Time to Pack Up

This is my last week at work. Will be going for a two and half months long leave after this. I wish to come back and rejoin my work. It has been a very nice experience here. Good people to work with, very supportive. Indeed the fact that I got leave for my MBA entrance exam is the evidence that the management here has broader perspective and are open to educational advancements.

There is an excitement to be at home. After a long time would be at home with a satisfaction that I am at home to achieve something and do have some objective in life. Last time after graduation I felt as if I have lost in life's race and am being at home, initially I even got feeling that probably life is at a turning point and hence forth my entrepreneurial skills will be honed, but however gradually that feeling sublimed and I got as comfortable as ever. But this time its hard work and dedication. I want to get lost in my efforts that I never get chance to think so much as I did last time. This time with a supplement with my good mock scores I would probably stay at home with a good feeling and proud. Moreover there's no heaven as good as love and care of my mother. I am looking forward for a great time at home too. But I don't think my work ex for 3 months would add any great impact on my resume so anyways I would have to work after this leave period.

Looking forward for positive things as always!!

Are you Proud of Independence Day? I am not!

Its nation's 62nd Independence Day, but for me its 20th. It has been 20 long years, which I have breathed in this free country. Till this year I have always been proud of this day. I always felt, that the day rejuvenate the lost spirit of nationalism, though not to everyone but atleast to few of the proud Indians, and to few like me who's sentiments ardour only at such national festivals. Always thought that if properly utilized then such occasions can actually help to revolutionize the entire era of excessively busy and myopic people. Something like Rang De Basanti style.

I really don’t want to sound so negative, but the only basic question that I would ask anyone on this day is, Are you happy particularly about this day? Happy in all sense. Happy for this wonderful nation. Do you get sense of security and stability on the day?

Probably most of you would agree that yes we are happy about this day, we are free and we are more secure. Even I would have agreed to it unless this year, I would have come across a similar debate with a friend and finally a journey at the eve of this Special Day.

But isn't it that during such national festivals we fear the most of terrorist striking the peace in nation. Moreover this year amidst the recent terror attacks at Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Kolkatta, and futile ones at Surat, there was no feeling of security in the great Nation.

It just happened that I had to travel on the eve of Independence Day and my friend warned me to avoid travel for security reasons, and gradually we got into a debate with a friend about how we all are supposed to surpass the feeling of being terrorized and scared when terrorists strike, so as to make their basic motive of creating unrest in the nation a futile attempt. So I was of the opinion that whatever the situation may be, every citizen of India should come ahead on this Holy Day to celebrate the day in true Indian spirit and try to feel the way our great freedom fighters have felt. The only difference being we will be fighting against terrorism. So I tried to convince him that its just a normal day for me and that I will move around as normally as I do, or rather more proudly than other days.

Finally at the D-Day, I reached the Pune Railway Station. It was night hours and the nation was very quickly and swiftly moving towards its 62nd Independence Day. I had thought that probably the city would be undergoing decoration so as to celebrate. I was myself very proud of the feeling, but then at railway station the condition was rather gloomy and tensed. All over policemen! Checking posts, stations overly crowded as always yet no one interested to ponder over the date or time. Zombies, without smile or sign of happiness, moving and making their way around. I still had hopes that probably at 12:00 midnight the situation would change. My train got delayed and luckily I happened to be on station at midnight to experience the situation at myself. I was watching the needle of the Platform Clock and as excitedly as it was birthday of my girlfriend I had my cell in my hand with all greetings for the day typed along with the recipients. It stuck 12:00 and I sent the messages for which I did not get even 2% of reply back. It was for the first time that I was in a public place at such a great day. And according to me there would have been very few places better than Pune Railway station to feel the joy of celebrations of this day. Pune being hub of youth there are maximum chance to feel innovative spirit of the day. I was expecting a formal announcement from the authorities. Anyways instead of announcement they flashed their wishes on the display screen at platform which was pretty decent on their part. Next I was expecting was a formal greet from the persons I accost to, which obviously I deed the entire journey, but this was in vain too. Instead all I got from people was the look of fear and worry. Most of them could not hide their helplessness in avoiding the journey on this day.

Well as and when the journey progressed I felt that for people its just another day, and they are grateful that at least their station or train was not bombarded at sharp 12 by terrorists.

