Porter’s Generic Strategies

This blogpost by the team of assignmenthelpexperts.com would explain about the Porter’s Generic Strategies. Companies follow a particular strategy to gain sustainable competitive advantage. According to Porter, companies can get a competitive position by following only a certain generic strategies that he termed as cost leadership, differentiation and focus. Cost leadership and differentiation strategies target a large share of market while focus strategy targets a narrow segment of the market. All these strategies require unique kind of organization structures, procedures, control systems, and incentive systems for companies and what particular strategy is to be followed should be decided with a detailed and through internal and external analysis. Porter strongly argued that a company should follow only one of these three strategies.

Cost leadership strategies are followed by companies in such a way that every part of the organization is geared towards keeping the cost minimum, achieving the highest efficiency and meeting the quality standards as per the consumer expectations. Wal-Mart is one company that has executed this strategy quite successfully. McDonald is another company that pursues cost leadership strategy by having standardized processes and tighter management control with minimum management staff. Toyota is another example of a company that follows cost leadership strategy. However it is important to understand that it is not just about offering the products or services at the minimum prices to customers but it is about reducing costs at all aspects of the value chain of the organization, eliminating wastes, innovating at every step and effective leadership and management orientation for this kind of strategy.

Differentiation is another generic strategy in which companies differentiate their offerings on certain aspects of the products’ features that customers give not only product preference to differentiated product but also are willing to pay more. Companies structure the whole organization and its actions in such a way that its products’ perceived value is higher for its consumers with respect to competitor’s products. Companies can strategies to create product differentiation. Companies focus on higher margins than high market share through this kind of strategy. Companies need to have innovative product development and effective marketing strategies for pursuing differentiation strategy.

Another generic strategy is focus strategy that focuses on a niche or narrow segment of the market and offer its products/services to that narrow segment. These offerings could be either following cost leadership or differentiation strategy. Basically by the following this strategy, companies attempt to fulfill the need of a particular segment better that the companies targeting a large market share. Companies try to build strong loyalty of its consumers with its brand.

Michel Porter argues that for the companies to create sustainable competitive advantage in the long run, they need to follow either one of the generic strategy and cannot follow stuck in the middle approach. However, practically there has been some companies who have successfully executed more than one generic strategies. To take this model further, Bowman introduced strategy clock to introduce more options for viable generic strategies for the companies.

We hope that this post would be useful for students for their homework related to strategic management. If you have any query or need assignment help and homework help, please do send us an email to info@assignmenthelpexperts.com

Challenges for New Chief in AirTel

Interview: former Telstra executive Drew Kelton is now running Bharti Airtel’s enterprise services in its home market of India — and finding huge opportunity while he is getting used to the differences in Indian business

                                               
Drew Kelton: the enterprise and business-to-business IT and
telecoms market in India is worth round about 70,000 crore
rupees ($15 billion)
                                  
                                  
It’s just about a year since Drew Kelton moved from Australian operator Telstra — where he was managing director of international business — to New Delhi, to become president of the enterprise services division at fast-expanding Indian operator Bharti Airtel.

It was a significant move for someone who had been at Telstra for eight years, looking after its business activities in Australia, Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific — though he was not alone in moving out of the senior management levels of Telstra in the last year or so.
“I had a great time at Telstra,” says Kelton. But he wanted “the opportunity of getting involved” in Airtel: “The opportunity has to be in emerging markets,” and he was attracted by the chance of working in a mixture of global and domestic enterprise at Airtel.
Group chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal was also a reason for making the move to India: “I was very inspired by our chairman,” says Kelton. “It was obviously the best thing for my career.”
And there’s an opportunity in India, because the market is lagging “by any metric” for enterprise services. And, Kelton has found in his first year in the company, it’s a market which operates differently from those he’s worked in so far in his career.
“The enterprise and business-to-business IT and telecoms market in India is worth round about 70,000 crore,” says Kelton, showing how quickly he has adopted Indian business terminology. A crore (of rupees) is 10 million, so 70,000 of them is 700 billion — equivalent at current exchange rates to $15 billion.
“The addressable business-to-business traditional telecoms market is about 30,000 crore,” he continues — so, getting on for $7 billion.
Bharti Airtel’s business share is “about 12% of the 70,000” — which works out at roughly $1.8 billion. “They’re big numbers, driven by a number of dynamics. The Indian market is very vibrant. The emerging middle class and the increase in domestic income is creating a consumer market.”
But in terms of telecoms it’s a highly fragmented business. “There are 17 key players in the telecoms market,” says Kelton. “Airtel is a full-service operator”, with services ranging from direct-to-home satellite TV to managed services for business.
                                  
