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MBA Marketing or Finance: There Should be Logic

As most of my readers belong from Management background they are either Management student or Management professional. The focus of this post is towards the student who is pursuing this course or planning to pursue. So, I would like to write something about a particular course which is called MBA (Master of Business administration). The reason for writing this post is I want that people should know logic, value and success rate of this course in our India. All the data or facts in this post would be from my past experience which is through reading various management magazine, blogs, newspaper, books, participation in various national and international conference and discussion with corporate professional. MBA ( Master of Business Administration) First of all the candidate should understand meaning of MBA which is clear that Master of Business administration. It means that after completing this course you will become master in business scenario but most of the professional are not able

Vatika Group : Creating lasting Value

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Dear Readers and well wishers, It's been long time to write new post but now I am on track and will be with you from now onwards. It's my great pleasure to inform you regarding my Job. I got Job through campus selection in Vatika Group, Gurgaon. So, moral is I would like to write something about my first and dream company. Vatika group has incorporated in 1986 with vision to emerge as a niche player in real estate and hospitality. It seems that company is doing well. Group CMD is Anil Bhalla which is founder of this Group as well. Vatika Group is operating in different verticals. For instance- Real estate, Hospitality and Facilities management. One thing I must tell you about this company is which is a differentiation factor. Being a real estate company this Group is " Customer Centric " organization. For this Group customer is everything and for serving customer very well Vatika Group have different types of customer service department like Customer relationship mana

DHL: Global Leader in Logistic Industry

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DHL is a global leader in world market having 43% market share. The name DHL derived from its founder name which is Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom and Robert Lynn. This company has been established in 1969 and its Headquarter is in Germany. DHL operates in more than 220 countries with providing end to end solution of logistic. DHL business is in four segment first one is Air express, supply chain, freight forwarding and Blue dart express due to this capacity they are leader in world market. DHL main competitors are FedEx, USP and others. A far as DHL strategy is concern they are looking at their business from ground to top. Some of their strategy is following- 1. Provide solution of problem- Their business strategy says If you are doing business than you need to understand that why I am in this business. Once you understood the problem than provide solutions of that problem for doing great business for long run. 2. About your competitor- According to this point they says that first you

Logic of Limited edition

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You might have heard about Limited Edition. It was concept of publishing industry but now this is concept of Marketing which marketers used to implement while launching of products or rejuvenating. Initially company were using this strategy for automobile and consumer durables and now it is being used for any products either it is FMCG or consumer durables. The main logic of this concept is to create excitement about product in market and aware the consumers about products very quickly and of course this is most profitable way. Why it is profitable because when product comes with limited edition consumers wants to pay high price because product is loaded with features or unique in market. Initially companies were not using this strategy often but now it became part of marketing strategy.There are various reasons for doing this type of implementation but I will write about few reasons of "Limited Edition" these are followings- 1. Brand Rejuvenation- This is the very first reas

Indovation: The new Indian Marketing concept

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Indovation ! As it name suggests that it is derived from India. Yes this is right that this is a new concept of marketing. In other word I can say that this concept was evolved in Indian market but now it came in picture. Basically this concept has been raised by Country head and Managing Director of Renault India "Slyvain Bilaine". He spend more than four year in India and now realizing fact of Indian market because he have gone through the various complex process which is involved in Indian market. He says that India is such a country which can manage everything with minimum resources at any time. More Important is that If any person can manage his business in India it means he is master in Business. For Instance He has given example of Mahindra Renault India. When they launched product called Logan in Indian market he faced lots of difficulties and at the end Logan failed. Logan comes under low cost mid sized car at a price of approx 5 lac. Unfortunately Logan failed in In

Marketing Myopia : A complex Marketing concept

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Marketing Myopia is a term used in marketing which has been written by Theodore Levitt. Basically this concept talks about short sightedness of an Industry or any product or services by company or marketers. In this post I will write about this concept in brief with example for better understanding. According to Mr. Levitt they started talking about first Railroads. In case of railroads there was not a fault in management however there were fault in vision of long term. They took railroads only in terms of railways instead of taking in entire Transportation solution. This concept say that instead of taking it in one way of solution they should take in to in a way of entire solution. So, this is what we called as Marketing Myopia. They are giving excuse that car and other transportation services have destroyed the drastic growth of this sector. Again there is time to think out of the box. Second example is the Bollywood industry again there is also same problem. In case of Bollywood wha

