinguishing identity.

Until now, the most common notation for the Indian Rupee “Rs.” was used also being used by several Asian nations including Pakistan, leading international traders to rely on the clunky “INR” to distinguish it. The new symbol will distinguish the Indian currency from currencies of other countries like Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia which also use the word "rupee" or "rupiah" to identify their respective currencies. The new symbol, a combination of the Devnagiri script 'Ra' and the Roman capital 'R', will be used by all individuals and entities after its incorporation in `Unicode Standard’, ‘ISO/IEC 10646’ and ‘IS 13194’.

The need for the symbol had become necessary because of the Indian economy's rapid growth, which has propelled it to become one of the largest economies of the world. The unique symbol for the Indian currency comes after the Reserve Bank of India recently published a study looking into the potential of the rupee to be used in international trade and even as a possible reserve global currency, given the problems confronting the US economy and the dollar. The Indian rupee has been one of the best performing currencies among emerging market economies in the first quarter of 2010, beat currencies from other emerging market economies like Brazil, Russia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and South Korea.

Currently, Indian rupee is available only in the denomination of Re.1 and Rs.2 coins and notes ranging from Rs.5 to Rs.1000. Paisa coins valuing 25p and 50p are rarely used. A unique feature of the Indian rupee note is its language panel, which depicts what that denomination is called in 15 of the 22 official national languages of India. The Indian currency has been one of the strongest in South Asia but has been hampered in recent times by illegal activities of fake currency notes being pumped into its borders from neighboring countries like Pakistan and Nepal. The attempt to pump in fake notes to destabilize and devalue the Indian currency has so far not had much of an impact on its robust growth mechanism which is backed by solid foundations and deep economic reforms. The publishing and printing of fake Indian currency continues to be a headache for the Indian government as it has started to use fine quality paper and inks that are difficult to imitate. Although India’s currency is on a surge, and it has made its mark as the top-performing currency the extent to which the symbol will gain international usage and cache remains to be seen. The rupee has grown increasingly stable in value. Versus the dollar, it made strong gains until the global flight to the dollar at the height of the worldwide financial crisis.

History Of The Indian Currency

India is the place where the concept of coinage developed at its earliest in around 6th century BC which later on built the base for other currencies of the world. According to the historians, the Indian currency i.e. rupee was brought into existence by Sher Shah Suri in the 16th century and it was evaluated as equal to 40 copper coins per rupee. The dominance of Mughals over India started diminishing when the British arrived in the country. The paper money was introduced under their reign in the latter part of the 18th century. Bank of Hindostan made the earliest rupee notes issues in the year 1770. After independence, the Indian rupee was unified by the Government of India as a single currency for the Republic of India.

Indian Currency Related Funds

After the gradual success of Indian equity ETFs as a low-cost option to gain diversified exposure to Indian equities, more and more investors are looking at the Indian currency funds as with the surge in the Indian currency, Rupee exchange traded funds have also performed handsomely compared to funds of other emerging economies of the world.

For investors who want to invest in currency in the emerging Indian currency market, a favorite investment vehicle continues to be the WisdomTree Dreyfus Indian Ruppee Fund (ICN). The ETF seeks to achieve total returns reflective of both money market rates in India available to foreign investors and changes in value of the Indian Rupee relative to the U.S. dollar. The fund normally invests in a combination of U.S. money market securities with forward currency contracts and currency swaps that are designed to create a position economically similar to a money market security denominated in Indian Rupee. The average portfolio maturity is 90 days or less. It does not purchase any securities with a remaining maturity of more than 397 calendar days. The fund is non-diversified.

With an expense ratio of 0.45%, it seeks to give investors a yield comparable to local money-market rates available to foreign investors. It also provides exposure to the movement of the rupee against the U.S. greenback. However, WisdomTree points out that the ETF is not a money market fund and isn't required to maintain a constant share price.


ICN Performance
52 Week Return: 5.41%
YTD Return: -0.08%
1 Week Return: 0.08%
2 Week Return: 0.76%
4 Week Return: -0.36%
13 Week Return: -4.84%
26 Week Return: -2.10%
ICN Expenses & Fees
* Expense Ratio: 0.45%
* Category: Currency
* Category Range: 0.35% to 0.89%
* Category Average: 0.5%
Issuer: Wisdom Tree
Expense Ratio: 0.45%

Another key instrument to bet on he Indian currency is the Market Vectors Indian Rupee-USD ETN (INR) that tracks the exchange rate of the U.S. Dollar against the Indian Rupee. The ETN is an unsecured debt security issued by Morgan Stanley and is based on the S&P Indian Rupee Total Return Index. Total return means that interest earned on funds deposited are reinvested rather than distributed. The Indian Rupee ETN gives investors a low cost way to quickly gain exposure to the movement in the dollar-rupee exchange rate. The annual expense ratio is 0.55 percent and the ETN doesn’t currently pay a dividend.


INR Performance
52 Week Return: 5.22%
YTD Return: -0.05%
1 Week Return: 0.32%
2 Week Return: 1.01%
4 Week Return: -0.42%
13 Week Return: -5.29%
26 Week Return: -3.00%
INR Expenses & Fees
* Expense Ratio: 0.55%
* Category: Currency
* Category Range: 0.35% to 0.89%
* Category Average: 0.5%

Practically speaking, ETNs work much the same way as ETFs, but they’re actually a form of debt instrument. The failure of an ETF provider should, in theory, has no impact on the value of an ETF, because it is backed by securities deposited with a custodian in the name of the ETF itself. ETNs on the other hand are merely structured finance products backed by the unsecured debt of their providers. Holders are therefore exposed to the credit risk of the provider.

The Indian Economic Growth Story

India's economy has experienced rapid growth since liberalization reforms in the early 1990s reduced controls on foreign trade and investment, and the country is widely forecast to become a global superpower. The Indian government predicts the economy will grow by 8.5 % this fiscal year and should hit double-digit expansion within five years. According to the International Monetary Fund, the outlook for India remains positive. Rising incomes should support consumption growth, and robust business confidence, high capacity utilization, and buoyant corporate profits will bolster investment. Over the next few years, growth is likely to moderate toward its potential rate of 8 percent, buttressed by favorable demographics and robust productivity gains.

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Kamal