Emerging Trends & Challenges in New Age Marketing by Ms. Anisha Motwani

Ms. Anisha Motwani is the Director and Chief Marketing Officer (C.M.O) of Max New York Life insurance. She has over two decades of experience across diverse industries and has authored more than 50 articles on 'brands and business of consumers' for leading newspapers and magazines.

She had an engaging session with the students on various facets of new age marketing. She introduced traditional forms of marketing like print, radio, television, OOH, augmented reality etc. and then focused on how each of these can be leveraged to boost marketing and promotions in present day context. Even with the proliferation of social media, Television as a media is still relevant. She highlighted the importance of media optimizer tool in deciding composition of marketing channels and associated budgets, but cautioned the young marketers that despite being heavily quantitative, Marketing is more of an art than a science.    



Ms. Anisha then moved on to the new age marketing tools like social media, mobile, PDAs, e-commerce based platforms etc. She emphasized the need to create a proper “digital diet” among all such tools with a single aim to provide authentic information to end customers. Integration, alignment and scaling up were highlighted as the main challenges in new age marketing.  She summarized her talk with few examples of new age marketing used in promotions like MTV tweets for Nano driving campaign during their prime time shows and a real case study of how she designed marketing campaign of Max New York Life’s new product around new age media like Facebook and online communities that finally resulting in increasing sales by over 15 percentage.

The main take away for the class - In new age marketing what that matters is a well designed Social Business strategy.

- Nikhil Bhargava

Shadow Banking

As I write - Shanghai is going gung-ho on shadow banking via web, harnessing E-commerce to its best. A  significant chunk of unregulated $ 2.4 Trillion* market in China is eventually moving online.

 What specially caught my attention, when I researched further was, that this conduit of capital, is making up 25-30% of the World's Financial System. In 2010 itself, just before when governments world over started tightening their credit policies, the market was an estimated $ 60 trillion** , truly reflecting, the impact it has on the global economy.

To my thinking, China's spurt in such unorganized retail lending, points at 2 things for Asia:

 - First, it aptly validates the acuteness of credit shortage all across Asia. Post 2010, with an ever increasing tightening of credit, there has been a mass acceptance of such institutions primarily because of more hurdles and checks put by banks and at the same time, quick availability of desired credit from these shadow banks without any process hiccups.

- Second, it is a precursor to the future Asian Credit crisis. With the sudden surge of such institutions and hence, of such unorganized loans, the quantum of bad debts are bound to go up, as these institutions are not guided/governed or regulated by central bank. These toxic debts will eventually worsen the overall credit flow. That day may not be far then... when analysts and economists globe-over start envisaging Asian crisis, on the footprints of European or American credit defaults. 

However, shadow banking is not all that villainous... It offers customers a  wider array of choices, in terms of credit supply. These institutions can often provide credit, that is more cost-efficient than banks. And most importantly, to customer segment , who might not otherwise have such access, in a way, aiding respective governments, in their financial inclusion drive.

There are disadvantages though...  These institutions have the tendency to lure customers by doling out more rewards out of the investments, much more than banks, thereby increasing risks mounting in the financial system. On a more of illegal means of funding, these unregulated shadow institutions can be used to circumvent the strictly regulated mainstream banking system and therefore avoid rules designed to prevent financial crises. 

If we recall, it were these shadow banks sitting in tax havens, that created the real estate bubble during first few years of this millennium that jettisoned the world economy out of the safety zone and landing amidst the Financial Crisis which we are still struggling from...

 - Article written by Malay Ghosh, IPMX05 

*    Data picked from Economic Times, 25 July 2012.

 ** As reported by  Financial Stability Board  (a regulatory task force for the world's group of top 20 economies (G20).

Chat with Mr. Manoj Tandon on “What B-School courses lack”

It is fascinating to talk about a thought provoking article, especially when it is with the author himself. That was the experience IPMX05 students had when Mr. Manoj Tandon, Associate Director at CSC came over to the campus for the leadership talk series. He was also excited to talk to the students about his article –“What B-School courses lack”.

