Why pricing high could help the media companies?
I know you have a lot of questions on your mind after seeing the title. First of them would be, do Media companies need help? Well that's subjective. Being a consultant , I am 'assuming' anyone would need help . But on a serious note here's why I feel media companies need help..
First some facts,
The Watergate scandal was a 1970s United States political scandal resulting from the break-in to the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal). This led to the resignation of president Nixon , the only instance of a president resigning I presume. This was covered widely in the press. At the same time , there was also a major exposure of covert FBI operations called COINTELPRO(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO - read program exposed section). This did not get wide press attention and to a large extent was suppressed (Source - Noam chomsky interview to Outlook anniversary issue this year) .
Early 1990s, back in India , the 'Times of India' (started in 1838) threw open its 150 year old mast head for displaying ads.
In 2004 , Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd (BCCL) launches a scheme called 'Private treaty'. The scheme - BCCL picks up equity stakes in companies and in return (alleged) BCCL publishes articles on them.
Livemint Article
In 2010 , much closer to us , an ad starts playing even before the final ball is bowled in the over. There used to be only one ad in-between overs a decade back , now there are at least five.
In 2010 , most of the leading political parties (at least in TN ) have their own media houses.
Ok , now what do I intent to show using these facts?
Media can be used to manipulate People's beliefs and attitudes - This would undermine media's credibility
How do you control a democracy? Simple , by changing/aligning people's attitudes and beliefs to what we want them to believe. How do we do it? By using the right message and delivering it to the people. What do we use to deliver? The media. If the media is subservient to political will , then the messages we get will also reflect political will. This severely undermines the credibility of the media.
Do you read your newspaper to look at an 'Aria' ad? No, you read it to get an unbiased account on what's happening around you.
Do you really get an unbiased view? You might not.If this continues , what value would the media be to you as a customer?
Media houses are more worried about commercial gains than providing quality content these days - The perceived utility of traditional media is bound to come down
Right after India was liberalized , main stream media has concentrated mostly on advertising revenues ( same with US media companies too) . The heights of it being media companies buying stake in other companies. This will obviously raise conflicts of interests.
Will the media company publish any negative news on a company it holds equity in? This again raises some serious questions on the utility of media today.
We have other reliable sources of free information - No one might need unreliable media in the future
The final nail in the coffin comes from Internet and Social networks. A connected world will expose biases even more faster ( as we have multiple sources , some of which will bring out the truth) . People would realize the farse and move away from these media houses which tend to be biased (for monetary gains/political will). The readership of some big dailies in US are already showing decline!
With the utility of content provided by the media companies going down and with other free sources of reliable content , the future of these companies look bleak. I understand that in the current context competition has made higher pricing an impossibility while advertising has made low price a possibility. But in the future if people completely stop buying, media houses will lose on both counts.
Yes this is partly because of technology and partly because of their own making.
So what would be the solution for this? Technology related problems are easy to identify and solve. But the problems of irrelevance and dependability are at the core of what media companies do or rather fail to do. The media companies should concentrate on providing dependable and quality content which the consumers would be ready to pay for.
So a bold but a workable solution would be to start competing on reliability and the depth of analysis and stop competing on price. In other words charge a higher price , do the necessary research the price requires and deliver good quality content. People will be ready to pay.
Do we have examples of near-zero ad newspapers which people buy and read just for the content? Enter La Jordana , this gets near zero commercial ads as the government hates it, but boasts of 287000 readers in Mexico city. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jornada. If this paper can do it , why not others?
Disclaimer: These are my individual opinions. Please refer online resources if you need information further.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
In Credit(ble) India
I was reading 'The week' anniversary edition. It had a cover story on 'Incredible India'. The cover story pointed out the obvious anomalies in India. For example the tele-density in India is greater than toilet density! and Pizza arrives within 30 minutes while ambulances seldom reach on time. Yes , it makes for fascinating reading.The article is very relevant as we would have experienced them hands-on at some point of time and can connect with it.
One of the things which got me thinking was 'Car loans are cheaper than education loans' in India. The article further goes on to explain the reasons behind this. This is possible because car manufacturers subsidize the loans and there is a collateral in the form of the car. Now , how do we subsidize education loans? The article suggests the government could subsidize education loans. Good. Agreed. But do all of those promised 'goods' ( both literal and contextual) the government promises reach us. My intention here is not to point fingers but to understand what would be practical. OK, we assume that the government is indeed capable of delivering and it subsidizes the loan to some extent. But ,without the collateral our bankers would still have to charge higher interest rates.
