IPL 2009

As it turned out finally the last toppers came down and 

last years bottom two teams were put in the final of IPL this year.

But what is more remarkable in this years game or ICL\IPL as a whole are following things:

1. Emergenece of Brand India

2. Emergence of a business within cricket, thus generating more scope for business

3. At game level, Better opportunity for Indian players to showcase themselves, which was earlier limited to only 11 players.

4. Cricket as a commodity rather than a Brand, this has led to lesser emotional value attached to cricket, hence now onwards cricket matches wont take as much time from normal public as it used to take.

5. Emergence of Cricket as a competetor to football/hockey.The earlier versions were too dull to attract newer countries.   

Launch of Forbes Magazine in India

          Is the post election time most suitable for launch of Forbes India, As it is told by Mr. Forbes? It is quite possible they might have got the permission for launching it deferred due to elections but whatever the reason i think its delayed by three months. But as it is said It is never late to mend. With share prices on the upward movement, what else would be a better time for launch of a brand like forbes business magazine than now?

         Again discussing about the pros and cons, Had they launched the magazine three months back they would have been able to position their brand as politico-business magazine instantly. With many analysts pouring their pens at the word go for a topic like election, they would have made a brand around India today, Outlook etc. But now they will have to settle around a brand like businessworld or business India etc. Which has definitely a limited public readership. And An english magazine like forbes with a niche brand image already set in the english readers mind, they will find it real hard to move beyond and find new readers later on.

        Coming to the launch of magazine itself, it is a welcome move from forbes side for we readers who used to refer to the global issue of economist or Asian issue of Time. This also strenghenes the view that India not only hold a unique cultural and tourist image in the mind of a foreigner but as a place of business happenings too. Forbes is definitely targeting a huge number of global executives presently in India or to have a good network in the south Asia region.

         

Analysis of election and Governance Awareness Survey Results

Aim of Study: "Election and Governance Awareness Survey among Youth" 

Participants: 24-30 yr old Youth

Survey Conducted by Sujit Kumar

Date of survey: 15th may 2009, A day before vote counting og MP election 2009.

No of respondents: 34

Voter Status among participants: 16% Voted

Major Findings:

1. Leadership suitable for Indian PM post have responses varying among the popular names like Narendra modi and Manmohan singh. This means a clear inclination towards either a tainted but solid performer or a Knowledgeable person who is not at all tainted but makes decisions with conviction. Manmohan singh despite being criticised many times had been very strong about implementing the Nuclear deal. Despite present slowdown, The youth didn’t underestimated the charisma of manmohan singh and have support to sail through better or worse time.
   
2. Development at personal level meant safer, society and better infrastructure for youth, which is imaginable given the dampening effects in the growth we have seen in the circumstances of Mumbai killings, various serial bomb blasts last year in 2008. Next the youth needed a better future for their children when they voted for Environmentally clean society.
   
3. Development of India can come through reducing poverty and illiteracy. Also open culture was one of the responses, which suggests us to leave the social stigmas and casteism like age old deplorable heritage being carried by us in the 21^st century too. The RamSene events in mangalore, which finally ended in suicide of one of the teenage girls are few examples of how backward we are by not promoting open culture.   
4.  In response to methods used to support government, the youth is determined to assist in various ways like promoting people to support government. They found methods beyond 5 suggested points. They spoke vocally about methods of improving governance and went to extremes like killing some politicians too.
   

Here one point is notable that the best option was to support the government rather than being fussy about it (less sneezing).

While we have seen earlier student movements targeted towards damaging public property, we had one response clearly telling that supporting government means not damaging public property.

                Clearly, India has a very good future with these determined souls to have a part in governance through serving the people, supporting the government. Some young brigade are thinking of even starting a social movement also.

                In the end, I would thank all the 33 respondents to take part in this survey and speak up about your responses and suggestions.

                             Jai Hind!!!

 © Copyright Sujit Kumar

Election and Governance Awareness level among Youth: A survey

It was 15^th may 2009. An evening before the result for assembly were scheduled to come out.

A survey regarding awareness about Election and Governance among the Indian Youth aged 24-30 was carried out on various aspects starting from their choice of PM to the basic questions of How would they participate in better governance. This online survey was conducted by me. 

Methodology: The number of questions was kept small (5) keeping in mind the nature and quality of responses, people give online.The answer choices included one space called others too whether the participants can enter their own choice of answers in text format if they differ or want to add upon the existing choices of Answers.

Sample: Around 33 youth (Age group 24-30) randomly selected from all parts of India were chosen to vote. A large number of participants were the MBA students of IIM Kozhikode, who are presently going through the summer Internship phase of their Studies. Around 20% of respondents were youth working throughout various cities of India. 

Response to Survey: The results were overwhelming. Many witty and realistic answers as it just reflected the whole India’s thinking.