                                  
Strong competition 
                                  
There is “very strong competition” in each section of the market, from companies such as Vodafone which specialises in mobile, as well as two other large Indian operators, Reliance Communications and Tata Communications.
But “there is opportunity for a lot of people”, says Kelton. But there are challenges as well as opportunities: most people have mobile phones when they often don’t have DSL at home.
Kelton’s market territory is “the top 2,500 companies in India in terms of company size and scale and their investment in IT and telecoms”.
It’s hard, he readily admits, to get a good idea of the potential, because it is such a fragmented market, with much of it divided between a large number of pay-as-you-go mobile operators. “If I look up the billing records I can find only fixed-line voice, but I can look at my market share and decide what I think the customer’s total is, and how much is left. I want a fraction of the whole of the spend.”
But he’s finding that many companies are reluctant to give all of their telecoms business to one provider. “One thing that happens in India is that it’s a trading market, and telecoms is traded as well,” says Kelton. “Companies will say: ‘I’m not going to give all my business to you because I have someone round the corner.’”
But he’s starting to develop interest in arguments around total cost of ownership, focusing on core competences. “In Telstra we had a very strong programme for the whole of a business — aggregating everything together to provide a bundled solution, providing true value for money and giving added value.”
At Airtel he’s finding customers are not so readily accepting that argument. “For example, we get a request for proposals for telecoms service procurement from a bank, and then three months later an RFP to manage the router network.” In many countries such a bank would automatically bundle the whole thing into a managed services contract.
“We’re not quite there yet.” Companies like to give different parts of the business to different suppliers. “We are attempting to change that.”
It’s an education process. “You’ve decided that a hundred-site MPLS network is something that you want,” says Kelton. “How can I persuade you that managing that network is not something you want to do yourself? In Airtel, I’m already managing 500 MPLS networks.”
Why is there this difference in outlook? One reason, Kelton suggests, is that Indian salaries are lower than in developed Western economies. “The cost of people is not usually an issue. You can throw resource at the problem.”
                                  
                                  
Changing dynamics 
                                  
But this is a temporary challenge, he believes. “As India Inc matures these dynamics will change dramatically.”
Kelton sees many signs that the world of business is changing in India. “We have just launched a hosted call centre and that is really taking off.” The hosted call centre gives much more flexibility for the workforce than traditional approaches. “People are working from home, not necessarily in a physical office environment.”
Kelton says there have already been some rollouts to customers. “It’s an economic proposition and it is really starting to get some traction.”
There’s another reason why, he adds: the traffic in Delhi’s road system. There are 16 million people fighting to get to and from work. Clearly, technology to help people not commute has real value there.
“There is also the fact that India Inc itself is growing up,” says Kelton. India is becoming part of the global economy and banks and other institutions are developing fast. “Companies, ourselves included, are facing growth.”
But down on the ground, running enterprise systems in India presents new challenges, he says, because of the diversity of technologies he will have to consider for large enterprises.
“Wireline coverage will typically account for only 50% of sites. Sites will include the use of wifi, WiMax and so on. Access in this market is key — and that has implications on quality of service for that access.”
The company’s range of technologies includes small-dish satellite systems — VSAT — for some remoter branches.
“It’s the reality of what you have to do,” says Kelton. And the challenges come long before you start installing the technology — but at the point when you start considering a 1,000-site survey in such a big country as India.
When the contract is won, Airtel has then to find partners to help build the network in each location. “We have an integration role, a service role.”
                                  
