Up For Sale: Are you Game?

Chennai has become a shopper’s paradise as most of the high end apparel companies have their booties up for grab. The results are clearly visible, in normal days you will find little crowd inside magnificently decorated show-rooms and the yellow display board with SALE written over it has remarkable effect. It’s surely a crowd puller as the regular brand shopper take it as a chance to pre-pone their future purchase and the low end shopper welcomes it as an entry to the brand conscious club.

The question is what’s the logic behind the sale? Are the prices really low? In some cases it’s yes and in some cases they simply markup the price and then offer a discount which actually means only 10-15% for the customer instead of
the promised 40-50%.

The UpTo deal: - I often get frustrated when I see the UpTo SALE like upto 40%. The simple idea is that they offer high discount on slow moving items so that to recover the loss in revenue from the quantity and utilities are frustratingly priced at a premium. So for the company it’s always a win-win situation. Like I went into this Adidas showroom to find out that their 50% sale condition is that you have to pay full on the product you price and then you can redeem the discount on some other article. So if you have to buy a shoe worth Rs. 5000/- you will get discount worth Rs 2500/- on the next purchase which has to be made on the same day. I doubt that consumers are not dumb enough to fall into the trap and most of the shoppers are the brand loyals only. So their purpose might only be to drive traffic into their lavishly maintained showrooms.

The purpose: - The purpose behind SALE offers are ideally one of these clearing the stock and making way for new arrivals as taste and preferences changes every six months, targeting those people who have the desire and offering them some incentive to take purchase action or simply driving traffic to store by putting a SALE banner. Consumers are not that ignorant now, they have their own mental accounting and they can quickly guess that what should be the ideal price of the product and the sale tag really add some value to them or not. Simply putting a sale banner and charging exorbitant prices are not going to do any justice to your sales and the volume turnover won’t differ much. It could be the opposite way also where you run your promotions for so long that the discounted price is actually perceived as the real price. Koutons is an excellent example where the company runs promotion for like all round the year with discounts as high as 60%. Now, there are few takers for Koutons at the markup prices. But, the company is still happy because they have penetrated into the market segment where loyalty is little and people are willing to switch a brand if they get value for money. So, a short term tactical decision for Koutons may become long term strategy for the pricing of their products. The big question is that where will these promotions stand after the entry of big brothers in retail like Wall Mart and Sears? May be apparel industry should start looking inward and focus on implementing a target costing approach.

We are all slave to our habits..

“The future of a person depends on the kind of habits they have. And we all are creator of our habits”. Among those million two liners from Navjot Singh Sidhu, this has somehow managed to grab my mindshare for long. We all agree about the thing about individual habits but then how many of us have tried changing our habits in let’s say past one year? Anyways talking about myself, I really have tried changing some of my old time habits (I don’t smoke or drink so considerably it should have been easier for me) but I can honestly acknowledge this fact that I have failed miserably.

It’s a cruel reality that over a period of time subconsciously we all become slave of our habits. Even a simple habit like lying down while studying is hard to change, forget about the other strong things like smoking, drinking or even getting up late in the morning. Many people end up making resolutions like going for a walk early in the morning or eating breakfast daily but then my experience suggests that it’s really hard to change even simple things in our lives.

Well the important thing I want to highlight is that though we may find ourselves incapable to change these things and instead learn to live with them I think that we miss out on the hard fact that in a way we loose control over our lives. The stronger a habit becomes, the lesser control we have on our lives. This lack of control sometime plays with our conscious mind too and it reflects in poor utilization of our time and sometime poor decision making. Well, it happens in those cases also when we are exposed to a particular life style and we try to develop certain habits like being friendlier, going out more frequently, being impulsive or may be smoking and drinking also. Now, it starts casually but then it takes over your personality after some time and people may feel guilty, stressed or tensed over their incapability to launch a restore operation.

But then, after all we ourselves are creator of our habits and the only thing is that we have to learn not to give up. We should know that if we are capable of developing a certain habits then let it be the solution to the same problem. We do not actually need to change our habits as it is a demanding process rather with a little bit of expert counseling and help we can always inculcate another habit which offset the negative effect of the other one. This is one area where I think that knowledge of group dynamics, motivation, attitude, perception and human psychology can help. And even if the theoretical understanding proved to be of no help, then what are friends for? Well, so my idea is that work on just one good habit of choosing the right people in your life and you will never regret.