Ok , the bankers decide let us bring in a 'repaying capacity' based interest rate policy. The higher your repaying capacity the lower your interest rate. What an idea sir ji! The bankers would get hit as implementing such a scheme is an operational night mare. India does not have all its data digitized to make this a reality. Now, we have to find someone who can subsidize and also find a collateral in this case. Why don't the corporates who recruit subsidize the education loans? Why should the corporate subsidize? Let us understand who benefits from the loan. Yes of course the student, the parents , the educational institute (indirectly the government) and the entity which employs him. The student and the parents have to repay the loan . The educational institute provides its services for the fees paid. Some of them also have scholarships . They also play their part (of course this can be questioned). Assuming that you need that money to provide quality education we will leave the universities here. That leaves us with the corporates . How are the corporates helping. Yes , they pay the salaries. They recruit people who fit and pay them salaries.
Now , imagine if there is a change in how the corporates see this. The corporates pay the educational institutes to identify and groom talent. This would subsidize the educational expenses for the students. The corporates would also get better and fit candidates. Where would the corporates get this money? The banks would finance them with loans. How would the corporates pay the loan back? They would allocate part of the Salary they pay to the talent they recruit. The corporates would play the part of both subsidizing and being a collateral.
That seems like a feasible and viable solution. But if as a corporate I do this and the person leaves and joins another company. How would this work? As an industry we come together and form this educational pool. As long as the person remains in this industry it would work. If a person moves to an other industry which has not opted for this, then it would stop and the burden of the loan would be on the individual but now he/she has job which pays and the person can be traced
Yes, this is a bold idea. Yes, we don't know whether it would work. On paper , it seems to be good. Is anyone ready to test this out?
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Why are there so little reviews?
Ok, you decide to buy the latest gizmo in town. You really want to know how good is your product. You go to the product site and ooze over the nice little high quality pictures and features 'marketed' to you. Then you realize , this might just be the tip of the iceberg. So being smart , you go to some www.xxxxypssl.com and read reviews about your product and make up your mind whether to buy the product or not. Simple isn't it? Now let us look at an interesting statistic and see how bad/good is this behavior. There were 'at least' 10 Million copies of Harry Potter and Half blood prince sold , but Amazon has just over 3500 reviews for this book( the book apparently was one of the top review generating product). The product usage to product review ratio is abysmally low!
Do you still think this sample which is not even 0.000001 % of the total population is good enough to base your decision on?
Studies have shown that reviews normally tend to be 'j' shaped , skewed more towards positive reviews. How dependable are these reviews then?
Adding to these , there are paid reviews which further raises questions on the intentions of review writers
Having stated why reviews might not be a nice starting point , what baffles me is why there are so little reviews even for a product which sells in millions. People always have something to say about a product in real life (good/bad), but most of them don't materialize online!
Now, consider this. You have a problem , say your latest PDA phone loses charge very often. You submit your problem to Google and Bingo (no pun intended) there is a solution to your problem in some www.xxxtechxxforum.com (given by geekwhoitis who already has 3B replies to his/her name). Here is a product which has some defects and people report (can we call this a review) it , while in the former case it goes unreported by majority!
Is there a difference between these two instances of consumer behavior? My guess is over and above all social reasons , there is a personal satisfaction of getting things done or in other words the IMPACT your actions create and how it directly affects you (does it solve 'your' problem or show 'you' as a significant contributor?).
Can we increase the number of reviews to a product by showing what IMPACT it would create? Is there really an IMPACT to the person who gives the review? Are firms taking note and more importantly 'act' on these reviews which are free market insights?
Do you still think this sample which is not even 0.000001 % of the total population is good enough to base your decision on?
Studies have shown that reviews normally tend to be 'j' shaped , skewed more towards positive reviews. How dependable are these reviews then?
Adding to these , there are paid reviews which further raises questions on the intentions of review writers
Having stated why reviews might not be a nice starting point , what baffles me is why there are so little reviews even for a product which sells in millions. People always have something to say about a product in real life (good/bad), but most of them don't materialize online!
Now, consider this. You have a problem , say your latest PDA phone loses charge very often. You submit your problem to Google and Bingo (no pun intended) there is a solution to your problem in some www.xxxtechxxforum.com (given by geekwhoitis who already has 3B replies to his/her name). Here is a product which has some defects and people report (can we call this a review) it , while in the former case it goes unreported by majority!
Is there a difference between these two instances of consumer behavior? My guess is over and above all social reasons , there is a personal satisfaction of getting things done or in other words the IMPACT your actions create and how it directly affects you (does it solve 'your' problem or show 'you' as a significant contributor?).
Can we increase the number of reviews to a product by showing what IMPACT it would create? Is there really an IMPACT to the person who gives the review? Are firms taking note and more importantly 'act' on these reviews which are free market insights?