                                  
Data centre applications 
                                  
At the moment one area that Airtel does not do is providing IT outsourcing. “We are hosting applications on our data centre, but can I manage someone else’s desktop? The answer is ‘no’,” says Kelton.
Why? “You have to be very prescriptive about customer-based profitability,” he explains. “One of the greatest skills is to identify not the business you do but the business you do not do — and deciding whether it makes sense.”
India “has good outsourcing companies so it’s hard to go to Wipro and ask to outsource their IT”, he smiles.
But strategic network outsourcing is a different matter. “When a customer is confident with an application outsourced to our data centre we are getting traction.”
Airtel’s data centre-based managed services are “at the incubation stage”, says Kelton. Data centres are still at the “buy versus build” stage. “We have data centres in all the major locations”, and services go from “basic real-estate hosting” and are “starting to move up the value chain”, he notes. “We are moving up the stack.”
But services like that are incremental to the telecoms, he notes. “For every $1 of carriage there is 20 cents of pull-through [in services] on that,” says Kelton. But he also looks at it the other way round. “The minute you take on managed services you need the carriage capacity.” So you get $4-$5 of carriage for every $1 of managed services.
Is Kelton looking outside India, to Indian IT companies’ traditional business areas in North America and Europe? No, he says. “I will be extremely prescriptive about where we go. There is no compelling reason for me to build in the US or the UK. I might have a direct customer, but it’s more likely I’ll have a direct relationship via BT Global Services or AT&T and so on.”
And Bharti already has 150 million customers in India and also has 50 million in Africa, from its purchase in 2010 of Zain’s operations south of the Sahara. “That’s quite an international proposition.”

114 Things You Should Know about Apple's New offerings

Apple finally kicked off its much-anticipated Worldwide Developers Conference, and introduced the equally anticipated Mac OS X Lion and iOS 5 operating systems, as well as the company’s cloud offering – iCloud. As you might imagine, there are a lot of details to take in around these three offerings , so we’ve compiled a whole bunch of them into quick, bite-sized nuggets for easy consumption.

Mac OS X Lion

1. Mac OS X Lion is the 8th major release of the OS.

2. It will be available in July.

3. It has over 250 new features (not all of which were detailed)

4. It comes with 3,000 new developer APIs.

5. It will be only available by download through the Mac App Store.

6. It features Multi-Touch gestures and fluid animations that let you interact directly with content on the screen

7. New gestures include momentum scrolling, tapping or pinching your fingers to zoom in on a web page or image, and swiping left or right to turn a page or switch between full screen apps.

8. All Mac notebooks ship with Multi-Touch trackpads and desktop Macs can use Apple’s Magic Trackpad.

9. Mac OS X Lion features full screen apps to take advantage of the entire display

10. The Mission Control feature combines Exposé, full screen apps, Dashboard and Spaces.

11. You can swipe to get your desktop to zoom out to display your open windows grouped by app, thumbnails of your full screen apps and your Dashboard.

12. It comes with the Mac App Store built in.

13. The Launchpad feature makes it easier to find and launch apps, and with a single multi-touch gesture, all your apps are displayed in a full screen layout.

14. You can organize apps into any order or into folders and swipe through unlimited pages of apps.

15. There’s a redesigned Mail app with widescreen layout.

16. The Mail app has a new conversations feature that groups related messages into a scrollable timeline.

17. The Mail app has a new search feature that lets you refine searches and suggests matches by person, subject, and label as you type.

18. The mail app also includes support for Microsoft Exchange 2010.

19. The OS includes Resume, which lets you bring apps back to how you left them when you restart or relaunch the app.

20. Apps will save automatically as you work.

21. Versions records the history of your documents as you create them, and gives you a way to browse, revert, and copy/paste from previous versions.

22. An AirDrop feature lets you find nearby Macs and set up P2P wireless connections.

23. Mac OS X Lion will be available as an upgrade to Snow Leopard from the Mac App Store for $29.99.

24. The upgrade will be at about 4GB (the size of an HD movie from the iTunes Store).

iOS 5

25. Apple calls iOS 5 “the most extensive software update ever for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.”

26. iOS 5 has over 200 new features.

27. iOS 5 is a free update.

28. iOS 5 gives devices access to iCloud (see below)

29. Apple has not detailed all 200 features, but highlights a few as “key features,” which include: notification center, iMessage, Newsstand, Reminders, Twitter, Camera, Photos, Safari, and PC Free.

