Life is ‘Busy’-ful

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"The busy man is troubled with but one devil; the idle man by a thousand"

There were these few months before I joined this college, soon after I had quit work and had a few months to “cool off”, when I used to watch TV all day long and slept as I wished. No commitments, no deadlines, no targets, no reprimands to dent my day. Though I missed being busy, I bought the fact that I needed the well deserved break. Soon enough all this came to a stand still. I had heard that the marketing varsity was the highlight of this college from our predecessors. When I joined the college I had my hopes higher and my head even higher, floating on a presumption that my experience in sales would make me one among the elite. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

All that I had assumed in my mind about what marketing was came crashing down to earth. I was introduced to the world behind the products that we see on the shelves, TVs, newspapers and where not, and trust me when I say there’s more to them than meets the eye. I was amazed when I learnt that marketing was way beyond just selling the product but went much into the creation of the product itself. That was when I was introduced to the concepts of segmentation, targeting, positioning, branding, Advertising, B2B, B2C, Services marketing and so on.

Apart from the marketing curriculum, we were exposed to a few sessions in retailing, advertising, PR etc which widened our understanding about the world outside. The best thing about this college was that they deliberately exposed us less to theoretical knowledge and brought in industry speakers from renown companies like CavinKare, HCL, O&M, JWT etc. and CEOs of other business entities, from different industries, to give us a sneak peek into how the jungle outside was and how high their expectation levels were when it came to employability during this recession.

Projects, case studies and assignments were showered upon us during the course with tight deadlines but much to our delight they were interesting enough to set our pulses racing and in the process got over our laziness. Sleepless nights became a habit and presentations became the stimuli for further endeavours. What we didn’t or couldn’t learn from the text books, we learnt through the case studies; So many live cases from Indian companies and a heavy load of global cases from the top B-schools of the world. Each case study opened up our minds to new invaluable strategies and implemental business logic. This gave us a healthy edge over students from other colleges when it came to job hunting as we knew what the employers expected, while the other’s thought they knew, but, eventually didn’t.

Where there is a smoke there is a fire. Similarly, where we fledglings are eventually fluttering around, we have had our favourite award winning Professor and mentor, Prof.Sathyanarayanan, constantly spending long hours at work, improving our curriculum, roping in industry speakers, giving feedback about performance and not to mention a few lighter moments too. This battle hardened knight somehow manufactured time to attend to his chores and also patiently heard us out when we had issues to be addressed. I couldn’t help but observe that we had tons to learn from him apart from the course.

Thus in these last few days, I feel, over the period of the course I’ve transcended to a competitive level of understanding of the complex business world and with my career path lit up I am but at a loss of words for thanking this course, for having set the sails for me.

P.S.Suhas, Batch -3 (2008-09), Marketing Varsity

A realistic odyssey in to retail world

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A complete 30-session course on the world of retailing by Prof. Dr. Vijay Kumar Jayaram, Founder & Director – SIMERF, a virtual organization involved in management education and consultancy

My first experience as an exclusive retailer in selling vegetables and fruits was unfathomable. I have reached the place of biggest wholesale vegetable supplier in the town after comparing the price of vegetables with the other suppliers and confirmed that this is the best place to get the deal done. I was little apprehensive as the supplier was encircled by lot of seasoned retailers in busy bargaining. The wholesaler identified immediately that I am new into the business (I wondered where he acquired the skill of face reading) and enquired about my business location before getting into the business … When I quoted my itemized requirements, he calculated and tried to push in bulk with some additional discount… but refused as my inner voice cautioned the wastage cost (perishable) …. After rounds of negotiations, the supplier agreed for my quote with discounts lesser than current market rates and he reasoned out the heavy discount. He said he always encourage new start-ups to avoid monopoly in the market, at the interest of consumers. Wow noble value systems are still in existence … I cursed the cynicisms that values are dead in a fierce competing world ,,,, my heart lauded the supplier for a moment , with a great sense of pride that I have partnered with an honest supplier in the town in my maiden transaction itself.