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
From core competence to care competence
Its been some time since I wrote about something. These days its really difficult to write something original (of-course I might be one of the few surviving species which are really trying to write something original).And I believe it won't be late before we see books with titles like 'How to plagiarize and stay original' and 'Thousand ways to glean good content from totally unknown websites'. When I started writing this post I didn't even think about writing on content piracy on the web and I am not still sure why I went into that , maybe to add that extra bit of humor and content ,that a blog should necessarily have irrespective of what you are writing about. Believe me, I have seen blogs on US policies which makes you laugh (I believe much of it is not by design!). So as any 'traditional' (already!) blogger will tell you , one should stay close to the title one decides to name the post. What an irony! a few words deciding what the next many words are going to say!(I see some similarity to Indian elections , do you? ).Of Course I could have named this post bababa ba! and still talked about corporate strategy. But , these internet marketing guys keep telling me about staying on top of the search results and that titling is really important. So ,now I think it makes a lot of sense to title your post Corporate Strategy and talk about bababa ba! ((Sh)it anyway happens!) rather than the other way round.I think by now most of the formalities have been done , can we get serious?
Was there a recent dent in the core competence theory? Mind you, it has undergone several dents in our case discussions , but what I am talking about is a global(can we call this a big picture?) dent. Any Idea? Bing(o)!, Microsoft launches a search engine. These were guys who were more worried about how people interacted with PCs rather than what they did with it. of course any third grade kid would tell you what you did with computers - play games,watch videos. Now , Microsoft says it is going to capture Google's market share in search space. What has Google got to say on this? Worser than the Microsoft case , they launch an open source operating system for net books. Who needs a net book ? Someone who feels that a stand alone operating system is redundant , and wants everything on the internet , and someone who lives in a place where you have amazing bandwidth. One important characteristic that is common in these aspects mentioned above is that the person requires faster access to standardized services. I am still trying to figure out what made Google do this. Most of the net book users would be indifferent to an Open source operating system. Even if you needed one , you can run Ubuntu.
Why would Google launch an operating system and Microsoft a free (This is not supposed to be humor) search service , and which would be more successful in the longer run?. I believe this is where care competence (I take the honors of introducing this new term to management literature) comes into picture. Gone are the days when firms kept to their core competence. The era of care competence is in. To put it in simple words, Google was a 'no evil' company which started out free in the 'search engine space'. It took good care of its customers and charged people who had more (than what they got) to gain from it. Google has gained much credence in this space and customers world wide trust Google for being free and also accurate. Its ad words and ad sense are user friendly and not business friendly . Now , when it launches an operating system (that too an open source system , which is not that great an innovation) , people will buy that because of two reasons , 1) the net book will cost you lesser (this is crucial as most of the world's net book users will be from Asia in the next decade due to age demographics, population demographics and Asians generally look for value for money) and 2) more importantly it is from 'Google' whose user care index is very high.Google can then introduce many other business models based on the user base which it can accumulate with this operating system.
What happens to Microsoft? It makes sense for Google to launch an Operating System. Why would Microsoft launch a search engine? Of course everyone knows Microsoft wants to play a big role in online advertising. But this cannot be built overnight. You need user base to do that. Thats exactly the reason why Microsoft has gone into increasing its user care index by providing free, dependable search engine. Google started out with care competence as its fulcrum while Microsoft is moving from its core competence (Closed operating systems) to Care Competence. Who is ready to take the first bite in this first round? Only time can decide. But , my gut feel is that Google has an edge over Microsoft.The era of care competence is in. Only firms which care for its customers , can make it big. This can even involve giving services for free and letting go of immediate profits! Sticking with Core competence no longer makes sense. To be fair to management theories , we will have to redefine core competency to include such subtle competitive skills.
Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion and analysis. Please go through materials on the web to decide for yourself whats happening!
Was there a recent dent in the core competence theory? Mind you, it has undergone several dents in our case discussions , but what I am talking about is a global(can we call this a big picture?) dent. Any Idea? Bing(o)!, Microsoft launches a search engine. These were guys who were more worried about how people interacted with PCs rather than what they did with it. of course any third grade kid would tell you what you did with computers - play games,watch videos. Now , Microsoft says it is going to capture Google's market share in search space. What has Google got to say on this? Worser than the Microsoft case , they launch an open source operating system for net books. Who needs a net book ? Someone who feels that a stand alone operating system is redundant , and wants everything on the internet , and someone who lives in a place where you have amazing bandwidth. One important characteristic that is common in these aspects mentioned above is that the person requires faster access to standardized services. I am still trying to figure out what made Google do this. Most of the net book users would be indifferent to an Open source operating system. Even if you needed one , you can run Ubuntu.