Lenovo: A new Business Model

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Lenovo a Chinese based computer technology company which is dealing in laptops, desktops and other related business. Lenovo acquired former IBM PC computer division in 2005. It is fourth largest computer brand in the world. Initially Lenovo was operating only in china after that it came to India in march 2006. Talking about new business model which has been introduced by Lenovo in India. Basically this Business model has came in June 2008 and established marketing hub in Bangalore. Now the big question here is that from Bangalore Lenovo will operate in entire world (wherever company is dealing) and will do all types of marketing activities. As far as marketers views are concern they are saying that this is a very big model because how a company can operate in world from one location. Even our late management guru C.K. Prahalad said that It would be very challenging for a company to break a traditional model which talks about that you have to integrate your marketing and communication s

Greek Crisis: Devaluation Of Euro

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This is a story of Greek Crisis, which started almost few months ago. It is like this when European country wanted to dominate world. Therefore they formed a Union called "European Union". This Union comprises of 27 countries few of them are France, Germany, Greece, Poland and Sweden. The reason for building that Union was dominating world, Internal strength to face challenges in near future and explore the opportunity. Things were running smoothly but there were problem with Greece. Greece standard was not up to the mark as compare to other European countries. This country was not able to match their living standard with their Union. But Greece wanted to catch up those country in terms of living standard, growth and other things which is relevant for growth of country. Then they thought that yes, we want to catch up those country at any cost. That's what Greece started borrowing debts from different institutions for developing the country. Even they started expending mon

Mahindra Reva: The Strategic Alliance

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After appearing the name Reva along with Mahindra looking nice and sounding trust and healthy. Yes, It is my opinion and consumers also when any new things comes with trusty and worthy name it looks good from all parameters. Recently M&M has acquired 55.2% stake in Reva car and now it will operate with full energy. In marketing terms it is called"Strategic Alliance. Reva is a car from great entrepreneur called Chetan Maini. Maini has done his engineering from Michigan.Maini started rolling out this car in market with support of Detroit's General Motors and Silicon valley VC fund draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ). In this post I will talk about great story of Mahindra Reva. Earlier Maini was supporting GM in terms of technology. As soon as alliance has announced GM snapped all tie-up with Reva. Marketers stated commenting on this even GM Representative also commented on this. They told that there is no any value for this alliance and other things. First I will write about facto

Why Selling is Complex

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Whenever any person(job seekers) heard "Sales" they got afraid. Consider these point and remove fear of sales. The very first question here arises is why selling is complex now a days. In early days employees, students, companies does not had any fear about sales due to less competition. However In this age really selling is very complex task. People can say that sales is easy when they enter into market after that you can ask him/her. As far as my experience is concern I would say you can sell very easily but there should be some specific condition strategy. Somewhere companies are also responsible for that but except few companies they put totally pressure on sales people and sales management. If you see the data there is high attrition rate in BPO and other sales category companies. R

Fiat500: Struggling in Indian Market

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The fiat is a car produced by Italy based company. In this post I will be discussing only about Fiat500 model in Indian context. People used to call it Baby Fiat. This car has been launched in 2008 in Indian market. Fiat500 is competing globally with New Beetle from Volkswagen group and mini BMW. If we talk about in the global context it is a successful car. However this car is struggling in India market. In the early age of market this Fiat's car was choice of Indian consumers. As far as news are concern in India Fiat has some sort of problem with distribution channel. Here I am giving some marketing fact of this case- 1. As far as Fiat500 is concern the price of this car is around 15 lac which is less than New Beetle. But interesting point is having two years of launch in India they could sold only 68 units where as New Beetle is concern they sold 280 units within 5 months of launch even after quoting 5 lac more price than Fiat500. 2. Second point here is that Fiat500 is sharing