I am happy, I got a chance to travel on this day and observe the true Indian Nationals. I think this day in 21st Century actually doesn't bring pride or happiness to the citizens but a burden and sense of insecurity. It carries with itself a face of terror. And majority of us fail to look at the brighter side of the day and treat the day as a burden to Indian Legacy System. A day where anything can go wrong on a huge scale without notice. Unfortunately this day doesn't unite people anymore, if we want to create a society where people celebrate, come and interact and try to understand each other than probably we need more of days such as Valentine's, Christmas, New Year, etc. At least on such days youth of 21st Century without worrying about sure shot terror attack from local political parties gets courage to go on roads and celebrate. And in case if you really want to see the national spirit of people of India than you should wait for India Pakistan match rather.

Please, I just want you to be truthful at least to yourself, if not others. Please ponder over it and answer this question. Do you actually feel proud about Independence Day in today's world?

If your answer is yes than probably you have yet not travelled or remain unsolicited in a crowded public place all alone on the night of Independence Day.

Role of perception in consumer marketing

This one is based on personal experience.

Some time ago, I often used to hear from an elderly age group of people about the complexities that new technology has introduced. Say an ATM machine. Those people were introduced as oldies or outdated people. But today such complains have decreased substantially or to put it in other words those complains have escalated one more generation gap. The people in their mid ages have mostly got adapted to such technologies. Due to which marginal people of next level has also followed.

Now interestingly the fact is that there had been hard efforts to reduce complexity in using technologies, but however it alone did not help substantially to get more people using these technologies. Infact without changing the customer perception by proper marketing mix it would not have been so successful.

Its very hard to alter an established perception of a consumer. Only a deliberately thought marketing can help to make it real. The perfect marketing mix is what is needed to hit the established thought process of the consumer. Especially when we talk about Indian consumers who has their traditional and conventional products and alternatives, which they have been using for years, its very difficult to alter their taste. And majority of brands has also failed in doing so. Finally the marketeers has to adapt to the consumers, the best example being Pizza Hut with its Indian - Punjabi Menu and Mc Donalds with its Indianzied food. Still its not easy for them to get customers to their restaurant. Mc Donalds in India faces heavy competition from Vada Pav stallers, who without any strong marketting, forms the basic diet of lower working class of people of Indian metros especially Mumbai, Surat, Pune, etc.

Mc Donalds have hence evolved to a marketing strategy which serves the basic purpose of transmitting the message that the burger is yet cheap and that that the outlet is not only meant for kids or youths but to older people who has lost their love for such foods. It aims at altering the general perception that the product is expensive, and though if logically thought a visit to their outlet finally proves to be heavy on a normal customer's pocket as he end up spending more.

The basis of any marketing is to make the target audience realize that there is a neccessity of his product in his life and to make him agree to spend his disposable income on the product. The challenge was bigger in recent future. But with the increase of purchasing power of the consumers, more and more class of people has migrated towards better standard of living. Hence Air Conditioners , Laptops, Car Makers now lays more importance on middle class people as their target audience. There has been tremendous increase in advertisement of laptops from "Life is Easy, to King Khan's Compaq series". It has now been accepted trend in Indian consumers that in case you are looking for a machine for your small or big need then better go for a laptop. Needless to say that the sale of laptop has surprassed that of desktop by a huge number.

To sum it up, I would conclude that for any marketteer the most necessary thing today is to first read the conceived pereception of targeted audience and then mould the same with proper devised marketing principles and fundas.

Blogs from Learned Proffessors

Hey, here's a list of blog sites of learned professors from various Big and Famous B-Schools. These blogs gives a great insight on various Economic, Financial, Marketing, etc issues. Its great to read about their ideas.

1. T T Ram Mohan (Professor, Finance and Accounting Area, IIM-A)
2. Harish(Marketing lecturer at ICFAI,Cochin)
3. Mr Piyush Shah(Operations Narsee Monjee)
4. Madhukar Shukla(XLRI)
5. Madhukar Shukla(XLRI)2nd Blog
6. Sabu Mangalasserril(Assistant Professor at ICFAI)
7. Jayanth R Varma, IIM Ahmedabad
8. Pitabas Mohanty (XLRI Jamshedpur)
9. Rajeev Sharma (XLRI Jamshedpur)

Some of them are very good. I would post my personal comments and likings about each one very soon.

Perception..!!