Why would Google launch an operating system and Microsoft a free (This is not supposed to be humor) search service , and which would be more successful in the longer run?. I believe this is where care competence (I take the honors of introducing this new term to management literature) comes into picture. Gone are the days when firms kept to their core competence. The era of care competence is in. To put it in simple words, Google was a 'no evil' company which started out free in the 'search engine space'. It took good care of its customers and charged people who had more (than what they got) to gain from it. Google has gained much credence in this space and customers world wide trust Google for being free and also accurate. Its ad words and ad sense are user friendly and not business friendly . Now , when it launches an operating system (that too an open source system , which is not that great an innovation) , people will buy that because of two reasons , 1) the net book will cost you lesser (this is crucial as most of the world's net book users will be from Asia in the next decade due to age demographics, population demographics and Asians generally look for value for money) and 2) more importantly it is from 'Google' whose user care index is very high.Google can then introduce many other business models based on the user base which it can accumulate with this operating system.
What happens to Microsoft? It makes sense for Google to launch an Operating System. Why would Microsoft launch a search engine? Of course everyone knows Microsoft wants to play a big role in online advertising. But this cannot be built overnight. You need user base to do that. Thats exactly the reason why Microsoft has gone into increasing its user care index by providing free, dependable search engine. Google started out with care competence as its fulcrum while Microsoft is moving from its core competence (Closed operating systems) to Care Competence. Who is ready to take the first bite in this first round? Only time can decide. But , my gut feel is that Google has an edge over Microsoft.The era of care competence is in. Only firms which care for its customers , can make it big. This can even involve giving services for free and letting go of immediate profits! Sticking with Core competence no longer makes sense. To be fair to management theories , we will have to redefine core competency to include such subtle competitive skills.
Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion and analysis. Please go through materials on the web to decide for yourself whats happening!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Recession in Google Trends!!!
Using Google trends for a different purpose. I wanted to check , whether the terms people search for during recession are different from what they were before. I went to google trends and gave some sample words .. and look what I got...
Google Trend for "Market Share"
Google Trend for "Market Size"
As against a normal term Pig ( which occured to me randomly , no specific reasons)
There is a clear reduction in search volume of Market Share and Market size from 2006 mid to 2009. Is this because of the recession? or Was this the cause for recesssion , people less bothered about fundamentals ? ;-)
Thursday, December 4, 2008
What about the walk-about?
15th November 2008, 11:05 PM.....hmm... I had a sore throat and a stiff back. I was finding it hard to concentrate on what Abishek was trying to tell me. He was sitting on the foot-board of the jeepney. I was sitting near the rear holding a stereo set as big as the jeepney!! I was not able to concentrate much because of two reasons , one reason was that I was tired , we had just completed our much hallowed walk-about and the other reason was that I was in my own world trying to re-collect some experiences to fill this post. As you might have guessed , the rest of this post is not about what Abishek was trying to tell me , but about my experiences during those days which led to this eventful day. The post goes in the reverse chronological order as my mind took me through....
15th November 2008 , 10:30 PM... Suddenly the sky was clearly visible to me. Oh !!! that was the Great Bear, I thought; .... one couldn't be more optimistic when he is lifted from the ground and treated to some Indian Bums (It is a Bum with an 'm'). But , I was grinning like a Gorilla which had found some food, because we had made the SLEDGE & HAMMER (AIM Cricket Tournament) a success. More than that, we had made money selling shares for the Cricket teams. We had sold a completely new concept. To the uninitiated (read people who don't check their mails quite often and who pass by the notice board without noticing it) , we had come up with the concept of selling shares for each of the teams participating. As the teams progressed through to the next round , the share price of the winning team rose. We , finally buy back all the shares of the winning team. We , in this context means Me , Himanshu and Prabs (for the uninitiated). I was thrilled to see at how the share concept moved from thought to plan to execution(no pun intended). Still the sky was clearly visible to me.....
15th November 2008, 10:15 PM..... People were running all around the ground , trying to hug , do hi-fis and the usual formalities that needs to be definitely done after winning a Cricket Match. I was on the far side of the ground , while Himanshu and Prabs were on the other side. The SLEDGE & HAMMER tournament had come to an end. The Batch-3 guys won it . It was a great moment to relish. It was our walk-about and we had enabled the four teams to combat in a fairly (which happens rarely , even by international standards ) conducted cricket tournament. Two teams from batch 3 and one from batch 2 and one from batch 1 participated in it. We had two rounds , Batch 3 won against Batch 1 in the finals to clinch the title... I was literally amazed how careful planning can create wonders.We were able to see the satisfaction in their faces . Even the teams which lost. A well fought match would delight any sports man. Better than even a success. (But of-course it was cricket!!!!)
