Welingkar - only brands bring in the premium!

That Welingkar Institute of Management, Mumbai was raided by the IT dept for collecting large sums of money as capitation fee is just one part of the story. There is a more important lesson, and that is that such monies can be collected only when there is substantial brand equity.

I do not know who collected how much money, and, truly , during a season when scams are being highlighted as though things were wonderful before, it is just one more. Even though I worked for Welingkar in Bangalore, trust my views are objective, considering I got no where near the Director and had heart wrenching terrible feedback from students for the first time in all my career!

The point we need to see is that Welingkar was able to charge a premium on its price because it had built a brand name. Building a higher education brand calls for addressing various student/parent relevant touch points successfully. Impressions are formed online, in classrooms, through physical infrastructure, contact personnel, placements, subjects taught, and a long list of tangible and intangible things( that should suffice for a free list!). In the last few years, Welingkar has managed this very well and hence it was able to collect the donations in a year that has seen, across the world,  a significant drop in admissions to management programs.  Whether the premium was really worth it, I think we should believe that the customer is not a fool and understands value.

Today management schools that teach a small bit of management theory, provide survival skills, and are finishing schools, all at once are what customers in India want and there are jobs for young management graduate who walk out of these schools.

Let the Income Tax guys do their jobs, while we appreciate the brand building efforts of Welingkar. It is not that Welingkar is perfect on all counts. Which institution is? I think however with solid history, some great faculty, great infrastructure and  inevitable ( education brands take for ever otherwise!)  fluff a really nice brand was built and this tax issue is not a road block, only a small bump on the road.

'India' Track in B'Schools anyone?

Views/Perspectives about India the country from contemporary  Indian management thought leaders  is rarely discussed in business schools. 

There are a few books about doing business in India, however these do not offer insights into India the land and its people and mostly discuss some aspects of culture through a foreigner lens. 


In recent years there have been many thinkers/authors who have brought to fore the opportunities/challenges/ and way of doing business in India, however, these have not been presented together as a composite body of
knowledge.

I strongly feel the  need for an ‘India Track’ in the curriculum of business schools and this has not been systematically been addressed. Sadly the university system MBA institutes will need a direction from AICTE or the university to offer such obvious courses, however, am sure some private schools can offer such a track. Whether it is of value, do read just a little further and write in.

Many recent books about Indian business by Indian thought leaders have yet to be used by teachers in B schools. Management Schools need to interact with these authors to work on a how their books can find place in the syllabus of management programs.

 There is a need to present India from the point of view of a manager to enable her to succeed in India.

What subjects/authors am I thinking about?

• Indian Economics - past, present and future. There are plenty of books in this area, however, works of Bimal Jalan or YV Reddy and similar need a look
•  Indian Psyche for Managers – Sudhir Kakkar author of Indian Psyche or even Being India by Pavan Verma
• Indian Consumers – where to find them and what  they want.  Rama Bijapurkar author of ‘We are like that only’
•  Ancient Wisdom for Indian Managers – ‘Vidura Neethi’ , Prof. Subramanian, Chennai
• Imagining India –  Nandan Nilekani
• All the three books  – from discovering the India opportunity to offering the Dharma prerequisite to the world of business – Gurucharan Das
•  Indian Demography -  Interesting and little known slices of India would be really useful. I have read a book review about a recent book in the Times of India, sadly the title and author name have slipped from my 50 yr old brain.
• Indian Society – Plenty of good books available here
• Then there are books from Shombit Sengupta, Jessie Paul, Subroto Bagchi, Jagdeep Kapoor, and Santosh Desai et.al. which should be a must read for Indian business students to expose them to ideas, paradigms, and Indian examples that are closer home. Living in Bangalore one cannot miss out including books from Ramanujam Shridhar and Harish Bijoor, even if I have not had a look at at them.

