MAHAMANDI 2010@NITIE – Mandi for the Managers

On the 31st of July, Mumbai witnessed yet another edition of Mandi, the unique on field marketing exercise conducted by NITIE. This event is part of NITIE’s unequalled action learning pedagogy, in which first year management students hit the streets of Mumbai selling educational toys. This year, the event scaled new heights and was rechristened MahaMandi 2010, as the students from NITIE invited their counterparts from some of the other top post graduate colleges in Mumbai – SJMSOM IIT Bombay, Wellingkar, SIMSR and TISS. More than 800 students spread out to different parts of Mumbai to sell the educational toys manufactured by Navnirmiti, an NGO working for the upliftment of underprivileged children.
Conceptualized by Dr T. Prasad (Senior Faculty – NITIE), this event originated from the belief that experiential learning in terms of a field marketing experience is as important as classroom training and education. Dr. Prasad says – “MahaMandi serves as an effective vehicle for three objectives. Firstly, it contributes to Navnirmiti, thus helping make a difference in the lives of many children who lose out on basic education. Secondly, it provides our students with a practical experience of classroom concepts like Marketing and Direct Selling. Thirdly, the toys sold are essentially educational tools that have been deployed by the NGO in many schools across the country.”
The event was flagged off from the beautiful campus of NITIE by Mr. Rajit Kapur (of Byomkesh Bakshi fame), Amol Mazumdar (Indian cricketer) and Rehan yar Khan (Founder at Flora2000 Inc).

After the inauguration ceremony, students started towards their chosen destinations to sell their products. They tried to woo customers at shopping malls, railway stations and other busy intersections in areas like Powai, Bandra, Dadar, Churchgate and CST. The toys on offer were Tangram, ‘Jodo’ Sets, Number balance and Navrang. Mrs. Beena Gite, a working mother of two said, “For me, these toys will serve as a new and unique way to teach mathematical concepts apart from the conventional method of teaching through school textbooks.” The sales for the day were an overwhelming Rs 10, 00,000.

The students describe their experience at MahaMandi- “This was a very enriching and fun filled experience for me as I got to interact directly with so many customers and learnt how to effectively make a sales pitch to them” said Maulik Desai, a first year student at NITIE.

B-Gyan: Growth of McDonald’s in India

Guest : Mr. Arvind Singhal, Director – Marketing, PR & Corporate Communications, McDonald’s India

Mr Singhal speaking on “The Growth Story of Mc Donald’s.”

Ronald McDonald, the affable mascot of McDonald has today become a part of us. But it wasn’t an easy entry into India, neither into the country nor in the hearts and minds of the Indian consumer. Mr. Singal spoke about the unique challenges McDonald’s had to face in India. Most of us know that McDonald’s opened its first outlet in India in 1996. But the groundwork started in early 1990’s. It took them close to six years to crack the Indian market. From setting up its Supply Chain, to getting the product mix right; they had to do it all. The biggest challenge of all was to reach out to the masses. A self service restaurant model wasn’t something Indians were too familiar with back in the 1990s. Moreover, given the religious & cultural sensitivities, they had to customize their menu to suit the Indian platter. So the Big Mac took a Maharaja Mac avatar and the Mc Aaloo Tikki burger and the Paneer Salsa wrap were specially made for the Indian Markets. That apart, McDonald’s faced the challenge of being perceived as an ‘elitist’ joint. It was here that the “aap ke zaamane mein baap ke zaamne ke daam” campaign did the trick. The Rs. 20/- menu proved to be watershed moment for McDonald’s. The common Indian consumer lapped up McDonald’s and no wonder McDonald’s growth story is cited as a prime example of how companies can carve a niche in the Indian market.

An enriching session, it left us NITIE junta chanting “B-Gyan…we’re lovin it!”

NITIE triumphs in HUL and CNBC-TV18’s ‘Lessons in Marketing Excellence’

The winning team with Mr. Nandan Nilekani, Chairman UIDAI, Mr. Nitin Paranjpe, CEO HUL and Ms. Anuradha Sen Gupta, Chief Editor CNBC

National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai, has once again stamped its credentials as one of India’s premier B Schools by winning the “Lessons in Marketing Excellence”, the highly prestigious, inter-college marketing case-study competition held under the aegis of Hindustan Unilever Ltd. (HUL) and CNBC-TV18. The finalists for this round were teams from NITIE and IIM-Ahmedabad.

