We often study a famous concept by Toyota by the name Just in Time(JIT) in our operations & supply chain related subjects. Today we practiced it.
At around 10:40PM, we had just finished watching some new movie trailers. We were discussing about watching a movie on Saturday, the next day, but certain other commitments suddenly gave us an idea. We could rush to catch the 11:10PM movie at a movie hall at least 30 minutes away. That meant that we could be cutting it to close if we wanted to get the 11:10PM movie at PVR Mulund, Piramal Mall. My only condition, the movie had to be “Safe House”. The three of us quickly changed clothes and started running out of our rooms, ran down the flight of stairs (from the 6th floor), taking 3-4 steps at a time. One of my friends, being a heavy set person, even went faster than we could have ever imagined when he took 2 steps at a time.
We got an autorikshaw at about 10:50PM. We told the autorikshaw driver that we Would pay him extra if he drove fast enough to help us reach the movie hall in time. As luck played along, all the traffic signals we encountered turned green (well except for just 1). At the only red light we encountered I threatened the guy by saying that I won’t pay him extra if he didn’t jump it. Reluctantly he did. Not my proudest actions, but in the heat of the moment, we did these things. As the auto came to a screeching halt, one of my friends stayed back in the auto to settle the fare, while me and my room-mate ran across the moderately crowded mall, pulling a lot of attention to ourselves, even dodging some kids playing, to reach the movie ticket counter which had a few people before us. I hate queues, and hated the queues even more today, because it was 11:10PM already. We quickly got the tickets, ran across through the security checks, and rushed to reach the movie hall just as the first scene started rolling.
The movie was worth the rush.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
A Big(z) exposure to marketing through Biziga
Having strong traits of supply chain & operations in our curriculum, our institute has had very few workshops on marketing. So when we were informed of the one & a half day marketing workshop, were quite keenly looking forward to it. However I was unfortunate to have missed out the first day of the 2-day workshop that was conducted by Mr Ashish Kumar, but the second day was no a disappointment I should add.
This 26 year old IIM-Indore graduate who ventured into his own business (Biziga) of making training software, showed us how to interpret data, relate different charts, show us how to mildly predict one of the most unpredictable patterns - the consumer behavior. From what I gather, there are various different forms to the simulation software, but we were mainly exposed to the marketing aspects. The venture that Mr Ashish started along with 3 other partners has been operating for about 2.5 years now and happens to be one of the first simulation training software to enter the Indian Market. Currently, the market is having a few other MNC players who have entered, but pricing wise, Biziga probably turns out as a more viable option for many.
Coming back to the workshop, it is true that one can never predict another human’s actions, let alone a group of individuals. And that’s exactly what the simulation software did. It showed the variations in the consumer patterns, it showed how consumers respond to a stimulus and often the time factors involved. For certain stimuli, the consumer takes longer to respond, while for others he is quicker. All these factors create a lot of market dynamics when one is doing business in a highly competitive market.
That’s exactly how Mr Ashish ended up holding the workshop. He put about 10 teams in the simulation competing against each other with a lot of variations that exist in the real world.
During the course of the workshop, we were given indicators on how to interpret our results from the previous rounds (categorized under quarterly results in the business cycles) and then develop strategies for the following quarters. Within duration of about 60 minutes, we were to develop the strategies and beat the competing teams in terms of market capitalization, profits, revenue, share value etc.
The intense session was a small window to how marketing strategies need be developed considering the various performance results. Despite reading about marketing concepts, consumer behaviors and few other marketing areas, we as students of NITIE have not been exposed to these software earlier. A session of software is a must for all marketing “enthus”. We were often reminded that the consumer behavior is too difficult to accurately predict despite extensive market research information at one’s disposal, but all in all, it was a good experience as a marketing manager for a day of a fantasy company.
For some of the images from the workshop, follow LINK
For more info on the company and the simulation software, checkout www.biziga.com.
This 26 year old IIM-Indore graduate who ventured into his own business (Biziga) of making training software, showed us how to interpret data, relate different charts, show us how to mildly predict one of the most unpredictable patterns - the consumer behavior. From what I gather, there are various different forms to the simulation software, but we were mainly exposed to the marketing aspects. The venture that Mr Ashish started along with 3 other partners has been operating for about 2.5 years now and happens to be one of the first simulation training software to enter the Indian Market. Currently, the market is having a few other MNC players who have entered, but pricing wise, Biziga probably turns out as a more viable option for many.
Coming back to the workshop, it is true that one can never predict another human’s actions, let alone a group of individuals. And that’s exactly what the simulation software did. It showed the variations in the consumer patterns, it showed how consumers respond to a stimulus and often the time factors involved. For certain stimuli, the consumer takes longer to respond, while for others he is quicker. All these factors create a lot of market dynamics when one is doing business in a highly competitive market.
That’s exactly how Mr Ashish ended up holding the workshop. He put about 10 teams in the simulation competing against each other with a lot of variations that exist in the real world.
During the course of the workshop, we were given indicators on how to interpret our results from the previous rounds (categorized under quarterly results in the business cycles) and then develop strategies for the following quarters. Within duration of about 60 minutes, we were to develop the strategies and beat the competing teams in terms of market capitalization, profits, revenue, share value etc.
The intense session was a small window to how marketing strategies need be developed considering the various performance results. Despite reading about marketing concepts, consumer behaviors and few other marketing areas, we as students of NITIE have not been exposed to these software earlier. A session of software is a must for all marketing “enthus”. We were often reminded that the consumer behavior is too difficult to accurately predict despite extensive market research information at one’s disposal, but all in all, it was a good experience as a marketing manager for a day of a fantasy company.
For some of the images from the workshop, follow LINK
For more info on the company and the simulation software, checkout www.biziga.com.