15th November 2008 , 8:45 PM..... He was nodding his head.. For what? Two of the flood lights were down ... wait, floodlights? Yes , that was one of the key USPs (I know my Marketing ..Hmph..) of SLEDGE & HAMMER.. We went around exploring Manila ( quite literally) and finally found a Cricket ground with flood-lights in Manila. It was a dream come true for many of us , including me.. to play Cricket under lights. But , why were the flood lights down? Can we continue the tournament without the lights. We stopped play for a while , we checked with the administration and we had the lights up agian in about 15 Mins. A lesson learnt , even well planned events can have some snags. We should be in a position to handle these professionally.
15th November 2008, 7:30 PM..... Oni was running in to field the ball... He was standing at fine leg (No , not 'on his fine legs'.. I can see that coming... It would also be out of context to define Oni's legs) . He completely collected the ball and threw it back to the wicket-keeper..which any international cricketer would be proud of. By the way .. what was Oni doing on a cricket field.. Isn't that a world known fact that Cricket is the adopted national game of India ( Hockey is the national game of India .. I was a bright student...) . To make sure we engage everyone and not just Indians , we had mandated that either two non-indians or two girls should be playing in the team. We initially had many opposers to this idea , but we never fell for it. But , there it was, the idea getting implemented before my eyes.. A proof that persistence can lead to magic sometimes .What a moment...
15th November 2008, 7:00 PM... I had just fielded the ball and had thrown in back to the bowler.. 'Sri.......' , I heard it clearly ... 'Sri.......' again.. It was Prabs, calling me. He told me , that the second Jeepney had not yet reached the AIM campus. He started to board the other jeepney and was going somewhere ( I was not clear on what he was saying , and better still I didn't even have any clue on where he was heading to) . I was there standing in the field. I had a decision to make ... either to continue playing or get back to the pavilion (not the one for gods) and take control when Prabs was away. My objective was to make sure that the tournament went on well. So , I decided to bring Deep as a substitute into the match and I royally marched out.. I had lost my single opportunity to play under lights.. Sob Sob.. The price I needed to pay for being the organizer and a player at the same time... But I was happy , that I was able to make the decision fast and It turned out to be a right one... As luck would have it , Prabs returned immediately as I stepped out, as Himanshu had messaged him that the Jeepney had arrived at the AIM campus. What a Plan!!! We had planned exactly for this kind of a contingency. We made sure that one of the organizers stay at the AIM campus till the last batch of students were picked up by the jeepneys.
15th November 2008 , 5:15 PM .... " Please turn-around guys , get yourself photographed" , Jake was shouting on top of his voice.. The teams were ready to leave to the ground. There were a couple of strange looking vehicles standing near the AIM campus entrance. A guy , new to Philippines would have believed , if you had told him that these vehicles were a cross between a bus and a cow. The ground was 6 Kms away from the AIM campus . We cannot expect people to come there by themselves. That would clearly , defy the objective we set out to achieve. We had arranged for two jeepneys (can we call this a the hybrid vehicle?) which would make two trips from AIM to the ground ( The Nomads Sports Club) . We patted ourselves on our back.The Logistics for around 80 -100 people was provided in a simple but cost-effective way.
15th November 2008, 12:30 PM... " Batch 1 all shares sold out , Batch 2 still 24 shares to go , Batch 3 nothing sold " , I was into my marketing pitch . Prabs was there next to me , trying out his Kohtler instincts. There it was , the holy grail of marketing... Customers... Batch-3 people started buying shares , better still people bought into our concept. Me and Prabs were standing there admiring each others marketing abilities. We also had allies in Batch-3 in the form on Gadoo , Sateesh and Umesh .. they were our Batch-3 celebrities..
15th November 2008, 5:15 AM.... You would think , I would have been sleeping.. No.. we had an overnight WAC (Written Analysis of Case) . I was breaking my head on some management issues faced by Chapparal Steel . I was not sure whether Chapparal Steel faced more issues or our walk-about. It was a night well spent. A sense of anxiety had begin to creep into me. I wanted the walk-about .. our SLEDGE & HAMMER to be a success.
