Quarter 7 - Week 2

I'm beginning to think that it's a bad thing to get two whole weeks off at the end of the quarter. It's already the second week, and I have absolutely not been preparing for the cases. And the best part.... I don't give a damn. I should be walking into poles and pillars in office, in a zombie state of mind... but no, I seem to be concentrating at work. Can you believe it?? Concentrating... at WORK? What's the matter with me...

E-Business Models and Strategies

Our first session involved a case study of Monster.com, and its path from a small startup, through its acquisition and its ongoing spreading state. It was quite interesting to see why Monster.com had an edge over its competitors (mainly the paper/hard copy industry), and where the papers had an edge over them. End message was lightly connected to how easy it should be for e-business models to scale, and not to forget that.

The second session was with a guest speaker, (yes.. this early in the course. If you're shaking your head, remember that we had a guest speaker in B2BMM last quarter, in the first week itself!). He had helped to set up a system which allowed talented IT employees in the rural cities/second tier cities to work without having to come to the glamorous cosmo/metros. Apparently they work a little more on a cost-plus model, as they're giving existing companies a scare when they are charging half the price that's being quoted out here in Bangalore. Very interesting session... even though the speaker was a little easy to flummox with "MBA-ready" questions.

Research for Marketing Decisions

Yaaawwwwns and double yaawns...it's a good thing he's still on the basics. It might be easy to catch up with the actual content, as time passes by. Anyway, this week he spoke about the "lifecycle" of market research. About how we formulate a problem, prepare the questionnaire, sample it, and then actually take the survey, make some conclusions and present to the client.

Marketing Communications

This week was all about what kind of ads suit what kind of products. What are the factors you should consider for low involvement ads, high involvement ads, inspirational or transformational ad, and what not...

The next session was about how Coke and Pepsi went about their advertisements, and introduction into the Indian market. We even were asked to check out a few selective videos of the ads used, and keep in that in context. One of the major insights out of today was about how localized advertisements are being used, but also that the global theme is still at play. Only the actors may change, but the theme remains the same.

And now, back to the books... let's see if I can understand something after all.