Earn a Million Dollar from Blogging?

Strategy is the key to make a pile of money from blogging. But you can't earn a cent unless Google or Facebook makes many times more from your efforts. Those who started blogging in their youth expecting to net a catch someday could be found reading Moby Dick after a decade of rigorous work. well isn't it true that waiting for Godot was written almost a century ago? How could one forget the truth of the Happy Prince or the fiction of Atlas Shrugged? But then who could you blame, the writers of blog posts or the social media dictators who don't bother to promote anything except entertainment?

Reading writing is a serious business that fails to entertain the masses. In a world marked by the Trump-ting USA and Modified India its rare to find somber logical debates and discourses on life and living. Perhaps the masses have lost the faith in existence of God & the goodness. Perhaps the rapidly melting glaciers on the poles have led to an opposite effect on humans leading to freezing of human mind. How could iconic markedly successful people like Kate Spade & Anthony Bourdain refuse to travel the entire mile?

How could successful smart Kate & Tony shatter under the weight of living life every moment of it? Come on pump up some more entertainment that could dampen the glare of arc-lights so that humans could keep their eyes open without strain. Achievements make people stronger worthier but those can't be the only goals of life. Failures are sexy too, failing repeatedly may kill the most of us.People earn money through hard toil so that they could burn it on lazy pursuits. Well this sums up our life in the post truth world.

People are no longer entertained by the serious tales reflective of the realty of banal existence. The laborious reading-writing activity of humans have shrunk by the rise of mass media and instant pleasures of social media revolution. Human heart desires more entertainment to find meaning in the digital life. Anyone can live long if she doesn't differentiate between success & failures. No day can be boring monotonous or wasted if you know how to entertain yourself with words. Pictures can kill, embrace the words to wade through the oceans of life. 

You certainly can make your first million from blogging on the web if  the masters of the digital universe Facebook & Google permit. Mythologies are interesting but can't help in living a win-win life in the post truth world. The hoopla scores over the golden silences. Would you like to know how much money a blogger like me make after 10 years on the blogpost? Hold your breath, take a sip of cold water. I have yet to reach $10 in 10 years. Phew can someone teach me how to make a  million dollars from writing? 

Need for Branding Higher Education

You would agree that the self financing universities & technical education institutes, both private & public, in India are going through consolidation phase post a rapid mushroom growth. Due to slowdown of economy, intense competition & regulatory bottlenecks many higher education players are facing serious challenges. Continuous decline in student intake numbers & rising costs require immediate solutions for the long term survival of this critical sector of economy.

Though corporatization of education in India has yet not been allowed but many major education brands are using commercial marketing principles, concepts & tools to attract students & other stake holders to them. But most institutes are unable to benefit from strategic marketing due to absence of a full time marketing director to take care of this critical function. The regulatory bodies of higher & professional education, UGC, AICTE, MCI etc, not only discourage use of marketing but also don’t make it mandatory for all self financing institutes to employ a professional marketing manager on the campus. How can an education enterprise succeed without proper marketing in the times when religion to politics use marketing to further their cause?

Every self financing education enterprise must either have an in-house marketing team or outsource the critical task to some outside professional agency. To fill this very gap, AnahadMC offer services to assist your management in creating & implementing of a customized marketing strategy.

Major challenge facing this sector is lack of branding. Despite existence of private players in education sector at all levels for a considerable long period in India not many private institute have been able to create brand equity higher than that of public sector autonomous institutes. The problem of branding in not peculiar to education sector alone, it’s pervasive in other commercial & not for profit enterprises as well. The mother of all questions is how to create a brand in the education sector? Let us admit that the advertising is not the chief vehicle for marketing in all the marketing scenarios.

 It’s well accepted that unless an institute presents itself as a brand to the students it may have to struggle a lot to be the first preference for the brand conscious youth of 21^st century India. Branding exercise is a critical factor in success or failure of institutes with full & partial enrolment record as market forces continue to change the game each year.

Some characteristics that determine the brand equity of an education enterprise:

1.   Years in operation

2.   Size of campus

3.   Placements

4.   Affiliations

5    International relations

6.   Faculty quality

7.   Number of courses

8.   Affiliations

If you want to go beyond the generic factors to create a differentiated brand for your enterprise that fits seamlesly to the target please drop us an email at anahadmc@gmail.com and we would get back to you within one working day. Let's make India an education powerhouse. 

Is Masala Journalism Bad Business?

