New strategic tool for GD

Group discussion is a psychological process. It should be controlled by logic and arguments not by emotions. The inclusion of emotions is hazardous. Keeping in mind that group discussion is all about group psychology. Ok its enough lets discuss the tools.

Tool A:

We call it PLE.
Point
Logic
Example

The strategic application of this tool will increase the weight of your arguments. Let me explain it to you in detail. Use this tool when you want to initiate the GD.

Steps to use this tool:

a) Point—Put your point of view in front of the group. It’s not necessary that your point should be different from others’ point s. But it should be on well defined assumption. Your initiate will not provide your leadership quality but your thought process and how people accept your point.
b) Logic – Explain your logic behind that point. The logic will close all options for invalidity of your point. The acceptability across the member of the group will be lesser.
c) Example – Support your logic with some facts and figures. When you will support your point and logic with examples, this will be the moment when you convince most of the people in the group.

Example:
Point – price war is a wrong business decision.
Logic – It affects the revenue streams of both initiator and competitor.
Example: HUL and P&G, PepsiCo & Coca-Cola (describe in detail)

This tool looks simple but it has a sound psychological background. It will help you to control the members of the team. Try it out!!!
Tool B:

This tool should be used when you are not the initiator in the GD and have fewer points to discuss.

We call it SAVE:

Using this tool will give you a competitive advantage when you have no point in group discussion. It will save you in the deep water. Details of this tool will be disclosed on our website internsindia.com.

Some More tools are: BATS, VMCS and TFS.

Color A Brand Differentiator

Relationship of brand management with color is not a new concept now. Many companies are
opting color combination for their brand logo and background but the logic is limited to the
natural behaviour of colors. Pink is essentially a light red and is usually associated with love
and romance. The best example I can quote of its use is of Hutch in its brand logo. But the
only thing Hutch should make sure that its mass consumers are of similar psychographics.
Tata indicom portrait its brand image with blue color, the color that described as a favorite
color by many people and is the color most preferred by men. The hidden side of strategy can
be seen in its advertisement where the targeted consumers are males. The yellow color used
by Tata indicom describes the optimistic behaviour...........

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Even fresher can negotiate a job

Career objective, extracurricular activities and personal strength and other non figurative terms are fictions and rank no where in the priority list of recruiters.

Increasing density of MBA colleges is broadening the campus recruitment channel for recruiters and hence revealing unique dimensions of selection process for the best hunt. Group discussion, interview rounds and test are now framed in three dimension; domain knowledge, market awareness and experience.

Either most of the colleges design their academics matching with the industry pattern or privilege students a corporate trainer but the rest two things are out of its circumference and require serious efforts. Keeping track of business happenings through note from news papers, business magazines and websites is the best tool kit for market awareness but needs discipline and time whose shortage is common among MBAs. Some websites like Internsindia.com that working for the student welfare are providing ready-made business news analysis and are the best source to access the required information with in few minutes.

Next dimension is experience, internships and live projects should be seriously taken by student as an opportunity to add experience on his CV. Companies around the globe are opting live projects and internships as a tool to judge the real-time performance of students for final placement. Performance in the live projects and the reference of the companies moves the negotiation power on student’s side. But the problem emerges when students look for a live project in desired sector which again depends on the capability of college to call companies from every sector. A student should be ready in advance with some sort of research proposal to influence the company. Internsindia.com has solved even this very problem of students by providing internships and live project through out the year and it also takes care of sector, location and project preference.

Working on these dimensions will equip student with the right information and brand backup for group discussion, interviews and test .To work on live projects is to work on some business problem of companies rather slogging in functional activities like sales and promotions. Double check your CV on these dimensions before appearing for campus placement.

Warrior- a synonym for MBA

I will discuss something which you might have faced or will face as a crazy MBA. I don’t remember the date but it was a cloudy day in Pune ,the most favorite for students when unfortunately my professor called me for an interview. It was a formal interview for grading test whose marks will decide the companies in which a student will sit for the final placement. The only thing for which I joined MBA was my craze for brands and only brands. First question was thrown to me by a confident professor who was proud to be a production manager in Philips India. He mercifully asked that what subject he should choose to test my knowledge. Brands and marketing strategies was the quite obvious answer. He asked me the definition of marketing. Using common sense as my only option I defined marketing as warfare where every company fights for the profit or market share and shed money to outfit his competitor. I endorsed my point with example of price war between P&G and HLL which was the hottest price war topic at that time. The professor squeezed my curiosity to death by his forted experience. Today, I can quote hundreds of examples to prove marketing is a war nothing more.