30. Notification Center aggregates all of your notifications, and can be accessed simply by swiping down from the top of the screen.

31. It shows stocks and weather at the top of the screen.

32. It will display a little pop up at the top to let you know about it while you’re watching a video or playing a game, then it will go away.

33. The “Newsstand” feature automatically downloads (in the background) the latest issues of magazine and newspaper apps that you’re subscribed to, and keeps the available for online or offline access from one place.

34. iOS 5 comes with built-in Twitter integration, where you save your Twitter info, which can easily be shared with any other app. This will make it easy to simply Tweet just about anything from the device. – Twitter can be used to automatically update contacts (if they’re on Twitter).

35. Safari gets a button called “Safari Reader,” which converts articles into just text, eliminating ads and other clutter on the page. Some publishers may take issue with this.

36. It also lets you email the content to people.

37. Safari also has a reading list feature that lets you save stories to read later (on multiple devices).

38. Safari gets tabbed browsing.

39. The “Reminders” feature lets you keep lists and assign reminders to specific dates and locations, so you can get reminded of something not only by time, but also based on when you enter or exit a specific location.

40. There is a camera icon on the lock screen providing quicker access to the camera app.

41. You can use the volume up button to take pictures.

42. You can pinch to zoom in the app and edit photos directly on the phone.

43. Mail comes with rich-text formatting, indentation control, draggable addresses, and the ability to mark items as unread, search entire messages, and S/MIME.

44. There is a new dictionary feature that lets you look up words from any app by tapping on the word and getting a definition.

45. There’s a new keyboard feature that lets you split the keyboard apart into two pieces.

46. The “PC-Free” feature means you’re no longer required to connect to a PC. You can set up and activate the box right out of the box, and software updates don’t require plugging in.

47. Updates are “delta,” meaning it only updates what needs to be updated, as opposed to the whole thing, which should save time and data.

48. The Game Center will show achievement points.

49. It will also show scores of freinds’ friends

50. The Game Center will also show friend and game recommendations.

51. You will be able to purchase and download games right from the Game Center.

52. Turn-based games can be played from the OS.

53. Messaging will work among any iOS users. In other words, whether you’re using an iPhone, iPad, or iPod, you’ll be able to send and receive messages to other users.

54. That applies to text, pictures, and video, and includes Group messaging.

55. You can also switch devices yourself in the middle of conversations.

56. The SDK is out for developers.

57. iOS 5 will ship to customers in the fall.

58. iOS 5 will support iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, iPad, iPad 2, and IPod Touch (3rd and 4th gen)

59. You can give Apple your email address here to get notified when iOS 5 is ready for you to download.

iCloud

60. iCloud ships in the fall.

61. There is a beta available now for iOS and Mac Developer Program members.

62. iCloud lets you store content in the cloud and access it on all your devices.

63. iCloud works with iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac, and PC.

64. It’s free with the upcoming iOS 5.

65. iCloud is “seamlessly” integrated into apps.

66. MobileMe has been discontinued as a service, and the Contacts, Calendar and Mail services have been reworked to work with iCloud.

67. Users can share calendars with friends and family.

68. Users can get an @me.com push mail account (which has no ads).

69. inbox and mailboxes are kept up-to-date across devices.

70. App Store and iBookstore download purchased iOS apps and books to all your devices (not just the one they were purchased on).

71. The App Store and iBooktore also let you see your purchase history, and download any apps/books to different devices by hitting the “iCloud” icon.

72. You can replace your stuff on a new device (up to ten devices) free of charge, using your Apple ID.

73. iCloud Storage stores all documents created using iCloud Storage APIs, and automatically pushes them to all your devices.

74. When you change a document on any device, iCloud automatically pushes the changes to all devices.

75. Apple Pages, Numbers, and Keynote apps take advantage of iCloud Storage.

76. iCloud’s Photo Stream automatically uploads photos you take or import on any device and pushes them to all devices.

77. Photo Stream is built into photo apps on all iOS devices and saved to the Pictures folder on a PC.

78. To save space, the last 1,000 photos are stored on each device so they can be viewed or moved to an album to save forever.