14th Novemeber 2008 , 5:00 PM .... " Use the Printer in our room" , Prabs was instructing me... "No dude , we will get the posters printed " Himanshu shouted from his all too cozy bed. We had already spent a lot on the ground and for the transport. We decided to cut costs.. We decided to use A4 size sheets and our printer to print the posters, Marketing lesson 101 .. when the customers are near you , visit them and convince them. There we went, room by room in the dorm explaining the rules of the tournament and the share concept. We were able to convert some of the Batch-3 and Batch-2 guys , with this whirl-wind tour.
14th November 2008 , 4:30 PM... The MM Batch which had previously accepted to play , pulled out of the tournament. What a set back... We needed four teams for the tournament.. With just three teams , it would be difficult for us to decide a winner... the ground was booked for just 4 hrs...We needed to have a knock-out tournament. Then we remembered , Batch-3 had a strength of 120 and they were ready to field 2 teams ... we had earlier refused the second team , as it would again make the scheduling difficult . We immediately called Batch - 3 guys and they were ready with their second team in 45 Mins time.. Lesson learnt... always expect contingencies ..at unforeseen (what a choice of words.. ) circumstances and act according to the situation at hand.
13th November 2008 ... 6:00 PM ,12th November 2008, 6:00 PM....11th November 2008 ...6:00 PM......10th November 2008 6:00 PM.... Someone passing by our room would have mistaken it for a stock exchange. Ashish , Deep , Me and Himanshu would discuss on the share pricing strategy for the teams and also on how the system can be improved to reduce our risks.. After much thought and deliberation , we came up with a model , which would give us zero profit under the worst case scenario.. We congratulated each other for being business savvy and money minded...and we were extremely pleased to know that we would be covering our transportation costs for the jeepneys...The jeepneys costed us some significant amount. Thanks to Dindo , he had helped us communicate with the drivers and owners and settle a price.
9th November 2008... 6:15 PM , Me and Himanshu were waiting to meet Mr.Faizal , a director at Nomads Sports Club , to book the ground for the tournament. We had discovered this ground by accident, as Himanshu would put it. I would prefer to say that we discovered the ground through our persistence. Right from the beginning , we wanted to give the players an experience for their life time. We wanted a ground which had lights , we were convinced that people would be extremely happy to play under lights. We kept searching around Manila for the field. After visiting a couple of schools ( Thanks to JM and Franko ) , we hadn't still decided on a field . Then , we hit upon an Idea.... local people are the most informed people about local conditions... So , we spoke to a taxi driver , and asked him to take to a field which he knew. He told us that , he knew a place where lot of Indians played!!! What?!! ... Did I hear that correctly? Lot of Indians play? Well , the only sport which lot of Indians play is Cricket? Are we onto something here? He said the place was called Merbill ( I was more worried about the Taxi Bill )... When I had asked an other taxi driver about football fields earlier, he had also mentioned Merbill . So , we were certain , that there would at least be an open field in Merbill. We hopped into the taxi , trusting the driver completely .When we arrived at Merbill , we found out that , it was no longer Merbill , but it was Merville!!! and it had a field which was illuminated by flood-lights!!!. What a discovery... and yeah we were still waiting for Mr.Faizal to arrive...
November 4th 2008 , I don't know what time... We lost the notion of time... as we were brooding over our sole creative content. We had designed our first ad ever , staring Ashish Mahtre. "Let the Balls do the talking" Mahtre was addressing all MBA grads. We were pretty pleased with the output. We sent out the video to all the AIM students and we received some immediate response on it... We thought to ourselves.. what a way to start our walk-about.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3431412937338304900&hl=en
October ... Some day... Then I had even lost track of the days :-) .. I was sitting with my HBO workbook.... I had just filled my Ideal self and Real Self entries. I had identified that I was more of a planner and an Idea generator , than an implementor. I wanted to change myself to an effective planner and an implementor. I had put down a thought of using my walk-about as a tool to test my skills as an person who could plan and also execute it in an efficient way.
The jeepney had just reached the AIM campus. We take pictures and congratulate each other on the successful completion of the walk-about. We paid the jeepneys and off we went to our world of MBA again!!!!
15th November 2008 , 10:30 PM... Suddenly the sky was clearly visible to me. Oh !!! that was the Great Bear, I thought; .... one couldn't be more optimistic when he is lifted from the ground and treated to some Indian Bums (It is a Bum with an 'm'). But , I was grinning like a Gorilla which had found some food, because we had made the SLEDGE & HAMMER (AIM Cricket Tournament) a success. More than that, we had made money selling shares for the Cricket teams. We had sold a completely new concept. To the uninitiated (read people who don't check their mails quite often and who pass by the notice board without noticing it) , we had come up with the concept of selling shares for each of the teams participating. As the teams progressed through to the next round , the share price of the winning team rose. We , finally buy back all the shares of the winning team. We , in this context means Me , Himanshu and Prabs (for the uninitiated). I was thrilled to see at how the share concept moved from thought to plan to execution(no pun intended). Still the sky was clearly visible to me.....
