Recap of Session 4 (4th Oct, 2010)

Hi Guys,
The class started with a bang by Sir appreciating our work in the blog until now. Then, as per his daily plan to market a product in the class, he bought us the September 21st issue of TOI which had a introductory gadget which was photosensitive and introduced or marketed a product. This time it was for Volkswagen. An attempt to explain the pros & cons of the gadget was given by Priyanka. Sir then gave a brief about the gadget & how it has affected the Volkswagen which have increased the knowledge among the masses of the product by 65%.

After this, we started on our discussion of "Scanning the Environment". How scanning was important in determining the success of any product. Sir took the example of Meru Cabs to demonstrate the scanning of environment.

Further, the environment is divided into two kind : Macro Environment & Micro Environment.

Macro Environment are basically the external factors of the company whcih can be attributed to the P E S T & demographics. Micro environment are the environment pertaining to the company itself like suppliers, human resources, target group etc. As per today's class we will go forward with the Macro environment only.

Macro Economics: P (Political) E (Economical) S (Social) T (Technological) analysis, Demographics.

Political : this term was explained by giving the example of Meru Cabs where it was explained that there were many taxi organizations already existing in the city (mumbai). So its success lied a lot on how to enter the market without creating much of the problem to the existing fraternities.

Economical : This was explained in the same context i.e. Meru Cabs. People having a better economical status are the ones who are availing the service of the MEru Cabs. moreover the concept of calling a taxi at any place you like is generally the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of the Meru Cabs. An interesting discussion took out between the terms - Utilitarian & Hedonism - Utilitarian is the principle of "value for the usage" or "Jitna use kiya utna paisa bharne ka". While Hedonism is mainly the principle of maintaining a status for yourself. In this, one thinks that to display his status, one may need to use things that shows his status symbol. Ex: Mercedes.

Social : Sir gave an example of How anchor toothpaste marketed itself as the 100% vegetarian toothpaste & soon became the no. 1 toothpaste because of this strategy. This is because majority of the people (Hindu as well as vegetarian) preferred this as it coordinated their sentiments & culture & values. So social environment also plays a very important role.

Technological : Finally the technological portion was discussed by giving an example of how people are ignorant about the difference between Optical Zoom & Digital Zoom and about the difference between an LED TV & LCD TV. But even though they are ignorant, they are definitely going by the words & price of the products thinking them as very different even though the basic technological difference may be low. However, a better technological product is always preferred.

Thanks

Guys, I hope I included all of the topics. The list of books will be posted in another post. Thanks