Merger & Acquisition: Killer Game of Business

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Before coming to the topic please don't get confused that M&A are same. Merger means when two companies are coming in one way to do business that is called Merger, where as Acquisition means when one company acquires another company.Merger & Acquisition is going to woo the market of Asia pacific and specially India. In the past two years India and other strong Asian countries has shown much interest towards M&A. Even there were recession in the world but these countries has shown dare to acquire companies from outside of origin and from different market. The more interesting fact is initially there was concept that developed countries was acquiring companies from developing countries. However marketer has changed this views and now it happened reversely. In the last few years Indian companies has acquired different multinational companies. Now I will talk about benefits of M&A these are followings- 1. More market coverage - The very first is companies are getting mo

Volkswagen India: Wooing the market

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In this post I will be talking about Volkswagen India a German based company. Volkswagen has came India in 2001 and they are going to complete the journey of ten years. Giving some sort of view about Volkswagen group. It represent 9 brands at global level and 3 brands in India. Which comprises Skoda, Audi and Volkswagen. Don't get confused with Volkswagen and Volkswagen group they are separate. VG is a parent company where as Volkswagen represent a brand. Basically Volkswagen targeting entire Indian market with different models with of course value for money. In India Volkswagen represent with five brands these are followings- Polo, Beetle, Jetta, Passat, Toureg, Phaeton. In 2009 polo which comes under hatchback segment and started rolling out car since 2009 from Pune plant. When Volkswagen started rolling out its car from Indian plant and they have done great marketing of its products and it seems that in a way of success. Initially they have bombarded market with print and TVC ad

Hindustan Unilever ltd. : Struggling in Market

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Hindustan Unilever ltd a market leader in FMCG segment is struggling now a days in market for sticking at own point. In other word for last few months HUL share has been declined. FMCG market comprises of 86,000 crore where HUL has strong holds on soap, detergents and household segment. In this segment HUL holds 49% market share. The more interesting point is competitor attacked HUL where they had strong hold and sales declined by end of third quarter. Management board had given target of 10% but by the end they could achieved only 5% in Indian market. That leads to fire on Nitin parapanje CEO of India division and visit of Unilever CEO paulman to retailer and distributors. In this post I will explain cause and effect relationship and concept of marketing related with topic. Marketing theory says being a market leader company should not be aggressive on attacking. They should focus on how to protect market share and be at the top. That's why sir Cotler had described defense strateg

Marketing concept: Cannibalizing

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This is the very old concept of marketing but marketers are realizing now. First of all I must tell you about this concept in simple way"Cannibalizing means when newly launched product start eating the market share of existing product. In other word when companies are going to extend there line of products it happened. It mostly happens in Automobile sector but not with all companies. Maruti Suzuki is the great victim of this concept. Further I will write about each and every aspects of this concept with examples mostly in Indian context. Reason for cannibalize - The very first reason is company does not have clear positioning of product. Second one is lack of effective target market because when you are launching the new product in market you are targeting the same customer who is your own for existing product. And of course third one is bad marketing of product. Somewhere timing of launching product is also responsible for that. According to me most obvious reason is why they ar

Company store Vs Independent store: Crash or Coexistence

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As name suggests that company owned store means stores owned by company or manufacturer and Independent store means any store where companies are putting their products for sell. The point here is mostly companies are operating in these two dimensions. You have lots of example of these case like Nike, Apple, Reebok, Puma and recently launched Microsoft. These companies are selling their through company owned store and Independent store but this is not enough even in the same mall these two operators are running their businesses. You can see the competition within himself. However the question here arises is Does is matter of crash or coexistence???????????? Answer is in both the way they are doing best from company point of view and customer point of view apart from some assumptions. Recently world leading Microsoft has opened its own store to compete with innovative Apple.According to research done by faculty of kw they say that both are doing great in their own ways but there are som