15th November 2008, 10:15 PM..... People were running all around the ground , trying to hug , do hi-fis and the usual formalities that needs to be definitely done after winning a Cricket Match. I was on the far side of the ground , while Himanshu and Prabs were on the other side. The SLEDGE & HAMMER tournament had come to an end. The Batch-3 guys won it . It was a great moment to relish. It was our walk-about and we had enabled the four teams to combat in a fairly (which happens rarely , even by international standards ) conducted cricket tournament. Two teams from batch 3 and one from batch 2 and one from batch 1 participated in it. We had two rounds , Batch 3 won against Batch 1 in the finals to clinch the title... I was literally amazed how careful planning can create wonders.We were able to see the satisfaction in their faces . Even the teams which lost. A well fought match would delight any sports man. Better than even a success. (But of-course it was cricket!!!!)
15th November 2008 , 8:45 PM..... He was nodding his head.. For what? Two of the flood lights were down ... wait, floodlights? Yes , that was one of the key USPs (I know my Marketing ..Hmph..) of SLEDGE & HAMMER.. We went around exploring Manila ( quite literally) and finally found a Cricket ground with flood-lights in Manila. It was a dream come true for many of us , including me.. to play Cricket under lights. But , why were the flood lights down? Can we continue the tournament without the lights. We stopped play for a while , we checked with the administration and we had the lights up agian in about 15 Mins. A lesson learnt , even well planned events can have some snags. We should be in a position to handle these professionally.
15th November 2008, 7:30 PM..... Oni was running in to field the ball... He was standing at fine leg (No , not 'on his fine legs'.. I can see that coming... It would also be out of context to define Oni's legs) . He completely collected the ball and threw it back to the wicket-keeper..which any international cricketer would be proud of. By the way .. what was Oni doing on a cricket field.. Isn't that a world known fact that Cricket is the adopted national game of India ( Hockey is the national game of India .. I was a bright student...) . To make sure we engage everyone and not just Indians , we had mandated that either two non-indians or two girls should be playing in the team. We initially had many opposers to this idea , but we never fell for it. But , there it was, the idea getting implemented before my eyes.. A proof that persistence can lead to magic sometimes .What a moment...
15th November 2008, 7:00 PM... I had just fielded the ball and had thrown in back to the bowler.. 'Sri.......' , I heard it clearly ... 'Sri.......' again.. It was Prabs, calling me. He told me , that the second Jeepney had not yet reached the AIM campus. He started to board the other jeepney and was going somewhere ( I was not clear on what he was saying , and better still I didn't even have any clue on where he was heading to) . I was there standing in the field. I had a decision to make ... either to continue playing or get back to the pavilion (not the one for gods) and take control when Prabs was away. My objective was to make sure that the tournament went on well. So , I decided to bring Deep as a substitute into the match and I royally marched out.. I had lost my single opportunity to play under lights.. Sob Sob.. The price I needed to pay for being the organizer and a player at the same time... But I was happy , that I was able to make the decision fast and It turned out to be a right one... As luck would have it , Prabs returned immediately as I stepped out, as Himanshu had messaged him that the Jeepney had arrived at the AIM campus. What a Plan!!! We had planned exactly for this kind of a contingency. We made sure that one of the organizers stay at the AIM campus till the last batch of students were picked up by the jeepneys.
15th November 2008 , 5:15 PM .... " Please turn-around guys , get yourself photographed" , Jake was shouting on top of his voice.. The teams were ready to leave to the ground. There were a couple of strange looking vehicles standing near the AIM campus entrance. A guy , new to Philippines would have believed , if you had told him that these vehicles were a cross between a bus and a cow. The ground was 6 Kms away from the AIM campus . We cannot expect people to come there by themselves. That would clearly , defy the objective we set out to achieve. We had arranged for two jeepneys (can we call this a the hybrid vehicle?) which would make two trips from AIM to the ground ( The Nomads Sports Club) . We patted ourselves on our back.The Logistics for around 80 -100 people was provided in a simple but cost-effective way.
15th November 2008, 12:30 PM... " Batch 1 all shares sold out , Batch 2 still 24 shares to go , Batch 3 nothing sold " , I was into my marketing pitch . Prabs was there next to me , trying out his Kohtler instincts. There it was , the holy grail of marketing... Customers... Batch-3 people started buying shares , better still people bought into our concept. Me and Prabs were standing there admiring each others marketing abilities. We also had allies in Batch-3 in the form on Gadoo , Sateesh and Umesh .. they were our Batch-3 celebrities..
