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? 

Fight The Slowdown

The present downturn has sent much shockwaves among the CEOs than earlier downturns in 1997 or 2002. They have realised now how big companies like GM can even not survive. While It was crime to speak too much beyond you can do like in Enron till now but it is self defeating in present situation. Even General Motors which had been talking of resurgence in market share have not been able to even sustain the downturn rate. As an Indian saying goes that “Whatever you eat is what makes you think. Whatever you think is what makes you speak and whatever you speak is what makes you act, So keep your food right to keep your action right”. The hoopla created by big companies will no longer be a survival strategy. The reality and being true to your organisation and stakeholders will define the success or failure of an Organisation in coming future.

The time has come when the companies will look not on their Income but again cash in hand. The cashflow would define the prospects. The method followed through leverage having shown the tricks to businessmen, they will be cautious now onwards to take it day by day basis rather than quarter basis. The look for quarterly growth and yearly growth would soon shorten to daily growth. “Look and Judge now” should become the mantra of Organisation heads rather than “act now, reap now and let them face the results”.

The miniaturization of Organisation would help one evaluate the work of each one more judiciously as well as it would make the company more result oriented rather than function oriented. Companies like GM would have to live in new age world as a co-branded company. The Customer would directly know who all involved in this product and hence make a decision on their own. The Automobile industry would also look for a concept like dell where you customize a car of your own choice pay for it and get deliverd in a week at your doorstep. Going more deeper into this aspect would reveal similar future for other consumer segments too.

The Research and development Expenditure will have to be spent judiciously and selectively. The output oriented approach as addressed by several marketer would not work as many researches are a result of serendipity itself. But studying market flow and understanding the wave of market would definitely help the CEOs to get direction. As dicussed above the R&D organisation would also thrive on their core competence. A concept of central funding can be brought into action where a group of companies or consortium would invest in few r&d companies to develop product for them. This would make it easy for companies to focus on their output and goal.

But at the end of all such discussion, we should not forget the thriving rural business. So what should be done to tap this market? The fundamental difference lies in the rural-urban divide in term of growth and development. Definitely the rural areas are lacking behind the urban areas by at least 20 years. The buying behaviour much depends on the social aspirations which drived the urban business few years back. But then comes another fact that volume for costlier products is less in this rural market. So, Organisation should come up with innovations in all the segments suited for this market in the income range they can pay. Here you just need to build the market simultaneously also through making cash flow easier. The rural customer would be a lot happy if he feels himself secure and well connected in a developing and growing environment. So a holistic approach from all products would make the market afloat. Huge investment in one sector would just create a short term demand. The solution is orient your business towards rural sector with all other products of various needs also available at their doorstep, Then the money will have a continuous flow and make everyone happy.  

copyright  sujit kumar, IIM Kozhikode

Bharat matrimony

Kabhi kabhi mujhe lagta hai.. ye ladkiyan dikhti to achi hain.. par koi inse shadi kyun nahin karta!!!

koi khot to nahin!!!

ho sakta hai camre me achi dikhti hongi bas.. ya fir kisi ka mask laga liya hoga!!! may be ,anything is possible!

Awesome and Ulti

The two words: one pronunciated in whole other in half... might be due to the later one's sheer size and the redundacy of letters after initial four letter which is not the case with the former one.

for those who still cant guess whats ulti its ultimate.

ulti was (or perhaps is) the word used in IITR to select or deselect something as really great and cant be replicated without true effort.

Awesome similarly is used in the same sense but in IIMK.

Is it just the zonal and cultural differences that make the differences ithe words used for the same meaning. cant say!

some similar lingo at IIMK are: ghissu( incidently same as that used in IITR), do it for k. 

IITR was more creative in this sense may be due to its long past and culture.few of lingo used there were - Chapo, fuchha, room Baap(dont know whether it still continues), FOKI...

Grassroots at IIM Kozhikode

The social service group launched its annual event grassroots, where The Indian flying queen Ms. P T Usha came as a chief guest. 

The saturday afternoon usually meant for taking snap inside room turned to the hillside lake and enjoyed to the fullest with the budding  stars in the form of children, enthusiastic as ever.

K-scope launched at IIMK

today i launched K-scope at IIMK..

felt good after a baffling Economics quiz.

first was movie ghazini to be telecasted at 10pm. then dark knight at 1210AM morning..

ghazini starts my two most favourite stars Amir and Asin...

Asin whose song aiyyo aiyyo i can never forget!!!

Hope to run K-Scope for long time!!!