The core problem comes when people respect grey hairs and take grey sense for granted. Some one has well quoted that curiosity is the mother of all inventions. And a child has maximum of it. My all time respectful man, Sir. Albert Einstein who I try to copy in every sense had quoted “I am not so intelligent but a bit more curious”.

Let’s be free from a blocked mind and try to break the channels in dust. Ya !! some thing like Neo in matrix. Always remember that all the concepts and strategies are designed by humans and errors are always supplementary to it. Find them out and pave your own way to define the rules of the game. internsindia.com is dedicated to all those students. If you have faced something like it in your MBA days please share with all member of internsindia.com. You can reach me at articles@internsindia.com for your comments.

Business News Analysis

HLL- What next in hair care segment

It’s not that HLL (Renamed as Hindustan Unilever limited) has withdrawn from hair care segment. But it was planning ahead of time. Focusing on the premium end of the hair care market, HLL has been consciously reducing its focus on saturated hair care categories such as hair oils. Having sold off its Nihar brand, there is less attention being paid to the hair oil brands under Clinic franchise. Meanwhile, HLL's entry into the hair styling category last year under Lakme's HairNext range of products is expected to undergo a consolidation exercise this year. With six products including shampoos….

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BISLERI – A BRAND STORY

Year 1969, Parle, sensed a high potential business in mineral water segment and acquired Bisleri from an Italian company, Felice Bisleri. As a soft drinks company, the brand portfolio of Parle was bejeweled by Thums-Up, Gold Spot and Limca (cola, orange drink and lemonade).To get a foot hold in soda market Parle launched Bisleri soda with two variants –

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Branding game in Hair Care segment

Since 90s, the pattern for hair care has changed from time-taking process to faster one. The change in life style has switched most of the urban consumers from oil to shampoos and after-shower solutions. Still the largest consumer of this segment is not open to experimentation. Big dadies of FMCG are still engaged in formulating a strategy to cash the target segment with innovative products ridding over the established brands. But there is some thing missing which can be sensed by the withdrawal of Parachute Lite in the start-up by Marico Industries and hold on for Vatika Lite by Dabur. And the big daddy of this category Clinic Plus, gave

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Retail India-Cause and Effect

As we all know brand management is planning and strategy to create a unique identity of a generic product with the psychographic and mind-set of consumer. Packaging, Quantity and concentration of ingredients are all consumer usability and accessibility focused. There are about nine million small grocery shops in India whose involvement with company is limited to selling and conveying the offerings to the consumers. These family run shops cover nearly ninety-five percentage of the market and handle the large part of distribution with distributors, C&F and stockiest.

Retail will grow, clear evidence by TATA, working with Australian retailer Woolworths to source consumer electronics products for its new business, known as Infiniti Retail. Reliance Industries announced plans to invest $5bn creating a chain of hypermarkets and back-end retail services across the country and UK supermarket chain-Tesco joint venture talks with Indian conglomerate Bharti further supported the fact.

Breaking the limitation of cash-and-carry and franchise or license operations of foreign multiple-brand retailers in India, Bharti went on to strike a deal with U.S. Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

The exponential expansion in retail market shows its cascading effect on various industries. To cover various tier two and tier three cities and towns [across the country], reaching out to prospective consumers in these cities is high on the agenda of most retail companies as they consider market presence in these cities and towns key to their growth and profitability. As such, many retail companies are investing in technology that will help support their expansion into these new markets. IT revenue from the retail segment, which totaled US$253 million in 2006, is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 44 percent to reach US$1.07 billion by 2010.Following the trend retailers considered supply chain management (SCM) and inventory management their top strategic focus areas, thus fuelling the demand for enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

Real estate is also making match with the pace of retail by tuning the life style of consumers. Specialty Malls, a new retail buzzword which is likely to dominate the Indian retail market now onwards. With a huge influx of sparkling malls with finely tuned marketing strategies mushrooming in cyber cities like Gurgaon and Noida, the mall mania has certainly gripped every shopping enthusiast.