“When ice freezes, all the excrement rises to the surface. And so, when the dialectic was frozen, all the sacred excrement of the dialectic came to the surface. When the future is deep-frozen – and, indeed, even the present – we shall see all the excrement come up from the past.” (Baudrillard 1994, p.26)

2012 is sliding into history in the land of Curry Munchers, India. Although the year has been pretty ordinary from economic, political & social angles but it has brought to forefront a sort of journalism which had been confined to sectarian-vernacular ghettoes of the media. I call it Masala [Spices] journalism in TV news-media. Most characteristic feature of masala- journalism style is preeminence of the style over substance. It does not matter how insignificant is the event the anchor would make it point to adulterate the facts with overdose of shrill high pitch voice, background sound effects & graphics of the screen to grab your attention.  Channels honchos believe that since majority of Indian watch Bollywood movies full of unrealism so they would seamlessly connect with shouting screaming anchors.

Mothers do give attention to crying babies but if a baby keeps crying for hours better take it to a doctor. The Masala journalism is not an isolated phenomenon but a prevalent malady afflicting the entire TV News-media in India in 2012. The English language print media for almost fifty years maintained a distinction between national & vernacular press. That boundary has been obliterated now with rise of Hindi journalism. In 80s the largest selling vernacular newspaper was non-Hindi Malaya Manorama which has been replaced by a Cow-belt Hindi language paper. 

So the growth in Cow-belt lead to spilling over of low cost journos into English media. Traditionally media in India was notorious for paying very low wages & field correspondents were supposed to hawk advertising for the publication. This invasion of English language media by Hindi trained journos brought in new way of thought & expression into the profession. Unfortunately the Cow-Belt has remained most underdeveloped part of India with large number of districts caught up in insurgency. Social conditions shape the personality of people. So these new journos adopted an attacking slandering style of interviewing people in public in the way police interrogates criminals in privacy of police stations in India. These Masala journos will keep asking you same question repeatedly & at the same time telling you that you are wrong to hold your view.  The Masala journos pretends to be educated than IAS, Senior Execs, professors & the other educated elite.

Arnab Goswami of Times Group once threatened the principal of India’s premier college St. Stephens Delhi on public television demanding that the principal must give class attendance to a student who had not attended the college. The compliant political class pressured the VC Delhi University to pass the order making an exception in the case. The principal must have lost his motivation to maintain the tradition of excellence in his institute. Masala Goswami subverted the Taj Mahal of education in India & successive generations would pay the price of his stupidity.

There is general agreement in the media czars in India that electronic media is suited for sensationalism to get viewership. So they have let loose the marauding semi-literate armies on TV screens beaming right into homes with kids watching slogans of “Hang them, Castrate the bastards” & other puerile carefully selected jargon.  All this is done to get the attention of the viewer. These blocks think that minuscule viewership of BBC & CNN in India is because they haven’t matched the profile of consumer with the offer service. So it’s profitable to offer highly spiced curries to titillate the masses.

The media managers are rare in India because the owners want complete & total control. There is an established tradition in India to hire managers for growth phase of the business. Once the business has scaled up to an economic level the managers are often ejected & replaced by a lackey or family. This in media has led to a unique challenge that editors have come back into power in a capital intensive business. The editor wants advertising revenue to grow, so a critical level of viewership would be required to gain attention of media planers. Therefore instead of creating a business strategy they get distracted by a content oriented move to lure the masses. Here they spill the curry !  The business cycle for a hindi movie has to be shorter than a 24x7 New-media.

The media czars have fallen into trap of Editorial led strategy for a capital intensive News-Media business.”The Hindu’ commands a brand value much greater & beyond the covered markets. Masala journalism can increase the TRP but it will completely distract & destroy the attention of viewers from advertising.  Why would some business advertise on a channel where the audience is always emotionally charged?  There would very poor recall scores for the advertising message presented to an emotionally charged audience.  Masala journalism is not only bad business its poor journalism also.  Media must soothe the nerves of low-income country like India instead of rabble rousing. Look at the Hindi movies, light action based comedies do more business than others. People want some peace in their life and want to eat homemade food than spicy stuff available at the street corner. 

How the politicians find what people want ?

Political parties in a democracy are answerable to the electorate goes the cliche, but do our parties undertake any scientific research to enumerate the priorities of the masses? Well in India leaders assume that majority of the people do not vote on a rational basis. Those leaders are right as the results of elections indicate.