{Well this blog I wrote as a project. It seems you guys have really liked all my previous blogs. Thanks for your appreciations, but instead of praising them in private I would love if you guys can write them as comment below each blog. Anyways about this blog: Its an outsourced project to me. I am supposed to write more of such types in very less time alloted. Hence without reviewing it for second time I am publishing it. I will reconsider it asap and update the editions. Till then I am quite sure the words below will be make atleast some sense}

Perception



Perception plays a very important role in decision making!! Take this example:

In a party, where Shyam was on his part time job of a waiter, a lady lost her diamond ring. There was a police inquiry and all the guests, servants, caterers and everyone in the party were Maharashtrian except him. He being a Bihari was detained by police for inquiry. He was harassed to the best possible way. Though later the ring was reported to be misplaced by the lady herself, the question here is why didn’t police detain anyone else than a Bihari? In a heated argument with the friend over the same issue we came up with the conclusion that it was all about Perception. See perception took a place so widely and wildly that no one from police, caterers or guests even thought of having a second thought about the police detaining or questioning just a poor outcast Bihari without any sort of proof or reason. Is being a bihari his fault?

Same goes for Muslims in our country and I probably need not explain what I am talking about, cause it’s a wide perception.

If perception when so strong can make the most learned living being on earth loose his logic and reasoning then its noteworthy to think that how this perception when harnessed in proper sense can help to serve personal or utilitarian motives.

Marketers today make the maximum use of this perception game theory. They are the people who understand completely the power of perception. They do not leave any stone unturned to catch, mold and create consumers perception. Be it be FMCG basic product or an Luxurious product, each marketer try to hit on the perception of the consumer. Better put as Brand Identity. Identification of each individual to the brand.

Remember Anchor and Colgate war for their toothpaste box cover design? And of course the close up jingle “kya aap closeup karte hai?”. The only motive behind it was to impact upon target consumer’s mind that its just close up because of which that you get confidence and all good things happens to you. And how about Big B coming to screen and often advising you to include Dabur Chawanprash in you diet, or to drink Dabur Glocouse, or to eat Dabur Hajmola, or to apply Emami Boroplus cream.

In case you are aware of the few facts as that Shahrukhan is no more brand ambassador of Santro, now he is for Hundai i10, similarly, Pepsi has not renewed its contract with Sachin for Pepsi’s promotion, because it feels Sachin no more represent youth.

What’s the relation between Shahrukh’s not being a brand ambassador and perception? Its very obvious that now Santro wants its consumers or target audience to look at Santro and say it’s a Middle class man’s vehicle that were not able to identify themselves with the standards of Shahrukh Khan now with ordinary people can perceive the car to be affordable and meant for them.

Similarly now Pepsi has Dhoni, Irfan Pathan, Narayan Kartik, Deepika Padukone, etc as young face of its youngistan campaign. And it wants its target audience to perceive that it’s the voice of Young people who fall in category of Youngistan, a utopia where everything is possible.

Perception is everywhere. Probably the reason behind our every action is the perception of things.

Well as a consumer, to decide if this marketers have the right to play with our perception, will be diplomatic answer. Its after all depends on customer to customer how he takes these imposed perceptions. So you decide if its perception or fact..?

Blog for QED Users

Dear all QED Users,

I have made a blog site where we can share experiences, knowledge, expertise, fun part and your new innovative ideas. Please leave me your email id in the comment, and I will send you the invitation to contribute and write on for that blog site.

Visit the blog site here. QED

Hoping for your enthusiastic contribution.

Regards

QED Baton as I see it!

This one is dedicated to my office at Pune :

QED.. A fun filled place to be in!


It offers work,
It offers entertainment,

It gives challenges,
It gives solutions,

It ensures mental blockade,
It ensures total leisure,

It gives Flexibility of shift duration,
It calls for late night stay backs!!


Carom at one corner,
comps at another,

Bosses at one end,
Work Floor at another,

Washrooms round the corner
Both separate from each other,

Hot Drinks towards the lunch arena,
Coolers yet to find a place,

Lots of work,
Lots of Fun,

Fun filled Fridays,
Though not very often,

The mixture of both,
The positives & the negatives,
Yet with well balanced gradient.

I am surely going to miss,
This paradise called QED Enabled Services Private Limited.

Office Office..!

Life in a corporate is Fun too. Before joining this office there were lots of skepticism about the first job. I felt I am too young to work in an organization and that people might look at me as a kiddo and might now value me. Will I be able to cope up? Do I really need to do jobs?
Probably like every new joiner I had lots of questions and ambiguities. Learning, mugging up, and writing exams is what I am perfect at. But here the world will be totally new. The feeling is somewhat comparable to a child who has been riding a tricycle and now has been kept over a bicycle to try his luck. The same enthusiasm and same fears all through out.  And as I steadfast on the track, I am sure the lessons will be learnt in the same manner as in case of former, by falling - paddling - breaking and above all practicing. I hope to get the most of the learning here before I call it the day of working under employment.