Humour**
Somebody please help me with my habit of blabbering continuously. I really have become slave of it or may be it is too much of listening to Sidhuism. As the master so the disciple.

Life is really beautiful.

It was one fine day in March when my surgeon announced that you are out of any danger my son! But you have to continue with the chemicals for one more month as to make sure that your system remains immune. I was diagnosed with Lymphoma in June 2005 and had excision biopsy to confirm that. If I say that I was not terrified at any moment then probably I would be lying because I was really terrified. Not for me but for my family members who knew that I was just one diagnosis away from death. Months of chemotherapy followed and I crawled my way out of the claws of cancer. Well, most of my friends were unaware of this and probably if I say today that I was with them laughing, shouting and cracking jokes during my final days in college probably no body will believe this but it was one truth that I chose to hide from everyone and my family chose to hide it from my Mom. I was completely unsure about my future and every swig of those chemicals use to remind me of that terrible thing that I was carrying inside my neck. My emotional trauma was so overwhelming that I use to cry alone in dark and those were the times when my thoughts really shaped up. Those were the moment when I decided about moving ahead with my MBA. I indulged myself in reading. All sort of reading. I indulged myself in other activities but this thing was always playing at the back of my mind that I was living a borrowed life.

Today I am here, six months deep into my MBA waiting for my summer placements where I would be perhaps closest to any organizational setup and which will decide the direction of my career but then if I have to pick one period in which I have learnt the most is not these six months of MBA or tiring years of Engineering but rather those 12 months when I was hanging between life and death. Well, it’s no mean achievement considering the fact that some spend their entire lives and never realize the purpose of their lives.

Humour:
My friends always ask me that how come I manage to sleep so much as it’s considered a crime to sleep for more than 3 hours a day in a B school but then probably because I know what I have to do with my life. Nice excuse, isn’t it?

2007: One Step Close

Year 2006 was of significant importance to me. I graduated in Engineering (even I am wondering till date that how) I traveled all the way to south India to start with my masters against the advice of my father and family members. But well, today I am sitting here on my desk trying to do an inquest on my last one year.

I am trying to trace the reasons behind my decision about my career. All I remember is that there was this vague picture inside my mind about the white collar job with six figure salaries offered to MBA graduates but then one girl tried to change all this. She questioned my attitude and then to find some answers to her questions I learnt a lot about changing the world. She did not ask me to join some NGO or to do something really stupid but rather she convinced me that how my MBA can fit into the schemes of things that I wanted to do. Well, I don’t know in which part of the world she is now but then all those thoughts are still fresh and honest inside me. Those thoughts were seriously sticky. The idea of providing mass healthcare on affordable cost, educating masses without compromising with the quality of education, empowering people with low cost skills improvement programs, at this point of time they may seems to be farfetched but I know that even ordinary individuals have done extra-ordinary in the past. It was sad that I was unable to meet her during her stay in India and god knows when I will be close again to her but then to inspire you need not to be very close. All I want to say to you is thanks Piali. I am one step closer to my dreams.

New Year.. Anniversary Post.

Whoa.. My blog turned one year older... I am happy because I successfully held on to at-least this one resolution of mine. If there is something to remember I guess I started my year with a fitness routine and I pressed myself on jogging, walking and lawn tennis but I lost my way out due to travel and then to this MBA. Life has never been so demanding for me. Though I still don't study much but then, I have learnt to appreciate this new and stressed way of life. I know life will be like this only so better be prepared. Well, if I have to take one thing out of this year and carry it forward then probably I would take the memories from my convocation. For two days I felt like I was doing time travelling. There I was standing at the crossroads of the two different lives one "of a freak" and the other "of a somewhat serious freak". Anything it will be sheer injustice to summarize that experience in one or two lines. The new resolution is to pen down all that the year 2006 has taught me. Hope I will hang on to it. Three cheers to the new year... Hip Hip hurrah..

Raju Srivastava - My all time favorite..

This is one video which I liked most about Laughter challenge. I don't know how much time has elapsed since I have watched the part 2 but then I am not to be blamed as the deterioriating quality of the laughter challenge 2 contributed a lot to it. The challenge could be better described as Reading SMS jokes challenge. Have stumbled upon this video on google video site and found that I can share this bit of humour with all my MBA friends. Enjoy friends, you deserve this one.