Majority still vote for caste, religion, regional and ideological orientations. Economic issues do not seem to motivate the masses to vote in large numbers. But how do the parties find out what the people are thinking in their constituency? Politician in India seems to go by judgement approach and expert panel opinion taken from experts from within the party.

I have undertaken a focus group exercise in the youth segment to unravel their mind and the issues that they think are extremely important for the nation. The list in the order of priority is given under;

1. Population: Surprisingly no political party has talked about it in 2009 elections. What can the electorate do? Population growth remains the most critical issue that is slowing down the growth of India.

2. Respect for talent: Most participants feel that there is no room for talent & talented individuals in India. Youth is perturbed that the talented individuals do not stand a fair chance of achievement in our society. People still give too much importance to other factors over the talent of an individual. Students believe that it stifles the growth of talent, consequently growth of country.

3. Corruption: Why we have accepted bribery and corruption as part of life in India?Corruption weakens the country but no party seem to make it as an election issue and has offered no solutions to curb corruption in public life.

4. Economic policy: Major political parties do not present a clear cut industrialisation plan that could create jobs for the educated. All parties make similar noise about their economic policy.

5. Removal of poverty: Youth do not find mention of how much growth in per capita income would the political party would like to achieve in their tenure of five years.

Political Giants & Media Monsters !

Media and the Political players are like married couple. Both understand each other’s temptations so readily forgive the flings unless it becomes damaging affair for either of the stakeholder.  They fight but make up soon for sake of continuation of the relationship with renewed vow to support each other every time.  Like most marriages this too is an unequal relationship wherein the political player can lose reputation and elections but the media firm can lose its existence. 

Politicians need media to put across their promotional communication to citizens at large and media need them for advertising money and sensational content. News Channels use no holds barred approach to find content that brings highest TRP to their business so that they could charge premium from advertisers. Therefore the so called Breaking News stories have not much to do with journalistic mission or nation building pronouncements for sake of audience benefit but a direct greedy tactic to get better TRP for raking in the moolah.

Let us also resolve the conundrum of politics for nation and people or politics for pure self aggrandizement.  In my considered opinion all Political players work for themselves only and some of them are more open to sharing the windfall gains with some number of people. There is no political party that has worked for all the people of a country. Show me one and I’ll show you people the victimized and marginalized in some clear manner.

Let’s get back to the issue of how political parties should handle media or leverage the communication opportunities presented to them. Firstly in pays to have own dedicated mass media machine that is run professionally. Most parties in democracies have ‘close’ linkages with media houses but since last decade in India many parties own pretty powerful media monsters of their own to unleash at the opponents. The serious weakness in all those strategic assets is lack of professionalism as toadies generally lack competence to get audience interest. Such dedicated media firms must be run by professionals with Editorial policy control with the party. Aligning with an outside media firm is more expensive & less effective.

Political players generally get carried away by the media attention and tend to speak endlessly on any topic under the sun. Have you ever heard a politician say on camera that they need some time to answer the question if the muck racking seems to be working to their advantage? When you target the opponent it’s better to go prepared for your best shot. You must always depend on written prepared communication for better results and always desist from off the cuff shibboleths.

Political parties must plan the media rendezvous and must not exceed a given limit. Please note that more communication may lead to more confusion so in order to have positive impression on masses keep all political communication around few specific points that a binds your politics with your target audience.  A political player must avoid expressing views on topics that strengthen the opponent camp as bad publicity is also welcome publicity in politics.

Finally political parties would benefit if the work of communication management be left to professionals than party managers because the insiders can’t have a 360 degree view of a communication situation. 

Decline in Higher Education in India: MBA B.TECH

The Goal: Education has always been associated with higher achievement in life. Aesthetics, Health, Wealth, and Kingdoms could be created & experienced by an educated mind.  Ancient India gave highest regards to teachers by addressing them as Guru.  A Guru is one who dispels darkness by enlightening human mind.

Innovation vs. Tradition: Couple of decades ago India allowed private capital into setting up of higher education Institutes & Universities.  AICTE & other regulatory bodies were created to oversee the quality of education so that suitably trained human resources are made available for nation building activities. The initial focus of this move went into creation of capacity in Engineering, Medical & Management field. This led to proliferation of large number of Education Enterprises across length & width of India. Since Indian society do not encourage independent  original thinking therefore everything new can only be allowed if there is enough evidence of its existence somewhere else on the planet.

