Good Morning Ishan

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

ARE ENTREPRENEURS BORN OR MADE

If you nurture your mind, body, and spirit, your time will expand. You will gain a new perspective that will allow you to accomplish much more.”

- Brian Koslow

MARK ZUCKERBERG CO-FOUNDER OF FACEBOOK MAY BE AN FORTUNITOUS BILLIONAIRE, BUT MANY OF HIS GENERATION ARE WILLING TO TAKE CALCULATED RISKS TO OPT A CAREER IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

The film, The Social Network, based on the life of American entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of the social networking site Facebook, has struck a harmony with many a youngster. Not simply because of the popularity of Facebook, but also because of his entrepreneurial skills, as more of Next Generation are taking the risk to launch their own ventures. In fact, post-recession entrepreneurship has become a fashionable and popular career option. This is because entrepreneurs are seldom motivated by necessity and opportunity. Candida G Brush, professor and chair-Entrepreneurship Division, Babson College, US, defines entrepreneurship as a mindset. An approach to solving problems, a way of creating, launching or growing a venture it can take place in any context (corporate, government, family, non-profit or a de novo startup ).It involves identifying or creating opportunities, acquiring the resources and providing the leadership to create something of value (either social or economic).

Case Study

The New Boss

One of the largest NGOs in Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal is the Environment Protection agency. The grant management section of its water division was formed seven years ago. The main functions of this division are to review applications for grants, engineering designs and requests for change. It also inspects the operation and maintenance of wastewater treatment facilities. Four engineers, one technician and one secretary-cum-programmer reported to Prem Sharan, head of the section. Prem was 36 years old and had headed the section since its inception. He had earned a good reputation or his technical acumen and dedication. Three of the engineers had joined the section recently. The senior engineer, R. Sundaram, had been working there for the last four years. Prem had personally trained him. Because of his experience and expertise, Prem had allotted to him the areas with the most complicated projects. The other three engineers were given less complex regions. They were asked to work closely with Sundaram and learn all they could about the section’s work. At the beginning of the year, Prem decided that the new engineers had gained enough experience to undertake more difficult tasks. He divided the territory on a geographical basis. This section worked fine and the section was able to meet all its objectives.

Mahindra to roll out 1^st aircraft by March
RIL complains over red tape
Vodafone says ok with Essar IPO

Thought of the day

“It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible but for what we do not do.”

-Jean-Baptiste Molière

Marketing Glossary

DAGMAR

A process of establishing goals for an ad campaign such that it is possible to determine whether or not the goals have been met. It stands for Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results.

Day-After Recall Test

The research method that test consumer’s memories after the day they have seen the ad just to check the ad effectiveness.

Direct Mail

Marketing communications delivered directly to a prospective purchaser via the U.S. Postal Service or a private delivery company.

New Product Introduction

Funskool has launched Guess Who Mix & Mash. The game consists of 3,000 character cards featuring mouths, eyes and heads which can be used to play two sets of games, ‘Guess your face' and ‘Wacky faces'. It is priced at Rs 499 and meant for children above the age of eight years.

Basics of Quality Management

Every individual buys products or avails a service only if he is satisfied for the money he spends. So, what do you think are the areas for the marketers to worry about in order to satisfy their customer expectations? In fact, there are many like quality of the product or a service, its price, its usage rate, ease of disposability etc...

However in India, people are more aligned towards the quality of the product for a low price. So what is quality all about? The term quality refers to the characteristic property of an indispensable and distinguishing attribute of something or someone. It is determined by the product users or end consumers and not by the society in general. That would mean higher the quality of a product or a service, higher will be its demand and in turn higher sales. But it also does not mean, "Expensive" products have better quality.

Quality management is a phenomenon of focusing on a product or service's quality. Moreover, it also focuses on the ways to achieve it. Unlike the production concept where the customers had no options and had to consume products in spite of their low quality, Quality management has evolved with the marketing concept, wherein the customers are treated as the very purpose of the day to day business. Furthermore Quality Management is considered to have 4 main components:

Essar Group hits back at Vodafone

The Essar Group accused its partner Vodafone of abusing the legal process to prevent the discovery of the fair value of its stake in Vodafone Essar Ltd (VEL), hitting back at the UK-based company's allegations of wrongdoing.

On Tuesday, Vodafone, the world's largest telecom service provider by revenue, said that it had written to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the stock exchanges, asking them to investigate allegedly questionable activities carried out by Essar-controlled listed entity India Securities Ltd (ISL). Vodafone has alleged insider trading by ISL as well as improper disclosures made by the firm.

Case Study

Crisis Management at Toyota

The case study is about crisis management at the Japan-based Toyota Motors Corporation, one of the largest automakers in the world. In January 2010, Toyota was forced to recall millions of cars after problems with braking, floor mats and acceleration pedals in its vehicles. The recalls even led Toyota to halt sales and production of eight of its most popular models. Due to growing number of recalls, sales plummeted thereby affecting the company's position in the global automotive industry. Analysts began to question Toyota's legendary quality and felt that the recalls represented a major failure on part of the company. After the recalls, Toyota went into crisis management mode and announced a fix for the accelerator problem.

The case describes the various crisis management initiatives undertaken by the company to regain the trust of customers and restore its image as a quality automaker.