Taking 'M' out of "MBA"

When people start preparing for MBA entrance exams, the only thing which hovers around their mind is this Master word and not Business administration. The kind of media publicity that the MBA’s have got in India over the last few years, have contributed significantly to this distorted perception. Young students freshly out of college and young executives with a couple of years of coding or manufacturing behind them gets a shot of adrenalin even at the recall of this word Master. You ask any fresher, they will say that they want MBA for value addition, seeing the bigger picture, completing the education cycle in one go and blah blah blah. Executives will go one notch ahead and you will hear reasons like their team leaders actually does nothing or their project managers just keep going on world tours, they are unable to connect to whatever they do, no excitement left in their present jobs, they want some challenging career and some more blah blah blahing.

I am not saying that these reasons are all craps. Some people may relate to whatever they are saying but majority of Indian students belong to that category where the manifestation of thoughts and the actual thoughts bear no correlation. I myself can give thousand reasons but somewhere down the core of my heart I know that the only thing that provoked this need was that rosy picture being painted by media year after year.

Poor thing is that the realization of the shattered dreams does not come immediately. You go through weeks and months of business education to reason out that whatever you are reading will go obsolete in next five years and whatever you are doing bear little resemblance to the actual picture. We talk about average salaries which has changed to median salaries and which may further change to a combination of average and standard deviation (statistically this is the best measure) to prove that which institute is better than which but then in the process we forget the emotional trauma of those who fall below average figures.

Today, after spending close to six months here, I look around myself. All I can see is some confused people who are becoming more and more confused. Or may be they are focused towards their subconscious goal (consciously thought but putting it forward in a way that it should sound like their last priority) of getting a job which pays above average salaries. I wonder, I was always under illusion that we will learn how to be masters but what the profs can do when we are hell bent on learning only the business administration part?

Some more perfume ideas..

Flattered by the idea of perfume for innovators our professor asked that how you will find that how many innovators are in the country or how many people are going to innovate in future? Will it be something like you'll sell your perfume to only those who will wear a T shirt with "I'm an Innovator" printed on it? Well, that was one doubt which we were not able to clarify.

Some of the suggestions that came from him were:
Perfume for professors:-> If we can come up with a perfume for innovators then why not a perfume for professors or a perfume for shop-keepers or one for non-teaching staff members.
Offensive perfume;-> Which smells like shit and can keep people away from you.

Well the idea clicked with me and I started thinking about some of the buyer segments for which to positioning this perfume. Well to start with:

Film stars:-> Specially for those stars who keep saying "No Media Please" and who are too shy to brush the public and media gathering aside and be rude. (I am not talking about Salmaan Khan, his biceps and his famed driving skills are good enough to scatter the media person everytime he shouts "No Media Please"). They can now have their say without actually saying anything.

Item girls:-> I think Rakhi Sawant will be a celebrity customer or perhaps not (Some people say that with all that makeup on, she already smells like **** you know what). Well the problem is that when these girls say "no" that means "more". But yeah she would have saved herself a "Mika" by putting on that perfume. But wait! who will invite you to a party then? Well we have an idea of hosting theme parties where only regular users of this perfume are invited. Don't worry we promise who's and who's of film industry and sports world and some top corporates.

Indian Cricket stars:-> Will be another set of regular buyers as it will make the fast bowlers of the opposition team bowl from a longer distance than the regular 22 yards. It is evident that even seniors players like Sachin and Dravid are finding it tough to face the chin music from the even the slowest of the fast bowlers. Well this will keep the bowler 10 yards behind and they will get some more time to watch the ball. It will also keep the fielder's away so no chance of getting caught out. But yeah the problem is that you have to wear a nose filter to stand at the non-striker's end. Okay! we have a solution. We will give away nose filters for free for some time.

Daughter in laws:-> This could be a good gift idea as a daughter in law can give it to her mother in law to make a bold statement " Don't come anywhere close to me or I will start wearing this perfume".

Well, these are my crazy ideas about this offensive perfume. I am dying to hear my friends to critically evaluate my ideas and send in their suggestions. I am still to come up with a brand name for my offensive perfume. Friends! wat do you say??

Crazy, Crazier and Craziest..