Wrong biz model: India is a land of happy number two unlike some other cultures that encourage & reward original thinking & innovation. So to justify the case for privatization of higher education, the success of privately managed US universities were cited.  Our bureaucracy did not bother to study the financial model for independently funded higher education institutes.  It’s criminal to allow such institutes to meet their finances entirely from students’ contribution.  Did the Babus in government borrow the model from infamous tuition shops in India? Receipts from tuition fee do not make more than 20-30 percent of the revenue of such higher education institutes in the world. They have other fund raising routes & the head of institution spends most of his time on raising funds leaving academics to the faculty.

Private vs. Public: A society needs to invest in education for sake of its future. No reasonable country leaves the task of educating its citizens to parents alone. That’s why Indian govt too provides free compulsory school education to all citizens.  Why the same government does not rationalize the financing of higher-ed institutions in India? This has led to deterioration in quality of education and entry of questionable people as promoters in this critical sector. For instance if you look at the profile of such institutes you shall find that most promoters themselves have had no education at all and they do not understand the value of core purpose of education which is to enlighten a mind. So many of such institutes have names from our ancient past that shows how much freedom such institutes would allow to students & faculty to prepare for a better future.   

Education & Employment: Student in India struggle to enroll in courses & schools that could ensure them a campus placement since employment scene in India is getting darker by the day. Rise of IT sector in India led to large number of students opting for IT related courses.  Investments in infra sector attracted students to go for civil & mechanical courses. MBA had emerged as all encompassing route to enter corporate sector which changed many lives in a significant manner.  Architecture courses attract many looking forward to join construction design boom. Medical education in private sector has expanded a lot despite many controversies.  Even after more than a decade of opening up of this sector the craze for government & autonomous higher education institutes have not diminished.  B.Tech  & MBA seem to have lost their attraction as reflected in dwindling admissions in private universities & institutes.  

B.Sc or B.Tech? Why the students have begun to opt for traditional of B.com or B.Sc instead of B.Tech or BBA/BCA? Why Industry has refused to offer higher salary to MBA grads in comparison to other courses.  It wouldn’t be inappropriate to mention that they syllabi & teaching methodology of B.Sc courses & B.Tech is exactly same.  Even the hallowed IITs teach Engineering science rather than technology. There is hardly a privately funded institute that is treating B.Tech program as a technology course. So a student has the option to enroll in a B.Sc course rather than wasting time & money on a B.Tech program. Market forces have played out and student enrollment in B.Tech courses have fallen in 2012.

MBA Edge: As the industry left Hindu rate of growth behind and economy began chugging along with an unprecedented 8 plus growth rate millions of jobs in corporate sector were created. The corporate began recruiting MBAs in 1990s on higher salaries in droves. This fuelled mushroom growth of MBA institutes across India. Unfortunately an MBA from an average institute cannot find a job these days so new admissions have become a challenge.

Experience vs. Degree for Faculty: MBA has lost its sheen primarily for the same reason which led to unpopularity of B.Tech program which is lack of suitable faculty.  B.Tech & MBA courses require industry experienced faulty with or without a master degree or PhD.  AICTE dominated by academicians from public funded institutes cannot appreciate difference in approach to teaching of B.Sc  & B.Tech course. MBA is taught by faculty that can handle MA Eco or M.Com courses. So what’s the difference in the two programs?  A B.Tech with 10 years of engineering experience would be an excellent replacement for an Engineering professor with PhD.

No institute can guarantee a job unless economy starts gaining momentum once again. Main purpose of education is to open a mind and develop new skills of an individual. Unless an institute gets down to teaching courses in right manner it would find difficult to survive in mid to long run. And students who could master appropriate skills & attitude would not find it difficult to get a great invitation to put their learning to test. 

Hero Moto Corp new identity for the market leader

Hero Honda does not exist anymore; the leader has been laid to rest. In its place there is Hero Moto Corp! Well the inevitable has happened and surely the Hero group must have been working on the transition for longtime. Let’s watch out how the future plays out. But I have few initial responses to their marketing particularly the advertising campaign about the transition.

Like most domestic companies that swear by fortune at the middle of the pyramid the Hero group have seem to target through the new  campaign. Obviously most domestic companies prefer to take the ‘safe’ approach with hope that one day they would be able to consolidate despite fiercest of the competition. I would not recommend such a strategic move to anyone. A new company must inspire new hope and appeal to the segment with potential of early trail. The company seems to be targeting the largest collection of followers among buyers rather than finite opinion leaders.