Team ‘Front Runners’ from NITIE, comprising Abhijit Kamra, Jeeta Das and Jitin Sharma, all first-year students of PGDIM programme, beat off stiff competition from IIM Ahmedabad to emerge as the winners at the glittering Grand Finale held on 19th March 2010 at Taj Colaba, Mumbai. This event, attended by noted industry stalwarts, media and advertising personalities, top academicians and other dignitaries, focused on a case study concerning the most ambitious project of the Government of India, the Unique Identification Number (UID) Project.

The competition consisted of three rounds in which India’s premier B Schools viz. the 6 IIMs, NITIE, ISB, XLRI, FMS, SP Jain and JBIMS, were invited to participate. The first round was an intra-college selection round, where different B Schools were given live case studies from different industrial sectors. After acing the institute level case study on Deccan360, the students from NITIE then proceeded to the next round where a live case study on Knorr Soups and Ready-to-Cook category was organized by HUL. The teams from NITIE and IIM Ahmedabad were selected during this round, to face each other at the Grand Finale.

To add to the relevance of the gala concourse, Mr. Nandan Nilekani, Chairman, UIDAI, Government of India and former Chairman, Infosys Technologies and Mr. Nitin Paranjpe, CEO, HUL were present at the occasion. Other dignitaries present in the august audience included Ms. Leena Nair, Vice President HR – HUL, noted adfilmmaker Mr. Prahlad Kakkar, Mr. Sam Balsara, Chief – Madison Communications, Mr. Marten Pieters, Global Head – Vodafone, Mr. Kishore Biyani, CEO – Future Group, CNBC head honcho, Ms. Anuradha Sengupta, Dr. Subhash D. Awale, Director, NITIE and others. The jury of the Finale included eminent personalities such as Ms. Rama Bijapurkar (market strategist and thought leader), Mr. R Balki (Executive Creative Director, Lowe Lintas and Director of critically acclaimed films Cheeni Kum and Paa), Mr. Shrijeet Mishra (Executive Director, HUL Foods), Mr. Gopal Vittal (Executive Director, HUL) and Mr. Sanjay Pugalia (Editor-in-chief, CNBC Awaaz).

The first prize received by NITIE includes an opportunity to be a spectator at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. Moreover, the students also get to attend the reputed business leadership training (BLT) program of Unilever and a chance to be the guest-editor on a Storyboard episode on CNBC TV-18. Dr. S.D. Awale, Director, NITIE on this occasion congratulated both the teams and in his words,”I always encourage my students to aim higher and higher. It’s always the sincere efforts that bear fruit.”

http://www.indiainfoline.com/Markets/News/NITIE-Mumbai-are-winners-of-HUL-and-CNBC-TV18-Lessons-in-Marketing-Excellence/4799933292

http://www.lime.moneycontrol.com/index.php?id=4

B Gyan on Disruptive Marketing

Guest : Ms. Kanika Saxena,Associate Vice-President/Head-Marketing – UTV Bindass

“Throw away your marketing books as marketing no longer is about outdoors, print, TV, Radio”.

Disruptive Marketing- the new mantra of marketing

When a session begins on this note, you are bound to be intrigued. And intrigued we were, as for the next two hours Ms. Saxena took us on a journey through the changing landscape of marketing. She began by emphasizing that the onus has shifted from “share of voice” to “share of conversation”, from monologue to dialogue, and then proceeded to show some wonderful commercials to drive home the point.

She explained that the era to market brands via Above The Line was long gone and how social media was trashing old concepts, breaking barriers and writing new rules.  From branding Yellow Pages to Burger King, from Apple’s ingenious marketing ways to Pepsi’s use of digital media to connect with its consumers, we learnt it all…and more. The key point throughout the presentation was on the role of social media as an extremely powerful tool to touch base with your consumers and we couldn’t agree with her more.

Ms Saxena interacting with the students

The discussion invariably shifted towards the marketing strategy of UTV Bindaas and there were some pointed questions asked about shows like Emotional Atyachaar. However none could argue to the fact that Bindaas had indeed broken through the clutter as far as youth content programs were concerned. It was a thoroughly engaging and exciting sessions and the marketing brains at NITIE were surely a delighted lot.

The session was preceded by quiz, organized by Preuba, NITIE quizzing forum and an ad-making competition for Bindaas channel. Both the events proved to be a great hit among the students. Eagerly looking forward to more of such “B-Gyan”.