79. Macs and PCs will store all photos from the Photo Stream.

80. iCloud will store each photo in the cloud for 30 days.

81. Users get up to 5GB of free storage for mail, documents, and backup.

82. Storage for music, apps, and books purchased from Apple doesn’t count toward the storage limit.

83. Storage required by Photo Stream doesn’t count either.

84. Users can buy more storage – details on this will be announced when iCloud ships in the fall.

85. iTunes lets you download previously purchased iTunes music to all iOS devices at no additional charge.

86. Music not purchased from iTunes can be synced using iTunes Match.

87. iTunes Match upgrades songs to 256 kbps AAC DRM-free versions if it can match it to songs in its library.

88. If it can’t match it, it will upload it.

89. iTunes Match will be available in the fall for $24.99 a year (US only).

90. iTunes in the Cloud is available now in beta without iTunes Match.

91. iTunes in the Cloud will support all iPhones that iOS 5 supports.

92. Apple has invested over $500 million in one data center in Maiden, NC to support demand for free iCloud services.

93. You can give Apple your email address here to get notified when iCloud is available.

Random Apple stats (According to Apple)

94. Over 54 million Mac users around the world (and growing)

95. The PC market has shrunk 1%, while the Mac has grown 28%

96. Mac has outgrown the industry every quarter for the last five years

97. Mac sales are nearly 3/4 those of notebooks

98. Over 200 million iOS devices sold

99. iOS the “number one mobile operating system” with over 44% of the market

100. Over 25 million iPads sold

101. Over 15 billion songs sold through iTunes

102. 130 million book downloads from the iBookstore

103. There are 90,000 iPad apps

104. Over 14 billion apps downloaded from the App Store

105. Apple has paid over $2.5 billion to developers

106. Over 225 million accounts with credit cards and 1-click purchasing

107. Over 100 billion notifications pushed

108. 1 billion tweets sent per week (relevant considering the new Twitter integration)

109. Nearly 2/3 of all mobile web browsing done through Safari

110. Over 100,000 game and entertainment titles in the App Store

111. 50 million Game Center users (that’s in nine months, and is compared to Xbox live getting 30 million in 8 years)

Other

112. Steve Jobs Appeared at the event, despite his medical leave of absence from the company.

113. His physical appearance has caught the attention of a great deal of commentators – many not incredibly optimistic

114. After rising ahead of the event, Apple’s stock declined in afternoon trading after Jobs’ speech ended.

What iCloud Is, and What It's Not

In spite of all the hype around Apple’s iCloud, there has been some confusion about what it is and what it’s not. For starters, the iCloud stores user content on the cloud and pushes it to other devices, such as the iPad. While it’s great for storing and sharing documents and images between devices, or syncing information on your devices together, it is not a back up.



For example, if you create a document on your iPhone, you can pull that same document up on your iPad through the iCloud. However, if you delete it on your iPhone, it cannot be retrieved on your iPad.
Anthony Palermo, the creator of online back up Dolly Drive, said that iCloud was “Apple’s introduction to services that go beyond your device.” His product, on the other hand, does serve as a cloud back up through Apple’s Time Machine.

“Dolly Drive is actually more than just the ability of backing up your information, [or] your computer to the cloud, it also has a framework to back up locally your drives, so that if you ever were to lose your hard drive, you can immediately connect an external hard drive and be up and running again,” he said.
He went on to explain that even though iCloud and Dolly Drive serve 2 very distinctive services, they are both critical to the needs of users. With iCloud, users can view their iTunes library from all their Mac and Apple devices, stream photos between devices, sync and store documents on devices, and see apps and app history on all devices.

Through Dolly Drive, users have a back up to all their computer files, if they want. Also, it backs up computer content automatically every hour and allows users to continue working even if their hard drive crashes.
“Our intent is to make sure that no matter what’s on your computer or where it’s at on your computer, it gets backed up,” said Palermo.

We asked him what he thought about Apple and Google’s very different approaches to the cloud. According to him, Apple wants to offer the best experience for their devices. Google, though, is focused on platforms and on a large-scale experience for users.