I moved all the vegetables to my shop and waited for the customers next morning. I was pretty sure that my shop is going to be an instant hit in my location as I managed to get vegetables at a much lower cost from the wholesaler than the other big house retailers. Customers started pouring in. To my dismay many of their faces were little unpleasant after looking at the price tag, and they all ended up with petty purchases. I was confused for a while and enquired a customer about this. A sharp nail hit straight on my forehead “prices are higher than big retail house, so not happy with the store”… I was taken a back. I got the best deal in the town on the day, so mine should be the minimum... how it is possible?? ….I was suspicious at his complaint. I checked the price in other retail shops through my small workforce … yes its true... they are selling at a lower price than my shop for sure!!!! But how is it possible? I came to know that my competing retailers purchased at the goods at a much lower price than me from the same wholesale vendor … I turned mad when I realized that supplier fooled me with his words …. I lost in the game... my neighboring retail stores were doing well… My venture was a total fiasco. I don’t know what to do...

“Time is up guys”, Prof. Vijaykumar shouted at his base voice to break the utter chaos prevailed in the classroom to reach us ….. I came out of my retailer avatar. Yes, the above mentioned retail business was a real time simulation game in the world of retailing course. Supplier roles were played by four students and rest of us have to be a retailers as well as customers …it was a total chaos for whole 1 hour & 30 min… perhaps if any one listened to the conversations alone .. I bet that they would have presumed it to be a koyambedu vegetable market…After an exhausting role play, we all settled down and shared our experiences as a retailer as well as customers…. And also the students who played the role of wholesalers merrily explained the tactics that they have followed to run a profitable business. I was fuming at them as I was one the victim of their conspiring strategy. Professor was stunned when he came to know that group of students formed a cartel during their transaction with suppliers… I looked at my friend who also lost in the game. We exchanged a sigh at each other and shrugged the shoulders as usual.

Once we were done with the feedback about the simulation exercise, professor explained about the retail business by correlating our experiences in the exercise. He explained the different roles that are being played by a retailer, wholesaler and the intricacies involved in it. When we raised our concern that if some more constraints for Wholesaler would have reduced the chaos in the game, we were informed that its simulation is based on “Synetics” , a state where there will be free flow of thought and hence the learning will also be maximum .. Yes that’s sounds true to us from the experiences we gained from the simulation exercise..

Since then I became a fan of professor VKJ for his unique style of teaching and I was looking for his sessions every week. I was in the state of bliss when he announced that we are going to have two more simulation exercise for understanding ‘customer relationship management’ in his next class. In subsequent weeks we got engaged in simulations like ‘Blind fold Game’ and ‘Retail Banking Exercise’ to get the key insights of CRM.

It was totally a pleasant and surprising experience to each one of us in the class in understanding the concepts of such real-world subjects through simulations and role plays. The 30 hour session on retailing by professor VKJ with his power packed pedagogy helped us in a much bigger way to prune ourselves as ‘Industry – Ready’ mangers. His well crafted traps in the game made us to realize the real-world intricacies of retailing, which looks glossy and glamorous from the outside. Truly an amazing learning experience in a new dimension. Thanks a lot professor

Contributed by Arun Saravanakumar, Marcom Varsity
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Lessons from the Trenches !

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Session By Mr. Vishwakiran, Senior Manager – Alliances & Partnerships, HCL Technologies

It was an usual Saturday morning at CBS campus for the Marketing, Marketing Communication and Retail varsity Students. But, what made the Saturday special was an almost four hours of informative session on managing career and corporate world by Mr.Vishwakiran.

Mr. Kiran started off the session from the evergreen dream of any MBA student, ‘hands full of job offers’ and the subsequent reality-bites stories in the corporate sector. The entire presentation was about career options, choosing the best career and the best practices for succeeding in the same.

The entire process was covered under 8 different themes; very comprehensive, useful and interesting indeed.

1. Create Your Value System
He asked us to create an own brand for ourself to sell us in an interview. Many a time it is an under current fear factor that spoils a good interview in spite of being knowledgeable. At this phase he quoted the phrase “What are you prepared to do?” from the movie Untouchables to correlate the slide on the topic how to overcome fear. He touched upon being dependable and punctual on creating the value system of a person.

2. Dealing with Others
We gradually moved to the theme of how to handle people and to deal with them. The major concentration on this theme was on making an impact and having a positive influence with people, which will make people feel special and build relationship. And Mr. Kiran had a spot on how we should inspire people while talking to others and always be on others’ shoe before taking a call.

