Guest Post: My trip to IIML, NC

This post was long due.

When Deb(Debolina Mukherjee - IPMX05)'s younger sister,Antarlina Mukherjee visited our campus a few months back, I requested  her to write a guest post. I thought it would be interesting to see our programme from a potential candidate's eyes.

So, here it goes!

When people spoke of IIM graduates “taking over the world” I hardly understood what they meant. But my 8-day trip to IIM Lucknow- Noida Campus helped me see light.

I arrived at the campus gates at around 4pm where my sister (Debolina Mukherjee, currently a student of the IPMX05 batch) took me in with my luggage.

I wondered what it felt like to walk through these gates as a student, after having qualified with outstanding GMAT scores, then prayed for the prestigious institutes’ call for an interview and finally getting the offer letter in their mail after successfully clearing all the hurdles coming in the way. Being a fresh engineer, I was a little apprehensive about the crowd I would witness here. They were Software developers, CEOs, doctors etc. who had already made their mark in their respective fields of work and now had chosen to make their journey from “boardrooms to classrooms” in order to instil and hone their management skills. I dumped my luggage in the hostel and Debolina took me for a walk around the campus. I loved the greenery and serenity that prevailed amidst the various buildings.

The next day, just as I stepped in the canteen for breakfast, I stopped short at the door and looked at the crowd. It was the same hustle, the same clangs of the cutlery and chatting. They all looked like a bunch of students starting their day with breakfast and sharing a laugh over this and that. I sat down with Debolina and a few of her friends. They talked about studies, the upcoming quizzes, projects. “That’s all they talk about”, I thought.

My idea changed when I saw a poster that read “Kakkar Ko Takkar- Ad war” on the notice board, which was the annual ad contest wherein participants formed groups and prepared an advertisement on topics related to environment, politics and society. It was very astonishing to watch the students’ endeavour in putting up these ads despite having all their quizzes and classes as per schedule. I was lucky enough to witness the various ads that were prepared on River Pollution, E- Waste, and Save Electricity among the rest.

The programme which I thought to be the best was the LTS (Leadership Talk Series) wherein the top executives of various companies were invited to the institute to deliver a lecture to the students on how they made a mark in the industry and what ideals and strategies they followed to succeed.

Quizzes, examinations, projects, case studies, assignments, competitions, LTS, “they have too much on their plate” I thought. But ask an IIML student and all they have to say about it is – ALL IN A DAY’S WORK. We enjoy it. That was enough to inspire me for my IIM Entrance Examinations.

The day I left the campus and boarded my flight back home, all I thought to myself was-If these bunch of students don’t make it large in the industry, then who will?

Today's Politician : Marketeer or Social Reformer

Some say, 'Raajneeti means- Bas Raaj Karo, koi Neetinahi'

However, Netas do have a fool-proof Neeti.

Neeti - NOT on how to better the lives of citizens in their constituency, but on, how to keep selling their political ambitions to the voters.

Marketing has been seeping through political mansions ever since India attained freedom. In fact, it has been there since freedom struggle. Politicians carved out their niche positions, with Jinna opting to focus his politics on Muslim diaspora and Nehru on the rest.

 Today, to keep winning elections, politicians majorly concentrate on the 2 generic (Michael Porter's) strategies, notably :

-Mass marketing to a broad segment of population (which our national parties such as Congress and BJP do)
-Focused marketing to a narrow segment of population (which our Regional Parties such as DMK,NCP, Shivsena etc. do)

In pursuing this, they keep discovering new baits, to trap their Target Market Segment(voters), each time elections come. Just the way companies offer Diwali-discounts to customers, these politicians distribute television sets to poor and cycles to school children before elections.

When companies dole out discounts to their customers, they start price wars. Quality takes a back seat. Same has been the fate of politics; it is increasingly becoming more of a commodity. As the 5 year term approaches an end, politicians plan on how to draw voters near them. Just the way, marketeers devise strategies on how to gain market share, politicians too, resort to all gimmicks to capture maximum market share.

Marketing at play in the History of Indian Politics:

Peeping back into history, Congress had a monopoly that led the nation to freedom. Soon, Muslim League parted ways by creating a new market 'Pakistan', in just the same way as, companies such as Hindustan Lever create new markets to sell their soaps & detergents.

Congress was the tent-pole (as we say in marketing) of Indian Politics, under which varieties of values,culture and ideologies thrived and it encompassed the Rich & the Poor, the Industrialists & the Trade union socialists.

Each product has a Life cycle, as it travels across Development, Growth, Maturity & Decline stages. Post that, the process of Segmentation begins....

Congress too, had come of age. Indira Gandhi made the first major split in Congress. During the days of  Emergency, Jan Sangh came into picture and later got transformed into BJP. Later on, Congress witnessed further fragmentation in the form of Sharad Pawar's NCP and Didi's Trinamool Congress. At BJP too, there was a split, with Uma Bharati's Bharatiya Jan Shakti. And parallely, regional segmentation brought about Chandra Babu Naidu's TDP, Lalu's RJD, Jaya Lalitha's AIADMK, Mulayam's SP, Mayawati's BSP and many more..

Too many competitors within a limited market space.... drive the players towards Differentiation.

In Strategy lessons, it is said that 'when the Concentration-Ratio (the sum total of Markets shares of top significant competitors) in the market reduces, monopoly diminishes’.

The best strategy then is to merge with key players so that each party in the merger benefits due to a consolidated chunk of the market. Think of how Petrol and Automobile complement each other. Imagine what if, all the Petroleum companies start venturing into Automobile manufacturing and vice versa. There would be utter chaos and total loss, just like what is happening in the Indian Aviation sector.

This is the age of alliances and Joint-ventures as resources are scarce and competition is high. Politics too is treading a similar path. National political parties form coalitions with regional parties and run the government through a Common Minimum Programme.

Social development has taken a back seat at the moment, what lies ahead on the road is for all of us to see... Who knows tomorrow there would be a separate Brand Modi .. Whatever the case maybe, the marketing gimmicks will keep on going.

- Malay Ghosh

Source : www.ghoshmalay.blogspot.in