Is it all about MBA?

The topic in discussion over here is probably one of the most hyped one. At my age, around millions of people are crazy about these three words. And even I am one of them. Yet out of those millions each have a different reason of his being in this Rat’s race. Most common would be “to make a career”. But one question keeps haunting me. Is it all about MBA? Is your career just because of an MBA? If that is really the case then why do you run after top B – Schools? Do they impart good knowledge? If MBA is all about exposure then do they offer better exposure? If yes then how do you decide the other one doesn’t? And if you are the student in question then have you ever thought what kind of exposure is right for your career? And if you know your right exposure then why don’t you want to research which institute is offering that exposure? Or is that you simply believe that the best one is doing so? And above all is MBA the only means for setting up your Career? What about the time that you loose getting into your dream institute? Doesn’t that affect your career? Is it worth taking risk of wasting couple of years? So many and many questions....

Well probably you are thinking that I am either crazy or frustrated. I am neither. And I feel proud to say that I am also one of those millions who want to get into dream MBA B-School but I have a different reason for it. So what's new, each one of them has a different reason, at least each one believes their reason to be unique. And those who doesn't have one are probably the dumbest or smartest, too extreme to be worth getting selected for any B-School.

Some time back, before I started my preparation for CAT, I used to wonder over the applicability of all these entrance exams. I always had a feeling that why does our education system expect us to excel in our Graduation (or the stream we had last worked on) and at the same time prepare for another exam for pursuing further studies. Why can't they be related and equated and made unique. Isn't it the system that is trying to deviate focus of students? Isn't it that our education system encourages multiple focus at a particular point of time. (And when a student like me attempts to deal with CA and MBA both at one time, people taunt saying, I have got foot in two boats! ) And the main question that I could not understand then, if i had the caliber to appear and top such exams then why would I want to join an MBA course, because that is what they are finally going to teach! (I mean Management here).

Well you yourself might have seen some flaws in the above logic, but that is what I used to think for this unjust and tyrant entrance exams like CAT. But later when I started preparing for these exams, I came across many aspirants, many of whom were complete B-School package and many of whom did not even deserve to go to any B-School and yet all of them have successfully complete their grads. So if this is the case of one batch of my coaching class then there are innumerable of them all over India.

And if these top B-School takes admission on the basis of the grads ranking then most of these guys, popularly known as book worms, would occupy it. Hence to have best of talent these B-Schools need to have some good evaluation system. I tried to think over any such possible evaluation system, but could not think one better than this for a time being. And as far as its practical applicability is concerned, I feel, its all aptitude and is basis of everything. They are all analytical and logical. They used to be laborious and hectic but that is long back. Now these exams are more of democratic one, where each one gets substantial time to solve few limited number of questions. Yet one thing that doesn't get justified is the high application fees for these exams. These institutes should realize that the students appearing for any institute entrance will for sure be appearing at least for 5 more of such. Anyways that's entirely a different issue.

Anyways I think I ll end up this blog. Small thing that is yet left to tell is my reason for running after this rat's race. The only reason probably why I want to compete here is because I want to get a feel of B-School. I am quite crazy to experience the life style the B-School offers. I have heard that life is tough there and you have to be on your toes every moment. I simply want to challenge life and see how a B-School can effectively bring discipline and values in my life. And as far as education is concerned, I believe I have a lot of it to build my career and the rest I can acquire from books and experience. And as far as placement is concerned, I really don't need one as I see myself as an entrepreneur learning from experiences rather than classroom sessions. Its just life and people at these institutes is all cause of which I aspire to be in one of the best of them.

Hoping for the Best with all your wishes and lucks..!! Thanks for reading anyways!!

Social Hijacker!!