Hum hai hero… feels like inspired from Tata Steel campaigns. Well they are justified in registering the omnipresence of steel in all walks of life. But the theme adopted by HMC does not suit them, India is a motorbike  country but our per capita is no indicator that all who want a motorbike wishes to feel like a hero. The youth would go for zippier global branding & the domestic players would have to contend with need based buyers those use motorbike for work & transport. Such economy conscious buyers would be contended with other appeals. It seems to me that the Anna circus has had some impact on Hero Moto Corp’s selection of a campaign theme to announce new identity.

Hero Moto Corp campaign in my opinion is weak & would not help the HMC establish itself as a mid market player in two wheeler segment.

Voter Mobilization in State Elections

Five states are going for polls in April-May 2011 in India. Once again we shall see different pattern of voters turn out. Many believe that a high voter turn out during elections confers greater legitimacy to election results but specialists have different opinions about the subject.  In a first pass the pole system freedom to vote becomes a major issue than the percentage turn out.

Lower strata of society in India generally votes in greater numbers as compared to the other. There are many reasons for this, including ease of  management in getting these section out to vote. Middle class in villages tend to vote in larger numbers than in urban areas. Stake holders and experts feel satisfied with a turnover of around 60 percent in India. Though assembly elections generally have greater turn out than the general elections for the parliament.

Tamil Nadu would have higher turn out amongst the states. Let's not miss the point that dictators produce higher turn out in their countries during elections whereas democracies have moderate turnouts of around 50-60 percent.  Despite average age getting lower due to the demographic characteristics of India political parties still prefer to put greater stress on meetings & road shows as against mass media advertising.

Mass media adverting & marketing has the potential of changing the landscape of results in elections but no party gives prime priority to the use of marketing concepts & tools during elections. Political players still swear by traditional micro management of the elections despite drastic change in the profile of the voters.

Therefore we are deprived of great election advertising that could set a more consumer oriented agenda for the parties. Political players do not wish to change their feudal outlook and archaic behavior even in a youthful India of 21st century. They must be prepared for shock results in elections. The voter profile has changed and elections management has not which results into unexpected outcomes in elections. Its necessary for political players to give prime priority to marketing & advertising to get a desired outcome in elections.

Most election pundits have written an obituary  for the left parties rule in West Bengal but the results could be different. It would be a very close contest. scene is TN is no different, despite so much focus on corruption DMK alliance may get another chance to form a coalition government. AIADMK has nothing new in its plate for the voters, which could seriously hurt its chances. Challenger parties must offer new promises to attract voters to approve their agenda. Old agendas pandered about by equally ancient leaders would have limited appeal in a mass market. A party with sound core strategy built around 'New Promise' would attract greater number of fence sitters in an elections.

Case Study for MBA- Marketing Management: Leopard Bath Fittings

Some twenty years ago a group of professional with diverse backgrounds working in different companies in Bath & Kitchen fittings industry segment decided to set up a venture. There were number of small units in the area around Chandigarh engaged in manufacturing taps and showers. They would sell their products to the local traders at a wafer thin margin and would also do job work for the leading players in the trade.  So some professionals and few small manufacturers decided to come together and project their newly acquired critical mass into the market.  Consequently a new company by the name of Leopard Aqua was born.

Leopard Company was thus a mainly marketing company with a minimal production capacity. Its corporate office was set up in a 5 canals plot in the industrial area at Chandigarh.  Besides serving as HQs it had a well appointed showroom for selling the products from the premises.  The company was jointly owned by the eight directors having equal number of shares. However their responsibilities were defined but some overlaps remained as more than one director were engaged in the same function. One of the directors was appointed as the Managing director and other assumed responsibilities of accounts & finance, production and other important tasks. In fact three directors choose to be sleeping partners leaving the management to the remaining five. After 6-7 years two directors left the company but the management remained unchanged. It has been incorporated as a closely held limited company.

In the FY 2006-2007 the Leopard Company had a gross turnover of over INR 200 Million (Annexure 1). The company produced several lines of bath & kitchen fittings from low to high price/quality segment at different plants owned by different directors. It is usual for revenue based target driven sales force to push the fast moving low price products in the market. Such products by their nature have very thin margins.  This would result in low sales of quality high end products having good margins.  The Leopard sales team despite repeated reminders kept pushing the low price middle quality products into the market without giving a significant push to the high quality good margin items. Therefore there developed an imbalance in the market.  