FDI in Retail: Opportunity or Threat

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Recently Commerce and Industry ministry proposed a proposal to government for allowing FDI in Retail sector. The industry is getting hot after this proposal is being made. Retail sector is a sunrise sector with high growth potential. Till now India comprises 5%organised and remaining unorganized sector and expected to reach 10% by 2012. The factor that drives this growth is rise in Demographic profile, consumers aspirations, growing income of middle class family. Coming to the point that Is that good for India or not. The answer is yes because by allowing FDI in retail sector our economic condition will be strong and many more advantages along with disadvantages. Currently government has allowed 51% FDI in single brand Retaling and 100% in cash and carry business. Presently big Retailer are operating in this cash and carry business. For instance Walmart, Tesco to joint venture with different Indian companies. Why FDI in Retail - As in first paragraph I have written that since 2006 gove

Logan: Good product but Bad luck

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Logan is a sedan segment car from Mahindra Renault (JV) company. In 2007 Logan has launched in Indian market. Renault is a French based car makers entered into India with the help of Mahindra & Mahindra. M&M is providing sales and distribution channel to Renault as far as agreement is concern. Unfortunately, Logan is messing up in market due to bad marketing strategy with excellent product.This is the case of Good product struggling in market with bad strategy. Fault in strategy - The very first one is they entered into Indian market with M&M and according to joint venture M&M will support them for sales and distribution. Second one is at the same time Renault announced that they will do JV with Bajaj for small car segments. Now being a management student I can say and its very obvious that If you are operating in same segment with two different player you cannot success because it can create dispute between two company. By the way same thing happening with these compan

Rural India: Think Out of the Box

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Mostly people have misconception about Rural India means "Roti Kapda aur Makan". I will say far more than this concept. Now mostly marketers and MNC's are understanding the potential of this market. According to data Rural India is same as Urban area at some extent, company like Dabur, Mahindra & Mahindra, Procter & Gamble to some extent HUL is getting more from this market. In this post I will analyse the point and display some fact about rural India. Income Growth - Past five years marketers and Indian economy have seen growth rate and per capita income of Rural market. According to data the per capita income growth rate of rural India and urban India has grown at the same rate. How can you say that there is no potential in this market. Population - If we talk about population of rural India which is much more then Urban India. More than of 72% population lived in rural India. so, You can see the market here. Demographic segmentation - According to "we are

Telecommunication market: flooding by new entrants

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Indian market is going to flood by various new telecommunication operator. Indian telecommunication market consists of 50000 crore. In last few years marketer has seen that each month atleast one operator came in India. The main reason could be Indian telecommunication market is growing very fastly even in the rural area mostly people have their own mobile handsets. New entrants - Main thing here is that who are the players coming in India and there are also some players which is from the Indian. when we talk about new entrants name you will be surprise that how and why they entering in this sector because they are coming from different background. Now its very clear that their main motto is get diversified, cover more market and of course profit. Following are the name of few new entrants- 1. Luminous - Basically this company is enterning with wynn telecom. Luminous is dealing with power and energy saving industries. Now you can understand such a drastic diversification. As far as c

Retailing Concept: Store within store

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This is a new concept which is running in retailing business called "Store-within-Store" . This concept is all about many retailer can operate in same retail mall. In other words you can say store owner will give permit to his competitor/retailer to operate in this store on the basis of agreement.Recently Retail tycoon Kishore Biyani announced that they will work on this concept. How they will work - According to Central mall owned Kishore biyani who recently told that now they will operate in this system. It is like this any retailer can operate in central mall. Either it is Reliance group or Raheja group. If you will enter in central mall you can find many retailers who is competitor of Biyani group is operating in that store. Who will get benefits - Of course, Indian consumer will get benefit because they are getting everything from one place along with different brands. Retailers will have different choice which can satisfied consumer need. If you will go in that store

Choice Modelling: New Forecasting or Marketing mix model

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In this era marketing research is going to exploit the market. As you can understand importance of marketing research how much is it. The very first question arises here is why we need to do marketing research. I will try to clear this point by using one example and entire marketing comes under this. If an existing company wants to operate in different place they will use market research for knowing growth and failure rate of that market. Second If they wants to launch new product they will use marketing research. Fortunately I would say whatever you will try to do(either it is knowledge about moves of competitor, consumers, and more) you have to go through marketing research. so, see the importance and dynamics of market research. Coming to point the term called "choice modelling" in marketing research is going to replace many concepts and tools very soon. This method has been developed by Nobel prize holder Daniel Mc Fadden . First I must tell you about what is this method