What an interesting word it is! It can probably take any form of meaning supporting your explanation. If used effectively it can be a big blow to the person’s character. I have not checked any dictionary, but I don’t think it exists in any of them yet. Hence the user probably can take the entire credit to mould it as a positive or negative word. Whoever coined this word would be a Genius. A good friend of mine used this word for me (I am not sure if he himself coined it). It took me a week to analyze what actually he wanted to convey through it. I was confused if his intention was to compliment me or to make a sarcastic remark.
I being a very confident person (confident to the extent of sometimes being overconfident) wanted to think the word to be a positive word describing my nature. I wanted to think it over as my friend probably wanted to say that, “I am an ebullient personality, am the show stealer and can make the atmosphere of any place light and contagious by breaking the ice. I can make others feel comfortable and make them see me as a trustable and responsible person. In short, without using any coercion I can coax people and hijack their perceptions or importance.
But then was it really his intention. It’s very rare that a friend like him would appreciate and that too at an occasion when nothing great has happened. Again there is a negative explanation for this word. I would take an example:
You are out with your gurl (gf) in a party. You happen to meet a friend and you make a formal introduction of your gurl with him. It happens that both of them share some past link to which they can relate as both being present at the same time, but never noticed the other one. This is a good help to start a long conversation. Now gradually as days passes you notice that your gurl is probably has developed interest in talking to your friend and also demands you to get him along at your so called dates. Your friend being an extra smart person starts editing your scene from the picture and tries to fit himself in your shoes. But this is not what makes the friend as social hijacker. It’s his smart, efficient tricks, and techniques that he uses against you to get your gurl away from you without even making you realize that he is devising any such plans. Hat’s off to Social Hijacker!! And it’s really very difficult to track if a person is a Social Hijacker of this sense or not!! It’s advisable to keep such Social Hijacker at an arm’s length.
Just to tell you that, in my case it was not the situation. I think he might have perceived it in a similar fashion though.
Anyways, my intention here was just to make you aware of this interesting word called SOCIAL HIJACKER!! Do let me know if you can make any other sense out of this word. Also I would love to hear that when and how you tried to use this new vocabulary in your conversation.

Finally a Graduate

An end or a beginning? It is a question that life often throws at any junction. I have today completed my graduation. Finally a Graduate! It’s a good feeling though. It’s time in life to move on. To go in search of a way that will probably lead me to me livelihood. All my friends will be left apart. My friends for whom I always wished that if given a chance to select my kin I would have selected them as my brothers. And life is even a greater mess when you actually don’t know what next? However, well equipped with my patience and calmness and my supportive family I never panicked as one of my room mate did. We were celebrating the Graduation Day and also summing up all the pending parties of pals. I was one of the host for the party, which I came to know only after a huge order that was placed. But at that moment more than money something else was troubling me, or rather many of us. However the mood was of party. The party to forget everything. Party to cheers three years of our life. Party to call it the end of struggle – Struggle of sleeping overtime – Struggle of studying overtime(I mean during exams) – And struggle of whiling away the time. Probably each one of us had different definition for the college life. But Sleeping was the one consensus for majority. At party no one dared speak of his opinion about others, as for the one time in life we wanted to enjoy alcohol without getting sentimental. One after the other there were round of cheers. What a lovely night! A beer in one hand and a cigarette in another. Both were mandatory for members of the party and unfortunately I was not an exception.

Well just purely on my memory I think we were around 11 or 12 of us. And when 11 or 12 of Punters, (that’s what we call ourselves”) are together, than you can expect nothing but pure and full masti. One after the other, each punter started going crazy. And finally all of us were in a notorious mood all together. And finally after three warning the notice to leave the place as other guests were getting annoyed was announced! Well you think it must be embarrassing, but for Punters its normal and without it the masti is yet not over. Well that night was amazing; in fact the whole episode of the police catching us tripsy on the scooter was also most memorable. It’s a long story would tell you later about it, just to give you a brief idea, life is a romance when you challenge it in each and every way.

Blog Blog Blog….Keep Blogging

Today at office Angad and Lavi, my pals from college and now my colleagues at office, on a break were discussing about few blogs from our college friends. I instantly came back to check each of theirs’. I found blog sites of the people who were least expected to write anything. It stuck me with an inspiration to write it. After all a blog from a typist like me, having more than 80 WPM is the most expected thing. It’s not that I have not thought about having my own blog site before. It has been my dream since long back, even before you heard of Amitabh Bachan and Lalu Prasad blogging. It’s just that I always had a feeling that why would one waste his energy and time to read my blog. I am neither a personality to be watched closely to. Then why should I waste my energy writing this blogs? It always seemed logical, but this incident of the day made me realize two things. 1. A person writes blog not with the expectation that it will be read by someone, though it feels good that if someone reads it and acknowledges it (so in case YOU have read it till here then please do acknowledge). 2. People like me just in order to see who all is blogging or to check what all a person is blogging about can actually read and form an opinion about the blogger. 3. One obvious reason that anyone would cite is that you can always share your blog site with your loved and cared ones. (N I am sure my loved one is going to read all my blogs with utmost attention and is also going to appreciate it.)

Now I think blogging is an amazing idea. In fact each one of us should blog. So guys and gals Blog Blog Blog, Keep Blogging. It’s amazing!!