15th November 2008, 5:15 AM.... You would think , I would have been sleeping.. No.. we had an overnight WAC (Written Analysis of Case) . I was breaking my head on some management issues faced by Chapparal Steel . I was not sure whether Chapparal Steel faced more issues or our walk-about. It was a night well spent. A sense of anxiety had begin to creep into me. I wanted the walk-about .. our SLEDGE & HAMMER to be a success.
14th Novemeber 2008 , 5:00 PM .... " Use the Printer in our room" , Prabs was instructing me... "No dude , we will get the posters printed " Himanshu shouted from his all too cozy bed. We had already spent a lot on the ground and for the transport. We decided to cut costs.. We decided to use A4 size sheets and our printer to print the posters, Marketing lesson 101 .. when the customers are near you , visit them and convince them. There we went, room by room in the dorm explaining the rules of the tournament and the share concept. We were able to convert some of the Batch-3 and Batch-2 guys , with this whirl-wind tour.
14th November 2008 , 4:30 PM... The MM Batch which had previously accepted to play , pulled out of the tournament. What a set back... We needed four teams for the tournament.. With just three teams , it would be difficult for us to decide a winner... the ground was booked for just 4 hrs...We needed to have a knock-out tournament. Then we remembered , Batch-3 had a strength of 120 and they were ready to field 2 teams ... we had earlier refused the second team , as it would again make the scheduling difficult . We immediately called Batch - 3 guys and they were ready with their second team in 45 Mins time.. Lesson learnt... always expect contingencies ..at unforeseen (what a choice of words.. ) circumstances and act according to the situation at hand.
13th November 2008 ... 6:00 PM ,12th November 2008, 6:00 PM....11th November 2008 ...6:00 PM......10th November 2008 6:00 PM.... Someone passing by our room would have mistaken it for a stock exchange. Ashish , Deep , Me and Himanshu would discuss on the share pricing strategy for the teams and also on how the system can be improved to reduce our risks.. After much thought and deliberation , we came up with a model , which would give us zero profit under the worst case scenario.. We congratulated each other for being business savvy and money minded...and we were extremely pleased to know that we would be covering our transportation costs for the jeepneys...The jeepneys costed us some significant amount. Thanks to Dindo , he had helped us communicate with the drivers and owners and settle a price.
9th November 2008... 6:15 PM , Me and Himanshu were waiting to meet Mr.Faizal , a director at Nomads Sports Club , to book the ground for the tournament. We had discovered this ground by accident, as Himanshu would put it. I would prefer to say that we discovered the ground through our persistence. Right from the beginning , we wanted to give the players an experience for their life time. We wanted a ground which had lights , we were convinced that people would be extremely happy to play under lights. We kept searching around Manila for the field. After visiting a couple of schools ( Thanks to JM and Franko ) , we hadn't still decided on a field . Then , we hit upon an Idea.... local people are the most informed people about local conditions... So , we spoke to a taxi driver , and asked him to take to a field which he knew. He told us that , he knew a place where lot of Indians played!!! What?!! ... Did I hear that correctly? Lot of Indians play? Well , the only sport which lot of Indians play is Cricket? Are we onto something here? He said the place was called Merbill ( I was more worried about the Taxi Bill )... When I had asked an other taxi driver about football fields earlier, he had also mentioned Merbill . So , we were certain , that there would at least be an open field in Merbill. We hopped into the taxi , trusting the driver completely .When we arrived at Merbill , we found out that , it was no longer Merbill , but it was Merville!!! and it had a field which was illuminated by flood-lights!!!. What a discovery... and yeah we were still waiting for Mr.Faizal to arrive...
November 4th 2008 , I don't know what time... We lost the notion of time... as we were brooding over our sole creative content. We had designed our first ad ever , staring Ashish Mahtre. "Let the Balls do the talking" Mahtre was addressing all MBA grads. We were pretty pleased with the output. We sent out the video to all the AIM students and we received some immediate response on it... We thought to ourselves.. what a way to start our walk-about.
http://video.google.com/
October ... Some day... Then I had even lost track of the days :-) .. I was sitting with my HBO workbook.... I had just filled my Ideal self and Real Self entries. I had identified that I was more of a planner and an Idea generator , than an implementor. I wanted to change myself to an effective planner and an implementor. I had put down a thought of using my walk-about as a tool to test my skills as an person who could plan and also execute it in an efficient way.
The jeepney had just reached the AIM campus. We take pictures and congratulate each other on the successful completion of the walk-about. We paid the jeepneys and off we went to our world of MBA again!!!!
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