The sales team that joined Leopard 20 years ago remained with the company as the growth in sales resulted in consequent growth in their commission earned. Subsequently the company started hiring sales people on salary basis as they needed to employ MBAs and other professionally qualified people. Like many other SMEs in India the top level sales team at Leopard remained less educationally qualified as compared to the new recruitments.  It was felt that people who worked on commission basis would stop pushing the sales once they had attained their personal financial goals. 

A company is known more by the quality of its products than by the tall claims in its advertisements and promotion messages. Hence despite having top quality products in its portfolio the Leopard Company suffered from the lack of proper positioning of the brand. Till late 90s such companies did not take to mass media advertising seriously and kept to Word of Mouth promotion only.   There was a general thinking in the industry that since end user buys taps (faucet) & shower only once or twice in a lifetime therefore it would be a waste to convince them through mass media.   Moreover consumers largely depend on the advice of architects and masons in purchase of such products.

The Leopard Company kept a reasonable amount as promotion budget every year since its inception following the all you can afford approach.  But even then it did spend 2-3 percent of its turnover yoy since first year. The company engaged a marketing expert and repositioned the brand from rational to emotional appeal with a shade of Indian nationalism. It was felt that rational appeal does not seem to lead to any unique positioning as most brands in that domain had similar appeal to the customers. Moreover since most of the sales came from domestic market it was proper to appeal to the local sentiments.

The Leopard Company has a national direct sales force of 30 people working at various levels reporting to the MD and other indirect sales force of 20 feet on street people. It has national distribution network across India comprising 250 dealers. The company has robust sales and marketing systems. There is no significant amount of credit outstanding as the goods are cleared through bank only. The leopard’s inflexibility in extending accredit to trade buyers speaks volumes for its brand loyalty and product quality.  It has achieved leadership position in Gujrat and has significant market share in remaining southern states, it does not enjoy significant market share in the north India where its head office is located.

The Directors in the company have reached their middle ages and their children have taken different career paths. Till recently no director asked the board to appoint his child in the company. In the year 2007 one director got his appointed in the company against the wishes of the majority.  And also some directors also have lost the enthusiasm to keep working with the same energy.  The situation has been complicated by two directors complaining that products manufactured at their plants are not being sold in good numbers leaving them mired in problems regarding working capital management and high inventories.  Though Leopard can raise capital from debt or equity route but there is no mechanism to route it to the independently incorporated pvt limited company owned by the indebted directors. As those organizations has already been leveraged. 

The recent entry of international players like Kohler, Roca and American Standard has increased the competition in the market at the high end. The lower stratum of the market has been invaded by numerous small players as the technology barriers are too low. Most companies in India in bath & kitchen fittings segment use very basic technology in the casting and mould making. Therefore there are no significant entry barriers for new players to make inroads into the market. The new players having lean infrastructure have the capacity to compete on very thin margins can drive out an established product from the middle to low segment.

Due to multiplicity of challenges the Leopard Company has decided to look for alternatives such as partial or complete divestment of equity.  In your opinion should the company go for full divestment mode in 2011? What would be a reasonable price to ask for such company in case of full divestment? What would be the brand value of its Leopard brand?

Online Free Marketing Management Lessons for MBA/PGDM India

Some of my students have been asking me to use the social media for study of Marketing Management for MBA students in India. Well let us begin today! But i would not not be posting any lessons unless asked particularly & also would write in brief only. But it goes without saying that you could ask me anything under the Sun on Marketing Management in India...and you would get an answer to the best of my abilities.

What would you gain from this interaction? Firstly, how many of your MM faculty has industry experience? Secondly how many of them share industry data in the class room? Do they ever go beyond Philip Kotler, wonder if most even understand that standard text book? Moreover how many are tech friendly? and have a blog? Enough said about they way i handle Marketing Management.

Firstly let me clarify that i do not agree with the general trend they way MBA students opt for specialization in Marketing Management in MBA course. You would agree that it has become a practice that students with higher grades go for Finance major whereas less bright go for Marketing. Marketing management has become the favorite course of the wimp, and thats the problem. In fact  Marketing management graduate need to know finance as well otherwise s/he would not be able to make profitable marketing moves.