He also told us that he expects the value of the cloud to increase over the next several years.

“We’re going to see great things to come with the cloud in the next 5 years, and I think, at that point, younger, more experienced computer-savvy users will see the cloud as just a natural process of what they do as they sit down and work with their devices,” he added

Comviva Wins Top Honours at Asia Communication Awards 2011

Comviva, the global leader in providing mobile solutions beyond VAS, today announced that it has won three awards at Asia Communication Awards 2011 held in Singapore. The awards were presented at the award ceremony in the presence of leaders from Asian telecom industry on Wednesday, June 22, 2011.

Speaking on the occasion, Sai Prabhu, AVP, South East Asia, Comviva said, “We are delighted to receive these prestigious awards and appreciate this honour. The awards recognise Comviva’s commitment to enable improved service performance and supporting operators in the creation and cost-effective delivery of a dynamic service portfolio to ensure that mobile users’ entire service experience is enhanced. It is this commitment that will sustain our next stage of growth as we continue with our global expansion to maintain the leadership position in mobile money and managed VAS.”

Comviva’s Mobile Wallet solution deployed by Banglalink, the second largest telecom operator in Bangladesh, transforms the mobile phone into a convenient cash-free and card-free transaction medium, enabling customers to receive funds from overseas foreign workers into a secure, wallet account. The service supports multiple transactional methods, including cash-to-bank, cash-to-cash, cash-to-wallet and wallet-to-wallet to maximize service access. The service fully complies with regulations and benefits from a robust, open ecosystem of multiple banks, money transfer operators, billers and service providers.

Comviva’s Dynamic Discounting Solution enables operators optimize mobile network utilization and enhance revenues by introducing a new approach to pricing.  Using  Dynamic Discounting operators can dynamically model tariffs  in proportion to the current load at a specific cell location – the lower the traffic volumes, the higher the discount and vice versa.  The discounts can also be tailored to individual call transactional patterns of customer to drive higher minutes of usage per cell site.

Comviva provides Managed VAS Services to both greenfield and established operators, enhancing revenues by improving service performance and speeding time to market, while achieving improved operational and cost efficiencies. It offers operators an opportunity to differentiate their brands and improve margins in a complex and highly dynamic global VAS space.

Held in Singapore, The Asia Communication Awards 2011 seek to recognise the achievements of Asian telecoms companies and individuals responsible for the innovations, achievements and great new services that are helping to build tomorrows industry

Why You Can Still Learn SEO From A Book

The following article is a guest post by Alan Grainger.

When you’re first starting out on a career in SEO there is a plethora of information out there for those who are eager to learn the tips and tricks of the trade. Given the fast moving nature of the SEO world, many resources are available online that will give the budding search engine marketer a whole wealth of information that will steer them in the right direction. So given that the online world moves so quickly, is there still a place for instructional books in SEO?
Far from being out of date, books can be a vital starting point for those looking to delve into search engine optimization, and given the variety of paths that can lead to this career, they can offer the apprentice a vital starting place when sifting through the myriad of information that is available online.

Starting Out
People come into SEO from all walks of life. From computer scientists to conventional marketers, mathematicians to PR gurus, SEO crosses many boundaries making it a viable career choice for those from many backgrounds. That also means that while you may be an expert on algorithms and backlink analysis, there may well be a shortfall in your knowledge when it comes to writing press releases and composing article ideas, so whatever your background there will still be much to learn.

So why should you spend valuable money on buying books when you can dig into the mine of information that is available for free online? It’s all down to theory and structure.
By committing to a book it is like being mentored through the process by someone who knows what they are talking about. This will ensure that you start at the right place to soak up the right information in the right order. Sure, some of the resources that are mentioned in a book might be out of date, but many of the theories and procedures are timeless and are the key to unlocking the strategies that will be most effective in your niche.

It’s All About Theory
Going online might show you the best places to post your articles and how to use Twitter effectively, but why are you doing this in the first place? Blindly following what other people are doing without truly understanding the principals involved will never fully enable you to come up with the strategies you need to succeed in online marketing.
Using books to help get you started will explain why these are important and what it is you are trying to achieve through these practices. It will explain what a link is and why they are important to your rankings, as well as explaining how to drive relevant traffic. It will explain to you what terms such as anchor text actually mean and why this is seen as important by the search engines. It’s all very well doing something because somebody told you, but this is not teaching you why this is important or enabling you to come up with your own strategies to improve your rankings.