With India being central in the worlds present and future, am sure there are foreign B schools who will be interested to send their students to attend a India track semester or like it is their style, first do the classes in the home country and then send informed students to India the land of opportunity. At the end of this thread, am hoping to have a list of subjects and reference books, so do write in and contribute your ideas.  More importantly let me know what you think of this. Will this add value?

GD - The Grand Deception

Group Discussion to help reject students seeking admission to management institutes are just that. Even the cynics get convinced when you provide a argument  about the 'need' for a way to pick a few from among many equals. Leave the top rung institutes, institutes are aplenty, and it is not like a IIT type situation for sure.  This post is about how in a market that breathes the 'shortage' mindset, you can increase aspirational value by creating a fallacious shortage. Even after at least two decades have passed since shortages are a thing of the past, this mind set is available to sellers of every ware.

Management institutes conduct GD's for selection of students. Many of them conduct several rounds, I think the idea is simply to create an impression, very successfully that  " what is difficult to get must be very good" and therefore the converse being considered true too. Thankfully IIM's have got rid of it, many good B schools  need it to push students of the 'management quota' into regular merit lists required by managements or regulators, and students, whether in intellectual Bangalore or wise Patna, still swear by it and prepare for it!
Another possible myth is that Faculty are well trained to make objective assessments.

Can you apply this ploy to your product or service? Do you already do it? Let me know. I am sure many will rubbish this post...that is because they need to. Am eager to get brickbats as much as I am to get bouquets, only then can I grow

Execution, Execution, Tenacity

At first I wanted to call this post Ideas, Execution, and Tenacity as the mantra for successful entrepreneurship.Ideas are now available everywhere as are opportunities. It all comes down to systematically executing business plans and sticking to the knitting till success comes calling. I have known businessmen who made it big in the second business cycle from start date..say 10 yrs. Many younger entrepreneurs may not agree about the tenacity needed, however in my experience I have seen tenacity pay rich dividends. What about Innovation? I do not know about this, most successful new ventures do not bring new to the world products or processes. I think it is overrated for now.

Top ten sites/blogs for marketing content in India

Some day we will have jury to pick and choose the top ten. Actually my search has been limited and have looked at what I think is essential reading for a business student. Someday, god willing, I too will have a blog; that some people read!

http://www.ramabijapurkar.com/default.htm

http://santoshdesai.com/

http://onqualitativeresearch.blogspot.com/

http://www.samsika.com/

http://harishbijoor.blogspot.com/

http://www.campaignindia.in

http://www.afaqs.com/

http://fmcg-marketing.blogspot.com/

http://marketingpractice.blogspot.com/

http://www.cashcow.in

Do write in especially if your blog is better and more useful than any of the above. Happy Deepavali.
P.S : Ever thought why all advertisements (created in Mumbai of course) are trying to extinguish the differences in how the festivals are spelt and therefore pronounced across in India. I do not think this is a nice thing, what do you think?

Marketing is now about building relationships using automation!

Sounds contradictory at first, not so when you think about it in 2010. Met Pramodh, once colleague and digital marketing entrepreneur at Mysore this morning www.mysr.in . He educated me about 'closing the loop' in terms of making connections with customers, prospects, or other groups across digital media. Social media is the most enigmatic and fashionable 'buzz' word today. I am not convinced if it is established in terms of advertising organisations having someone trained and exclusively looking at this, nor am I clear about how pricing or spend levels are determined. Looks like some number is good enough. The old saying about 'half of advertising is a waste and no one can tell which half' sits nicely on digital marketing for now. of course there is lot of interesting work/research happening....my view is about general decision making in this domain.

We discussed an end to end solution for B school enrolment marketing (tough one considering students use the digital media for research and parents; who fund them, use traditional media/word of mouth to form 'impressions') and structure for a course on digital marketing which we plan to offer at the B school I work.

I do not want my blog to be some catharsis or showcase for my thoughts...much rather have diverse views on topics that I put up. If you have read this far, go a little further write in your comments please!