3. Stay on Top of Life
The next theme was on how to think, ask questions, to plan and to execute. Moving further we got some tips on how to prioritize our work and the importance of maintaining a dairy. And whatever it may be, he asked us to take notes for future references. From his personal experience he said he had taken about 8 notebooks of notes on joining HCL within few days. He ended this theme by ‘Sunday reflections’ how a good manager will plan on Sunday what he is supposed to do in the coming week. Surely, we could feel the learning for the real world stuff. Yup, this is what we wanted

4. Create Lasting Impression
‘Differentiate Yourself’ is one point which still rings in my mind when I think on the theme ‘Create Lasting Impression’. He clearly explained us how one can differentiate one from others. And the discussion continued about establishing credibility to a personality and how to position one in a competitive environment.

5. Overcoming Hurdles
To overcoming hurdles, a person should cultivate the following attributes Viz, not being over-confident, knowing your limitations, getting set to learn. He added on about ‘Fix Your Weakness’, where one can know what his negatives are and to practice on how to eliminate. He ended the theme by stating anything can be done to the hurdles with one’s own hope and self belief.

6. Survive at Work
To survive modern work place, one need to be professional in approach and activities and also have an eagle-eye for the finer details. Here popped a brilliant quote “Anything worth doing is difficult” from the movie Patch Adams. We got the information on the importance of paying attention to small things at work place and also how to manage expectations. The theme ended with the twinkling words ‘Praise in Public and Criticise in Private’ which is very important at a work place.

7. The Art of Communication
A simple one but an important aspect of a business life, apart from the well known communicate slowly & clearly, he explained us on how to think analog while communicating and also the art of telling stories while presenting to capture the targeted audience. The mantra was “Always keep to the point, keep it simple and do not get diverted from the topic”.

8. Realising Your Potential
The final theme covered on how to learn from ones own mistake and to master the craft. He also explained us about success which is a long haul. Gradually moved up the ladder, enlightening us on knowing what one want and how to accept and face reality. He ended the theme by quoting “Do what you love, Love what you do”.

The whole presentation was interspersed with lots of quotes from movies such as, Star Wars, The Shawshank Redemption, Patch Adams, Awakening, Platoon, Matrix, Terminator, Aviator, The Godfather, Message in a Bottle, The Rookie, Remember the Titans, Any Given Sunday, Million Dollar Baby, Alexander, Miracle, Wall Street, The War etc. That really drove home the important points clearly and at the same time made the whole session highly enjoyable

I would say this is the best presentation I have ever come across; Mr.Kiran also promised to have a separate session on movies and management. Thanks Sir, really waiting for that session to come alive. With out doubt, it will be another exciting encounter. Surely I will share the same with you all very soon.

Contributed by Uma Shankar Pandian , Marketing Varsity

A life full of logos!

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Brand Management course by Mr. Satheesh Krishnamurthy, Brand Consultant

It was 5 minutes to 6 in the morning, my Sony Ericsson disturbed my morning sleep with its alarm, hesitantly I woke up and as like any other diehard Chennai fellow, I started my day with a hot cup of Narasus filer kaapi and The Hindu, of course only after finishing my brushing routine with pepsodant....First ad in the paper that grabbed my attention was Globus sale!!!!! Got a plan for weekend …After devoting 20 minutes to The Hindu, I finished my bath with Hamam and grabbed a cup of kellog’s as breakfast since idli bored me a lot , oops…I realized I was running short of time ,,, In a hurry –burry ,,, I let myself inside my levi’s and polo …took possession of my fasttrack and ipod ( No wonder if I owe my entire life to steve jobs!!) ...dropped my acer and Philip Kotler’s Marketing management into my samsonite college bag … tied the lace of nike , kick started my pulsar and reached the college some how on time after negotiating serpentine twists and turns of Volvos and Leylands !

It was the first session on brand management by Prof. Satheesh Krishnamurthy. He started the session with a slide, showing how many brands we come across in a single day !!!! Immediately my mind recollected the brands that I come across since morning,, starting from Sony Ericsson to Pulsar , 16 on first count .. Mind boggling.. Just within 3 hours of the day I have used 16 different brands…my god!!! there is no second thought; definitely I do need sessions on brand management…

Then he continued the session with a question what is a brand and why we need to manage a brand!!!!...different replies came from every nook n corner of the classroom…. Professor absorbed all the answers and gave us the meaning for the term brand in marketing in a much more refined way and also the significance of brand management,, even from his words within first 30 minutes of session, we understood that, invariably behind every successful brand , there is a conscientious brand manager who considers his/her product as their own child and pamper it .. even protect it!!! from all other competing brands!!!!