Banned: 10 Television commercials

In this post I will write and give you some links of best"Banned commercials" ads. As far as my understanding is concern these types of ads are totally unethical. I cannot understand how the managers and Management are taking decision and giving permission for these types of stuff. As I know the very first reason could be publicity about product and company and others may be. You cannot watch this types of advertisement with your family. let's click on the following link and watch the ad. 1. Microsoft XP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MATGJBZl1Lg 2. Amul macho http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPOqDhOuYl0 3.Volkswagen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow0a06gsiF4 4.Levi's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSG807d3P-U 5.Pepsi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6dFg0fE8T0 6.7up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhT2m0gMYHw 7.Mastercard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGnaFq_7wJM 8.Zazoo condoms http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nojWJ6-XmeQ 9.Peugeot206 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8bSj

Rin Vs Tide: Second ad war

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This year HUL is going towards Ad war campaign.In first week of march when HUL launched a tvc ad where they were directly challenging to his competitor P&G. The ad was particulary for their prestigious brand called Rin from HUL and Tide from P&G. In this ad Rin was directly challenging to his competitor Tide. After that when P&G took the help of court then HUL had to discontinued his ad this was 1st round of ad war between Rin and Tide. Again, recently HUL has launched same types of ad war which you can call 2nd ad war but in this campaign Unfortunatly Rin is not pointing out Tide. In this post I will give you overview of both war and analyse also. 1st round of War - It is like this when last month HUL launched tvc ad where they were targeting to P&G. In that particular ad HUL was conveying to consumer that Rin is better than Tide. watch the ad-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQQc4YlNnkI. Ad was like this two women was waiting at bus stop and looking for her child who wi

Big Bazaar: Could not control overcrowd

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This is the story of year 2006 when "sabse sasta din" promotion scheme has been started by leader in retailing called as Big bazaar. The time Big bazaar was not able to handle unpredictable crowd of consumers, they faced many challenges to control this overcrowd of Indian consumers However at the same time they learned more from the market and got opportunity. In this post I will explain each and every point of that memorable day of Big bazaar. I must tell if you want to know more about story of Future group and Indian consumers you should read the book called"It happened in India" written by Kishore biyani and Dipayan baishya. Concept of sabse sasta din - This concept was idea of Mr. kishore biyani owner of Future group. Question here arises is why they had chosen 26 January for this promotion scheme. Main reason was according to KB (who knowns the pulse of Indian consumer) that because at this day people used to stay at home due to holiday of Republic day. so, th

Toyota: A Case of Overconfident

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Toyota a Japanese automobile company and world's largest automobile company in terms of sales. Now a days company is facing crisis this is due to recall of their vehicles(Toyota Prius) which has some sort of problem in brake and accelarater. Why this is a case of overconfident because when company got news about problem in few cars. They were fully confident that they can handle this problem effectively but fact is not like this. Now they are going to become victim of overconfident. According to company's philosophy "each problem provides opportunity for improvement". That's what company is facing problem. According to analysts the main reason for this recall is higher growing rate and other factors as well. so, being a company who believe in Just-in-time facilities how they are facing this types of problems. Now when Toyota started repairing millions of defected car they were not able to handle it. The very first and recent reason is Arrogance which the company h

Future group Vs Wal-mart: Kisme kitna hai Dum

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Once India was called sone ki chidiya(Golden bird) for its prosperity, intellectual, culture. so, we are going to make it happen. Here two questions arises first one is"Does wal-mart succeed in India" and second one is" Can Future Group compete with wal-mart". First of all I will give some sort of introduction about both the Companies. Future Group - Future group is a India's largest retailers led by Kishore biyani. company has total 22 retailing formats ex- Big bazaar, Pantaloon, Brand factory, star, Depot, Blue sky, Future insurance, Future capital and many more............! Charming face of retail Kishore biyani know the pulse of Indian consumers, that's what the book called "It happened in India" written by Mr. Biyani get sold 100000 copywhich is highest number in any business book. Big bazaar has core competency in visual merchandising and product portfolio. they have presence in mostly retail businesses. Wal-mart - American based retailer ope