Apply What You Learn in Practice
It’s not all about books and reading though, and the only way to truly learn is to put things into practice. No matter what somebody has written, whether it’s in a book or on a blog, the only way you will truly learn is by going out there and doing it for yourself. Learn the theory from textbooks, get the latest industry practices from prominent blogs and then put them into practice to see what really works.
Monitor what you do, record your findings as you go and don’t be afraid to experiment (so long as you’re not risking your company’s website with dodgy practices of course). If in doubt, build your own test site and practice on that, because the biggest trick to SEO is that the only way to really learn what works and what doesn’t is to try it out for yourself.
Here are a few resources that will point you in the right direction:

Books:
Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies
The popular franchise gives a straight up tutorial that will point even the newest of newbies in the
right direction.

Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day
Taking things up a notch, this will give you all the tools you need to hone your burgeoning skills.

The Art of SEO
A book that is repeatedly recommended by the industry experts, this guide will put the finishing touches to your knowledge of SEO theory.

Websites:

Search Engine Land
Industry news coupled with instructional posts by SEO experts. A great resource for those looking to
keep on top of the latest industry practices.

Web Pro News
All the latest industry news with comments from those in the know.

SEOMoz
These guys aren’t afraid of sharing their secrets and this is a great place to go for ideas that you can put into practice.
No matter how fast paced the SEO industry is, books are still a useful resource to learn the all-important theory that will establish your burgeoning skills. But the key takeaway from this is to put everything you learn into practice, as no matter what you read and where you read it, the best way to learn is by doing things yourself. Only then will you truly learn the subtle intricacies involved in successful SEO.

The new rules of marketing

Top 100 powerful CEO's in India

Ratan Tata has done it again – He is the Most Powerful CEO in India. The Economic Times Corporate Dossier magazine has not only voted Mr. Ratan Tata as India Inc’s Most Powerful CEO, second year running, but also India Inc’s CEO of the Decade.

The Top 4 CEOs keep their positions as they had previous year as well – Mukesh Ambani is on 2nd position followed by NR Narayan Murthy (I am not sure as he is not CEO of Infosys anymore) and Anil Ambani takes the 4th position.

The Biggest Jump however has been made by Sunil Mittal, from 9th position last year to 5th this year. I think one of the main reasons has been his aggressiveness in pursuing global acquisitions for Bharti Airtel. In last 12 months, Bharti has made foray in Large African as well as Bangladesh Telecom Market. Bharti Airtel now stands to be the 5th largest telecom company in the world.

Azim Premji (6th), KM Birla (7th), Rahul Bajaj (8th), Anand Mahindra (9th) and Vijay Mallya (10th) round up the top ten positions in the Powerful CEO’s in India.