The article was written in the perspective of two year management course, PGP.  But, most of it was relevant to one year management courses as well. The talk series was structured as a discussion between the author and the students. He encouraged students to criticize the points and generate new ideas and suggestions. Manoj Tandon started off with the points about bloated egos and the unawareness of the ground realities. Manoj Tandon also agreed that to an extent this could be overcome with the depth of the experience the IPMX batch carries.

He went on to discuss the lack of foundation and the importance of implementation. Student’s observation was that management education, especially of the kind of IPMX, focuses on adding new skills and providing new perspectives to solve pertinent real life problems. The breadth of the industry experience in the class – Army, Information technology, Tourism, Finance etc will add to this learning experience and provide the interesting perspectives and develop well rounded personalities. In the end, students were pleased by the experience they had and were energized by the prolific discussion they had with the author.

-          Bijumohan

“Consulting – What is in store?” by Mr. Rohit Bansal

A guest session that was highly anticipated was one by Mr. Rohit Bansal (Vice President, EXL Services). The batch had a lot of curiosity about making a career in ‘C’ – is it the right career for you? What does it entail? What knowledge, resources and skills do you need to arm yourself with?

The ‘C’ that was the talk of the IPMX batch was ‘Consulting’.

Mr. Rohit introduced the batch to ‘blue-sky thinking’. He shared how consulting is both a science and an art. Answers from science need to be tapped and sanitised for customer needs. He talked about developing a target operating model for firms which would encompass dynamics of the organisation, market, business entities, IT, strategy – which is why consulting leads to challenging assignments. This would often lead to questioning the fundamentals, problem solving and arriving at a unique solution suiting the client.

At this stage, it was clear that a person has to don many hats as a consultant and think out of the box. But why do you need to choose a career in consulting? A career in consulting is just as rewarding as it is challenging. It gives one the opportunities to work with various clients at senior levels. It also gives the person tremendous opportunities to evolve as an individual. A consultant should be able to get the client to buy into the solution being proposed rather than what the client wants to hear. Consulting will help a person develop life skills and the ability to think differently. A consulting career also provides the opportunity to experience diverse sectors and geographies.

Mr. Bansal was kind enough to share an overview of the Consulting Industry as well.  After the session ended, the audience continued the discussion with Mr. Rohit Bansal over tea as well. The batch was very thankful to the guest for the wonderful session. Mr. Bansal gave good food for thought for the batch to ponder over.

LStore Ver 2.0

The euphoria and excitement was upbeat when we the team of 5 (@IPMX-5) took up the ownership of L’store from the previous batch; who started this venture last year. This store not just embodies the spirit of entrepreneurship but also provides a sense a kinship and belonging to the college. To experience the application of all the gyan which we were getting in the class made the whole venture even more thrilling. Talk about MBA jargons and we were already knee deep in it, be it 4Ps of marketing, inventory management, Account receivables/payables, market research, price elasticity etc…

With childlike excitement and unbridled enthusiasm we started our first day in store at 5.30pm on hot summer day in May and tried to sell to everyone and anyone coming to the cafeteria. I got busy cajoling and convincing customers when suddenly I realized that all the others (all guys) were missing and there was a weird lull, so I went to check at the stall and sure enough the “boys” were making the first sale to a very nice lady from wmp “Almitra “ .  I must say whatever the reason for the collective effort we succeeded in making our first sale :) and there was no looking back.

It’s been 2 months since then and we’ve got a feel of what it means by “customer’s always right” and the importance of proper/clear communication in marketing.  Dealing with vendors and logistics is a whole new ball game.Whenever I am at the stall and fold piles of t-shirts I remember Rajbeer’s (founding member) observation of having new found respect for the salespeople in stores.

 -   L’STORE TEAM

Aditi Nanda, Deependra Singh, Nithin Subhakar, Rakesh Narayan and Shomi Agrawal

"Pricing of public services" - a session by Dr. P.K. Goel

A lecture on a subject like pricing can’t be ingrained by a class of 68 executives of varied experience without being enunciated by the guru himself. Dr. P.K Goel, Chief Commercial Officer of Northern Railway, Indian Railways, the man behind the IRCTC e-commerce service was at IIM Lucknow (Noida Campus) to teach the IPMX students the nuances of “Pricing of Public Services”.