Participation level in Election: As answered through a question itself, Around 16% of the participants were actual voters too, which is a very enthusiastic response in terms of being a responsive Citizen, as most of the participants are not in their hometown presently.

Questions and Responses:

Q. What matters to you most in terms of Development?

A) more salary 
B) Cleaner and less congested Roads
C) Safer society
D) Better and cheaper Education facilities
E) Less Inflation
F) Others

Responses: Here Safer society came first among the various options followed by others. In others, the respondents came up with following options:

- Education to all and Improvement in law and order
- loads of work so that we never get bored
- No poverty and No Illiteracy
- More pubs.
- One thing is dependent on another
- Upliftment of lower sections and Internal security
- Strong and Stable government with strong foreign Policy
- Food and shelter to everyone
- All of above options

Q3. What matters most for the country in terms of development?

The answer choices are:

A) Less Inflation
B) Less poverty
C) More education
D) More companies
E) More opprtunity for growth
F) Other

Responses: For our country, Youth understood the poverty as the biggest block towards development(33%) followed by education(option c) and more opportunity for growth (option e)( equally 27%). The answers among others were:

- Open culture
-All of above

Q5.How would you help the government do their work properly?

The answer Choices are:

A) by promoting people to support government
B) by promoting government packages among needy people
C) by joining an online group to promote govt packages
D) by joining an NGO
E) by keeping environment cleaner like not using plastic bags
F) Other

Responses: The answer option A by promoting people to support government came as first, Which underlines the faith of youth that change starts from them itself rather than from government. The close second was option E where Cleaner Environment was stressed upon. 

The second ranked option were also following four answers

- by serving people - By taking part in the government - By starting a Civil Movement - by sneezing less. - by following rules and not damaging public property. Also i would like to mention that it is almost impossible for working professionals to vote as they cannot go to their hometowns to vote wen they do not have leaves also. Probably the government would do better by inplementing a distance voting system/online system. - By killing few sick politicians and screwed up people - By killing bastards

Q1. preferred PM Candidate:

Responses: 

This was an open ended question, asked at the starting of the questionnaire itself to make them identify with the topic, This question had another reason to be asked as to check the clarity regarding Indian political situation and ability to select a candidate among a maze of politicians.Only if they can slect the PM candidate properly they can slect the local MP candidate properly, even though they can be of different parties but they identify with their choices and beliefs. 

There were two clear winners

1. Narendra Modi (30.33%)
2. Dr Manmohan Singh (21.21%)

L K Adwani came at third  with 12.12% vote followed by 
other choices of Rahul gandhi, Narayan Murthy(Infy), P Chidambaram, prakash karat, Abdul Kalam and Atal Behari vajpayee.

 © Copyright Sujit Kumar

A question about Downturn

It was 15^th April, one week since I joined as a summer trainee from IIM kozhikode in a startup named Ozonetel based in Hyderabad with a hope that the learning here would be much more than any of the established organisation. That was the day I started talking to prospective customers with a view that the product comes in their need they will buy, everything seemed to be ok. The targeted 1% conversion rate in the marketing cycle was what kept me going on for more and more lead generation across different sectors. It was a very happy journey. The product is actually a Unified Data manger, which would take continuos or scheduled automatic backup of several Networked Computers. The targeted sectors would be Media, Educational Institutions and Pharma etc. A Portion of the questionnaire prepared by me kept on incrementing itself with data as I reached more and more customers. I went on to understand the market, its buying behaviour and the need of customer as well as some learning on pricing till the day I met the distributors. The distributors are the people who make 20% conversion in the IT business and are most relied upon channel. I asked you buy one piece at a price of one nano and we will be always refilling it at your end and the benefits you will get would be somewhere around 30%. And that was the end of my whole hopeful and Enthusiastic part of my summer Internship. You may tell okay one would say that two would say that. But The story became more grim as I talked to more distributors. A distributor who has channels across India started telling me even slow money flow would have been okay but sir, here money is blocked daily many companies are going bust. I cannot promise you at this time. The other fellow who showed lot of interest and promise in our product finally disowned when we discussed about him keeping a unit in his store. The picture became more clear when I saw the distributors market’s seval offices shuuter closed and phones not working at all.

                        I never thought the market would have been so bad. And there was a reason to believe it. One of my friends S. Seetha, MD of Ceragem Branch at far flung location of kanchipuram is happily selling 10 units a month at a price of around 50000/- Rs per unit. Also she has a customer base of 300 per day interested in getting service, who down the line would become her customers. I myself reached a different place called retail shop and purchased a small pack of Colgate toothpaste at a whopping price of Rs32. As I was buying items I saw consumers purchasing items without any difficulty. What went wrong then?

                        Am I mistaking myself in merging B2B and B2C market place. I never feel there is a difference in these two markets . I strongly believe there is a cyclical interconnection in them. Understanding the B2C market in a locality would make you understand the dependent B2B market. Can we still question and try to understand what went wrong?