The Top 100 Powerful CEO’s in India

Name	Company/Group	Rank
		2010	2009
Ratan Tata	Tata Sons	1	1
Mukesh Ambani	Reliance Industries	2	2
NR Narayana Murthy	Infosys Technologies	3	3
Anil Ambani	Reliance ADAG	4	4
Sunil Mittal	Bharti Group	5	9
Azim Hasham Premji	Wipro	6	10
Kumar Mangalam Birla	AV Birla Group	7	11
Rahul Bajaj	Bajaj Auto	8	19
Anand G Mahindra	Mahindra & Mahindra	9	13
Vijay Mallya	UB Group	10	6
S Gopalakrishnan	Infosys Technologies	11	12
OP Bhatt	State Bank of India	12	17
Chanda Kochhar	ICICI bank	13	14
Vinita Bali	Britannia	14	NA
Venu Srinivasan	TVS Motors	15	26
Shiv Nadar	HCL Technologies	16	25
Uday Kotak	Kotak Mahindra	17	35
Harsh Goenka	RPG	18	42
A B Godrej	Godrej Group	19	27
Shashikant N Ruia	Essar Group	20	38
AM Naik	L&T	21	15
Ravikant N Ruia	Essar Group	22	NA
T S Vijayan	LIC	23	33
Aditya Puri	HDFC Bank	24	22
Kishore Biyani	Future Group	25	24
Shikha Sharma	Axis Bank	26	52
Subhash Chandra	Zee Telefilms	27	40
K P Singh	DLF Group	28	39
Vineet Nayyar	HCL Technologies	29	39
Rajiv Bajaj	Bajaj Auto	30	18
Manoj Kohli	Bharti Airtel	31	NA
K R Kamath	Punjab National Bank	32	NA
Deepak S Parekh	HDFC	33	7
G M Rao	GMR Infrastructure	34	44
Gautam Singhania	Raymond	35	53
Hari Shankar Singhania	JK Tyre	36	NA
Vineet Nayar	Tech Mahindra	37	NA
Naina Lal Kidwai	HSBC	38	32
Yogesh Chander Deveshwar	ITC	39	16
Pawan Munjal	Hero Honda Motors	40	31
Anand Burman	Dabur	41	NA
Neeraj Swaroop	Standard Chartered	42	84
Naresh Goyal	Jet Airways	43	20
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw	Biocon	44	28
SP Hinduja	Hinduja Group	45	59
Shinzo Nakanishi	Maruti Suzuki India	46	77
Naveen Jindal	Jindal Steel	47	36
Jaiprakash Gaur	Jaypee Group	48	NA
N Chandrasekaran	TCS	49	NA
MA Alagappan	Murugappa Group	50	46
Nusli N Wadia	Bombay Dyeing	51	NA
M M Murugappan	Murugappa Group	52	NA
R Seshasayee	Ashok Leyland	53	49
Deepak Puri	Moser Baer	54	NA
Yogesh Aggarwal	IDBI	55	78
Ajay G Piramal	Piramal Enterprises	56	91
PM Telang	Tata Motors	57	NA
Nitin Paranjpe	Hindustan Unilever	58	62
Ratan Jindal	JSL	59	60
Venugopal N Dhoot	Videocon International	60	51
Gautam Adani	Adani Enterprise	61	92
B N Kalyani	Bharat Forge	62	88
Habil F Khorakiwala	Wockhardt	63	NA
PRS Oberoi	East India Hotels	64	37
Sajjan Jindal	JSW Steel	65	56
R K Krishna Kumar	Tata Sons	66	NA
Analjit Singh	Max India	67	NA
P R Menon	Tata Power	68	63
Suneel M Advani	Bluestar	69	NA
N Srinath	Tata Communications	70	NA
R S Sharma	ONGC	71	54
K M Mammen	MRF	72	34
Dilip S Shanghvi	Sun Pharmaceuticals	73	90
Anil Agarwal	Sterlite Industries	74	50
Atul Sobti	Ranbaxy	75	NA
K Anji Reddy	Dr Reddy’s Laboratories	76	41
Narendra K Patni	Patni Computer Systems	77	NA
K K Patel	Nirma	78	NA
Ramesh Chandra	Unitech	79	NA
T V Ramanathan	Exide Industries	80	NA
Percy Siganporia	Tata Tea	81	72
Amitabh Jhunjhunwala	Reliance Capital	82	NA
Sanjeev Aga	Idea	83	NA
S K Roongta	Sail	84	97
Malvinder Singh	Religare	85	67
Rajan Nanda	Escorts	86	NA
Ashok Sinha	Bharat Petroleum	87	73
Sarthak Behuria	Indian Oil Corporation	88	NA
Debu Bhattacharya	Hindalco Industries	89	57
Harsh Mariwala	Marico	90	87
B C Tripathi	Gail	91	NA
Tulsi R Tanti	Suzlon	92	NA
Ajay Shriram	DCM Shriram	93	98
Atul Punj	Punj Lloyd	94	NA
Onkar S Kanwar	Apollo Tyres	95	81
Shyam Bhartia	Jubilant Organosys	96	NA
B P Rao	BHEL	97	75
Ashwin Dani	Asian Paints	98	71
Arun Balakrishnan	Hindustan Petroleum	99	76
Meher Pudumjee	Thermax	100	N