Customized toothpaste:-> Buy toothpaste in four different tubes each containing one special ingredient like fluoride, calcium,whitening agent or a dental cream. Buy any number of them by your choice and mix them to get that freshning morning breath. Wait, toothpastes are no longer for morning brushing only.

Toothpaste for diabetics:-> Sugar free or non sweetened toothpaste.

Toothpaste for smokers:-> Which makes them feel score that whatever harm tobacco does on their teeth, there is one toothpaste which is going to take care of that.

Perfume for innovators:-> Wear this perfume and feel like an innovator. decide for yourself what you are going to innovate.

Perfume for achievers:-> To make a statement which expresses your personality and for those who oozes confidence. This will be a perfume for those selected few.

Soap with a hole:-> I don't know exactly what was the basic idea but people are claiming that this soap will be easy to rub and will last longer as very less water can stay on the soap.

Soap with goat milk:-> These soaps are popular in the best but for price conscious Indian customers they are still a distant dream.

Soap for water scarce area:-> Will save water as will give little lather (not convinced by the idea actually.. to save water you always have the option to skip bath. Ask any person who has outlived Punjab's winter he must be knowing how to conserve water.

Seasonal bathing soaps:-> A soap for every season. WEll it's a crazy shot at leveraging the four season advantage of India and selling four different kind of soaps but then how would one know when to switch soaps?

Bollywood fan club calling card:-> Call Amitabh Bachhan and talk to his recorded voice, leave a message. Or sing a birthday song to your favorite actress Aishwarya Rai. You can now live your fantasies with the bollywood calling card.

Calling Card for farmers:-> Send these people the local mandi rates, EMI information and local gossip. Farmers will be very loyal to you if you succeed in doing even a small value addition.

Refrigerator-AC combo:-> Both are almost identical in working. But then the challenge is to integrate the two. You open the door it's refrigerator and when it's closed, its an AC.

Wondering what is all this? Well, these are the inputs from the segmentation exercise for our marketing course 1. Morale of the story is: People can go crazy, if given a chance. And they can go crazier if they are marketers.

Tournament Effect..

We often wonder that we were too good in school and then somehow not able to sustain the same level of enthusiasm and energy during the later part of our career. We pile on a bundle of dreams thinking that life will always be like this. I will get the same people to compete with for all my life. After entering a college with student population much bigger than the combined strength of your school you still think that this is almost the same set of people. Competition will be the same. Slowly the feeling sinks in that life has changed and pace of the change requires you to revise your goals. Now you don't want to be the topper and you will feel satiated even if you manage to get the second rank. What happened? Has your competencies changed? The answer is No. Why? well keep reading.

You are in college where you are the okay with academics but excel in extracurricular and especially good with quant and verbal ability (yeah! you know what I am talking about). You read one article in the daily editorial and feel confident that someday you can make it to the CEO level and MBA is the route to it. You feel confident about the pedagogy followed in MBA. Case discussions, presentations, group discussions and group exercises, you relate all this to your college life and you think you have enough substance in you to make it big in MBA. You target the CEO position of a company of your dreams. Well, you enter a MBA course. For the first few days you find the going easy but then you start feeling that something is not right. We call this "WHAT YOU THOUGHT IS NOT WHAT YOU GET" effect. You slow down to analyze yourself and revise your goals. Now you target the CTO,CFO, COO or any other higher level position ( just below the CEO). Well slowly and gradually, after two or three revisions of your goals, during the start of your placement season you will feel happy if you bag an entry level position on Day 1. Well, it seems logical that you should be realistic but then have your competencies really changed? Again a "NO".

What is this which makes us feel smaller and insignificant over a period of time? Well, the answer is "TOURNAMENT EFFECT". The explanation of this effect is that we are so absorbed with ourselves that we never realize that the stage is getting bigger and bigger. And people around you are becoming smarter and smarter. You are sharing your stage with some of the handpicked people who were perhaps the best in their own comfort zone.

For MBA students this effect has really a meaning. To excel in life you need not always look inside you, you have to be an excellent reader of the environment also. You can not take it for granted that if you were good at something in the past it's an advantage. Well it's rather a disadvantage as it will act as a mindblock for you. Continuous improvement of your skill sets is the key. After all, you are not in your comfort zone. Well, the moral of the story is respecting your self for what you are respecting others for what they are and if you have to revise your goals/targets then please don't feel bad. You can always blame this “TOURNAMENT EFFECT".