How to select a proper specialization is a million dollar question for the students in the mid course. And the job is not over once you have opted for Marketing Management. Because you need to learn to appreciate that the application of Marketing would vary depending upon the product/service you wish to market. B2B marketing is whole lot different than B2C. Theory of Marketing Management may remain almost same but their would be several finer points that a student must understand. Marketing in a growing economy like India may not have an actual customer relationship focus as you would see in the mature markets. Even the way the business activity may be organised on different lines. Therefore when you select Marketing major please take the next step of gravitating your studies around your select area of work/career. Once you have decided, and you must decide, to pursue a career in consumer durables, FMCG or B2B then focus on the working of corporations in that field only. Begin with the local market and go on to the global scene.

Philip Kotler texts are very basic that you would need to supplement with regular visits to industry websites, cases, discussions and workshops. Go for Marketing so that a we could have iconic Indian brands, and home grown fmcg companies with effective distribution networks.

Higher Education & Global Education in India

We still await the government green signal to entry of global education organisations into India. Once they arrive it would sure change the domestic market dynamics as happened in other sectors like electronics & auto etc. Its time that local education organisations prepare for the battle ahead. Once global competition hits services sector in India the customers can look forward to mush better quality & availability of services.The professional education sector would be particularly hit hard initially unless they pull up their socks in right earnest.

Firstly the quality of the service has to be improved. That would involve putting together good faculty, content, pedagogy/andragogy, technology, & interactivity besides building and official approvals. Good quality faculty is certainly in short supply therefore this has to be managed strategically through guest or part time faculty route. First of all the promoters must allow the directors/principals some little role in the functioning of the institute. Current scenario in the privately run universities & institutes is very serious with as most,perhaps all, the directors/principals are appointed for AICTE/UGC purpose only. Its a pity that so called leading academicians accept such jobs with high flown pragmatism & prudence. Otherwise its sick.

Content & delivery in classroom needs to be looked at very closely. We have talk down one way  method of teaching with no interaction at all. The faculty must take prepared content into the class and allow free discussions. The content must be updated & must reflect the present technical/managerial status of the fields under study. Fundamentals of the disciplines must be introduced to the students. For example MBA students must be informed about the real macro industry profile of India so that they can appreciate the nature of work opportunities available. Same could be done for the global markets.

Most students seek professional education not because they have aptitude for it and they want to pursue study of that field, most students are forced to join professional education for the sole aim of finding a job. What an institute can do? In the short run, focus on developing the students' aptitude as far as possible in the current field of study and in the long run the institute could make aptitude test a compulsory requirement for admission.

Higher education organisations do not have to restrict themselves to proximity criteria for student enrollments, i would recommend that such firms must vigorously focus on complimentary markets for growth. This would require creating a central admissions team that takes care of all students enrollments in a strategic manner.

Marketing would have to be the cornerstone of success in any scenario. An education enterprise that works on its marketing would benefit hugely. A tailored marketing campaigned would be needed to weather the churning after mushroom growth. Different institutes would have to develop & adopt  a suitable strategy for attracting students & delivering value to the customers for success in the competitive market.

The blues of the 'Blue Ocean Strategy' ?

Na i certainly am not interested in writing an unauthorised review of the Blue Ocean Strategy by WC KIm & Renee. The book in fact is inspirational. Its emphasis on finding blue markets through NEW way of analysing the markets is commendable though not really a new idea. Marketing lives on the power of the new and so does life and us. Let us examine some new prodct ideas here:

1 Shirt with three pairs of Changeable collars and cuffs: Twin color shirt: Shirt is the main male dress that has stopped evolving. Why not have a shirt that comes with three pairs of matched cuffs & collars so that it could be worn three times before a wash. Great economy and style that would be.

2. Desi Ghee in Pouch/satchets: Indians eat lots of desi ghee ( Clarified butter). Ghee is bought in Kg packs then used with a measure of spoon for garnishing the curries and vegetables. Why cann't we have Desi Ghee packed in 2-5 gms satches like shampoo and ketch up? Open a satchet and pour into dal or sabji!

3. Joy stick steering in cars: Steering wheel can be replaced with a joy stick to save space in car. It would lead to better driving pleasure as the driver would be able to keep it any place close to the body and saves money. Tata Nano could try that.

4. Classroom Video notes: Indian classroom is based on teacher to group teaching method and the students are hardly encouraged to ask questions. Why not record the teacher's lectures in video format and let the class see. Questions if any can be asked through emial. This would eliminate the need for teacher to go to class and save salary for the institute.

If you need any innovation write me, easy!