Dr. Goel’s vast experience and intrapreneurial instincts that he has demonstrated during his illustrious career at Indian Railways was itself a big story for the class. He walked the class through the Concepts of pricing using various examples from his experiences at Indian Railways. The class was able to inculcate the nuances of pricing structure, efficient pricing and competitive pricing through the session. IPMX students were able to correlate the pricing concepts taught in the class during the workshop. Unaware of the pricing mechanism used by the government owned entities, IPMX students learned the pricing structure for different types of services offered by Indian Railways.

Dr. Goel explained how IT systems are being utilized to run a behemoth such as Government controlled Indian railways. At the tail end of the workshop, Dr. Goel gave special emphasis on the unique service, tatkal, offered by Indian Railways that transformed the way Indian Railways has been adding value to the Indian populace through its services.

Overall the 4 hour workshop was full of learning in which the whole class participated and well concluded by Dr. Goel.

 

Shekhar Kumar

IPMX05 – Media Committee

“Global Business Workshop” by Kelley School of Business

A new chapter of long alliance with Kelley School of Business was written when the school conducted the “Global Business Workshop” at IIM-L Noida campus on May 20th . It was a unique and discerning experience to interact with their faculty and alumni. The workshop focused on “New direction in strategy and Entrepreneurship”, one of the ever burning topics in the MBA fraternity.

Idalene Kesner, Associate Dean for Faculty and Research & Chair of strategic management, offered a deeper view on formulating the business strategy in the continuously changing global environment. The focus was on the emerging markets such as India and China that are going to be the epicenter for the global strategy in near future. The session was captivating and answered many contemporary questions pertaining to competitive strategy for corporations, regions and nations. The discussions on concerning issues such as regional strategy for global leadership, contemporary strategic-planning processes, and real world strategies for seeking competitive advantages gave food for thought to the participants.

Another esteemed professor, Patricia P. McDougall, the winner of “21st Century Entrepreneurship Research Fellow” award, provided an insightful session to all the potential entrepreneurs present in the workshop. She elucidated the anatomy of entrepreneurship to satisfy our curiosity around this exciting subject. She helped us to dig deeper to find answers to questions such as where does the opportunity exist? How do I capitalize on it? Do I have all the resources?



Prof. Ash Soni, who is currently doing his research work in the area of “Development of Business Analytics Programs”, took us to the journey of business analytics. He discussed about the evolution of the data analytics and how the field is growing annually at 40% rate and changing the businesses around the globe. Knowing about Business Analytics Landscape that includes Predictive Analysis, Analytical Modeling, Data Mining, and Data Visualization was an overwhelming experience for all of us.

Altogether this workshop was an excellent opportunity to imbibe learning from the academic experts in the area and to interact with some real life entrepreneurs and strategists.

- Vijay Pal Sharma

Labor Day celebration at IIM Lucknow – Noida Campus

The euphoria was high as new batch of IPMX started interacting and engaging with IIM Noida campus staff. Around 25 hard working people of IIM Noida campus staff participated in the event.  The event kicked off by honoring and appreciating the efforts that staff put to help the new students settle in and adjust to their new home. IIML staff has done a stupendous job at responding to the needs and queries of students and teachers equally.

 

The enthusiasm of staff was mesmerizing. Brijesh and Ajit – energetic lads in mess lightened up the whole environment by singing few bollywood numbers – “Pathar ke sanam”, “Akele hi akele chala hai kahan”. It was a marvelous surprise to watch staff sharing a leg with students. I must say they outperformed the students. In musical chair game played amongst 30 folks, Brijesh excelled.

 

From playing cricket with us to making delicious food and facilitating us in our hostels, staff members have done a fantastic job. Overall, it was a satisfying experience to know our staff and to build up camaraderie.  The event concluded with sweet distribution.

 - Siddharth Asthana