The next important issue which we were introduced was the Do’s and Don’ts in product/ brand management…He strongly affirmed that a particular brand (established in a particular product category) should not enter market altogether in a different product category with the same name, due to the fact that consumer’s mind will refuse to associate the brand with new product category along with the examples of lot of brands which failed by adopting this wrong model.. We were truly able to appreciate his words when he quoted that Oral-B is from Gillette and argued that Oral-B would be not as successful as now if it would have been entered the market with the name carrying Gillette brush in it!!!! ….

During his course of discussing different issues surrounding brand management like,, what does a brand convey to consumers,, why brands and why brands are critical etc, he came up with loads of examples from both Indian and global markets. A four hour lively session came to an end with the topic “how hard is it to build a brand”…When ever a new brands enter into market, we tend to think it as just one more in the list…but within four hours we realized the intricacies behind that “one more” … Simply a great start for the ensuing brand management sessions … Thank you! Sir!

Contributed by Arun Saravanakumar, Marcom Varsity

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Publicity VS Advertising !

Session by Mr.Nytik Joshi, Senior Manager- Marketing(TTHL), Hexaware Technologies

In this digital era of burgeoning media, clutter and noise, there are numerous vehicles through which one can take the product message to the customers. But, when there are serious limitations in such a scenario, Mr. Nytik particularly took up Al Ries’ law of publicity and the law of advertising during a typical Sunday marathon session at CBS.

The Law of Publicity
“Brands are born with publicity and not with advertisement”

The Law of Advertising
“Once born, a brand needs Advertising”

Advertising is something where you involve sizeable monetary investment in order to promote your product or message. Whereas, Publicity is a commercial exercise in which, strictly speaking, there is no money transaction made. Publicity is something free of cost to promote or take your product to the end users. Also, Publicity is an endorsement through a third party which is far more credible than an exercise that blows the own trumpet.

“Unlike advertising which you can decide when you want to put up an Ad
PR takes time to built up and gain momentum”

Not just one or two, we literally ran through the cases of a plethora of brands that include Botox, Volkswagen, Vespa, Red Bull, Harry Potter, Jet Blue, Linux, Starbucks, Google, Palm and The Body Shop

Mr.Joshi buttressed the point that PR is like an Aeroplane take-off, which involves comparatively low risk and high return, whereas, Advertising is like a rocket’s take-off, which involves high risk and high return. It is always better to use the combination of both PR and advertising. Brands should be given birth in the lap of PR and after a certain stage it should play through Ads. A remarkable case was that of Microsoft XBOX. Microsoft created a huge interest through their buzz even before the launch and they didn’t spend a single penny on advertising before the launch and the newspapers had an article on Nov 1, 2001, which was a part of the publicity exercise.

Few more recent brands which has immensely exploited the publicity route are Cisco, Dell, Oracle, Microsoft, Palm, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Ebay, Google andYahoo

He also took us through the reality about the two sides of a PR coin:
Positive power of the positive PR
Negative power of the negative PR

The important aspects discussed during the session were,

Advertising is self serving, what you say about you has little or no credibility. People trust media, the third party effect.

What makes news? Being 1st in a new category makes news. Not being better than your competitors.

Why PR is important? Being 1st in market is worth nothing. Being 1st in mind is worth everything.

Finally the session was wrapped up with some incredible ideas on new age marketing:

· PR is more powerful than Advertising
· Advertising dollars cannot compensate for the lack of favourable PR
· If you can’t be 1st in a category, create a new category for you
· Most Advertising agencies focus on the wrong concept
· If Advertisement is so powerful why don’t Ad agencies advertise?
· There is a consumer reaction against Ads
· PR should take a lead role in Brand Building
· Many established brands don’t spend more money on brand


PR should focus on the new and different, that’s how brands are built.
Advertisement should focus on the old and familiar, that’s how brands are maintained.

When Chennai was having its first ever marathon, we had this engaging marketing marathon at Chennai Business School. Quite an interesting and charming session for continuous 3 hours, full of interesting examples & cases, we even forgot to have a break in between. Thanks a lot Mr. Nytik.

Contributed by Uma Shankar Pandian, Marketing Varsity