Zain deal: Bharti Airtel or Bsnl

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Zain Mobile communication, Kuwait based mobile operator has been acquired(Not entire only African based assets) by India's no.1 mobile operator Sunil mittal led Bharti Airtel on last week march 2010. The deal has been finalized,total amout is $10.7 billions. Sunil mittal acquired this company in very sophisticated manner within one and half month. Talking about Zain,which has present in 23 countries(Africa 15 and rest are in Middles east). After acquiring this company Bharti became the world's fifth largest mobile operator. Now, Bharti has customer database of 179 millions with presence in 18 countries( India, Sri Lanka Bangladesh and Africa's 15 countries). Bharti has opportunity for operating in this emerging market with its same brand name called"Airtel". Talking about Zain it had customer database of 42 millions and presence in 15 countries of Africa and 8 countries of Middle east. Bharti is going to pay $8.3 billion and remaining amount they will take from ba

New Product launch

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In this post I will talk about new product which is going to launch or has been launched recently. The very first one is SACH toothpaste from my favorite company. why it is favorite because this company had helped me for doing project on Retail marketing. It has launched recently under private label brand of Big Bazaar. For this product Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar is going to endorse. Second, Star bazaar which has support of world's third largest retailer Tesco is going to launch 58 private label brand. Products will comprises organic biscuits to fruit infusion shampoo . Third one is Crest toothpaste owned by P&G which is going to launch very soon. According to news this brand was about to launch in 2005 but due to some internal reason this brand could not launched. let's see what will happened this time. Coming to the Automobile segments Mercedes launched new version of car called GL 350 CDI . According to Mumbai showroom source price of this car is 63.57 lakhs. I

New USA consumer:Recession changed the habit

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United state of America which has estimated population for (2010) 30,89,57000 and playing in dollar with power now a day trying to overcome from recession. In this post particularly I will talk about "How recession has changed consumer behavior of America. A country where mostly people were totally brand conscious and habitual of luxuries products. Pre-Recession consumer - If we compare pre-recession consumer behavior of this country and post-recession that would be totally different. According to survey, data say Initially 61 percents US consumers which had credit card spending more than $1000. 41 percents consumers were spending more than they earned. They were totally conscious towards premium and luxury product. During recession - Let's talk what they were doing when entire country were suffering from recession. If we look at data you will believe that how this paradigm shift is happening. Mostly people stopped buying which they can't eat. I will give you one example i

Hypercity: Retail outlet In large format

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Hypercity is one of the retail chain of K Raheja group. K Raheja group has diverse range of businesses comprises Real estate, Hospitality, Retail chain. this group has retail like Shoppers shop, Crossword and others. It has been established in 2006. this store will give International touch to Indian consumers because area of store is 1,50,000 sq. feet. Shoppers stop entered furnishing business through Home stop and retailing through Hypercity. this concept of retail format of Hypercity is designed by UK's leading retailer Argos. On 25 march when they opened in Bangalore I visited store along with my friends. According to our observation layout is very big so, confidently I can say they will give International experience of shopping. According to our observation being a retailer in India it is very big and consumers will face difficulties,when they will go for Impulse purchase and any other small items. Till now they are seven (Mumbai-2, Thane-1, Jaipur-1,Amritsar-1, Hyderabad-1 Ban

Dabbawalas Network:Promoting for New product launch

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I would say yes, traditional promotion and ditribution tool does not means old version which is not working now aday. If we talk about Mumbai Dabbawalas still they are using tradional way to distribute 200000 tiffins everyday through approximetaly 5000 vendors. see the entire chain of this dabbawalas they do not has any modern computer technology but still they pick and deliver all tiffins to right people at right place to right time. How they do, the reason is they uses color coding system for this and make it happen. Coming to point mostly company are using this channel for promoting and building awareness about their brand. Recently Perfetti van melle launched MANGOFILLZ under band extension of Alpenliebe. They are going to use traditional promotional scheme which is dabbawalas imense network because they has reach of 200000 households. This types of networks uses in launching of new brand. Microsoft also used this scheme to promote their product called "asli PC". Relaince