Further the Wadia Group, one of the oldest companies of corporate India, has plans to develop 8-10 luxury malls over the next 10 years in 50:50 joint venture with Simon Global Ltd. These shopping centers would feature world class brands, restaurants, and entertainment zones among others

With the competition growing fiercer in Indian retail sector, specialty malls are resetting the trends and transforming the fundamental activity of shopping into a lifestyle statement

On the other hand all financial companies are endorsing the buying capability of consumers by providing loans. French bank Societe Generale is expanding its Indian retail operations. The bank plans to lend billions of rupees in the next couple of years to fund large consumer purchases like cars, and offer personal loans. “FAMILY CREDIT” is the first move to play the whole game plan. The aggression in the finance sector can be seen in the many global banks, including HSBC, Standard Chartered Plc and Citigroup are expanding their lending portfolio in India through domestic finance companies to overcome restrictions on branches imposed by the RBI. India's surging economy has boosted spending power, and the retail sector is worth an estimated $250bn (£140bn).

Let’s view it as a strategist, financer will give you money to but a car that has positioned as a low cost, installment based product, how flexible buying they have made. But if you see the actual cost to consumer it does include the interest paid to financer. Now Just calculate the cost (including interest) if you are buying a product / service in near future.

Even companies has veered the distribution strategy from distributors, stockiest and shop keepers to retailer which is creating competition from a new dimension . Easily seen effect of it is “Shelf space war” by big companies to get better and highly visible space. The dependency of companies on retails for consumer interaction will shift the brand benefits paradigm from consumers to retails.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. the world's biggest retailer, has helped push its suppliers to make those changes with initiatives aimed cutting energy usage and packaging -- and reducing both the retailer's and manufacturers' costs. Procter & Gamble is one company taking a big step toward reducing its packaging this year with the launch of concentrated laundry detergent, Procter & Gamble is one company taking a big step toward reducing its packaging this year with the launch of concentrated laundry detergent.

The reduction in package size is to place a brand in a lesser shelf space of retail house which bring benefit to manufacturer and retailer but what about the usability of consumers, what about the effect on consumers with the increase in concentration of ingredients in detergent.

China's consumer spend will shift from goods to services while that in India will be focused on goods, forecasts a report for the year 2015.These goods will include products in the market, whose in future concentrated extensions-for instance: Shampoos, detergents, face-wash might cause hazardous effect on consumers.

Concentrated products means usability in small quantity which means again hit on profit margins of company. What about those companies whose majority of products are positioned on the usability factor (x times usage of brand a day will give you quicker value). It will plant a negative tipping point in the consumers mind. Again the packaging will be according to convenience of retails, what about consumer. Companies are loosing there options for consumer brand position.

In future, the brand position will be replaced by retail position as the increasing loyalty base of retail consumers will make the companies more dependent on retails stores for their brands.

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Business Intelligence Team

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What lacks in BCG/GE Matrix

Before 1960s, was the time when international market was nearly monopolistic or with negligible competition. LPG was only as an embryo in the mind of management acumen.

“You can get any color in cars as long as it’s black”- Henry ford.

Increasing pocket size of consumers has attracted competition from direct and indirect market. System got more and more inclined towards competition and in order to sustain market share, they opted to differentiate now. But what to differentiate was the major issue. They all were practicing market share and market growth on BCG for their products.

The time changed; plug and play of common sense in business strategies give rise to some thing emotional about the product-brand. A name which psychological defines the image of a product. The emotional side of brand was discovered but they missed some thing.

………………… WHAT? --AGAIN BCG


Time of GE Matrix

Market share or market growth rate was awesome for products but is this good for emotional side of product. When it comes to brands there are lot of factors for instance: brands loyalty, brand equity, brand perseverance, brand position, brand imagery.

Now the time came of GE and they invented GE Matrix. They were closer to reality by including the in-house factors too with the other out of house factors.

But GE also forgot to consider some thing to keep pace with the time.

I designed a matrix appreciated by Mr. Philip Kotler and Mr. Jack Trout.

Let’s see how closer you guess to my matrix before I disclose it.


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