Cold Storage- Singapore ( Marketing lesson)

Today, for the 1st time, I experienced what I had actually learnt in class. 

Our Org Behaviour Prof spoke about a company called NORDSTORM- A true story about how far they would go to satisfy their customer

"A person goes to their customer service counter and Say's that he is not happy with the product he has taken and would like to return it. The sales person takes the tyre, ask for the receipt and when the customer say that he might have misplaced it, the sales person just takes the product, asks the customer for the price that the product was bought for with a smile reaches the cash counter and returns him the money", later it was found that NORDSTORM does not deal with any automobile parts. ;)

Link to the story: http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/nordstrom.asp

Something similar happened to my this afternoon. I went to the cold storage ( A mall like the food worlds and the food bazaar's) and I picked up a bag of MILO. The amount mentioned below was $ 5.90 and when I got it billed it showed $7.30. I asked for a clarification and the cashier said that the amount is pre-installed into the system. The store manager was called and when we checked, the MILO was kept on a wrong shelf. It actually costed $7.30. However as I had already bought it, the store manager billed me for $5.90 and also apologised for the mistake.

This is what we call.... Customer Based Marketing and how companies earn their loyal customers.

Holi @ 3:00 am at SPJCM

This was a true experience of sorts for me. For a person who has never experienced hostel life.... an MBA is a must.... the experiences one takes from every person that you come across, from every incident that you come across is priceless.

"Nokia was established in 1865 as a wood-pulp mill by Fredrik Idestam. The name Nokia originated from the river which flowed through the town. The river itself, Nokianvirta, was named after the old Finnish word originally meaning a dark, furry animal that was locally known as the nokia. And its entry into the telecommunication sector was a pure accident or you may say ......."

That's exactly what happened to us. 

We were sitting in the library studying for our end term today and a case study (Corp Finance) and the May batch were all working on their Dissertation. A sudden plan to play holi at 3 am and everybody were down to play. An experience that would not be forgotten for years.

GiMBA rocks

The friday that was--- at SPJCM

I was studying Org Behaviour and abruptly, I had this "burning desire" to write about TODAY.

A rollercoaster day :)

Sans any procrastination I am starting to write before the zeal to write dies down. The only motivation to do anything these days are deadlines and nothing else.

Started our day with an Org Behaviour Quiz at 8:50 am ( 50% of the junta didn't know that)

followed by a Corporate Finance surprise Quiz for 20 min and even before we could get over the shock, the prof comes in and says " students please sit in your places- I would be starting my lecture"

He goes on till 11:00 am ( which means we didn't have our well deserved break for breakfast), the next prof comes in without any delay and starts with team work and team building and cohesiveness and NASA and..... ufff --- ends his lecture with a video. We then get to have our lunch and by 1:30pm we are again on our seats for Business Communication and then for the icing on the cake we have our Cost Accounting prof coming in with a bunch of papers asking us to close our laptops and books and there we go..... the magic words " Surprise Quiz" again..... we had our 15 min quiz and then followed by a group work for 90 min. The day came to an end at 5:30 with all of us walking back to our rooms as wounded soldiers. 

Gosh..... what a day :) A day worth remembering or are we in for something more. As our OB prof said " the bad is yet to happen"

My group for marketing and research methods

I just felt like writing about my group 

Team members-   Ankush ,Kamal,Shubham,Tanushree & Shyam 

We had the most memorable time of our stay at GiMBA 

We had to complete 12 assignments of RM and 2 presentations for MM (Marketing Management). 

RM was all about how well we all wasted our time fighting over trivial matters and MM was how everyone got together and finished it. 

As they say.. 

Alls well that ends well.

A little unhappy that we will be going into new groups. Anyway as always... Life is like that. You have to go on.

My next blog would be about a typical day at SPJCM. :)

This is what we call disruptive Marketing

Disruptive Marketing is not just about creating disruption and displacing established market participants. It’s also about how established participants respond to and ultimately capitalize on (and sometimes eliminate) disruptive threats.

The week before and after the 10krun

Nothing much has been happening in life after I came back from a vacation in Hyd. Got converted into a workaholic for the week as I had to complete and also get a few files updated by my team members (huge responsibility, I really wonder how all these managers manage people... its very difficult) and also increase my percentage in cedent closing (only my colleagues from Swiss Re would understand). Got everything in place by 4:30 on Friday and was on my way to meet a few friends for Go-Karting and dinner. Saturday was the day for the cleaning and rest after a long and an exhausting week and also had to conserve all my energy for the big day... the 10K run. Sunday started off the way it should as I was geared up for the run. I was overwhelmed with joy seeing so many participants running for different causes(AIDS awareness, Orphanages, reading books, different NGO's). It was really nice to see nice things happening around me and also special thanx to Kingfisher who had announced a special price the best looking runner in the Majja Run, which made the run even more colourful. The run ended at around 11:30 and we all had loads of photo sessions. Looking forward for a great week ahead...

Bush-o-nomics

Blogging after a long time, and this time its Mr. Bush who has provoked(guess this word is a misfit here) me to write.....

I really don't understand why does he have to make economic statements sans any data/info as he very well knows that his every word will be heard on every part of this globe. He was never known for is economic sense and he has just proved once again how comprehensively wrong he is to say that the demand for food in India is causing an increase in global good prices. This is what he had to say....(taken from news bits online and from the Newspapers)

"There are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That's bigger than America ... and when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up," Mr.Bush said, according to a White House transcript.
What I also fail to comprehend is that Mr. Bush, whose words play a pivotal role on the world economics, had such comments about India in front of such elite audience.
These comments have had an impact in India on the political front as well, with our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's silence over Bush's remarks. The BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi jumped up to the occasion said "He has got only a few days left in office and at least he should now stand up to protect the country's honour and dignity".
And by the way I really don't think that there are 350 million middle class people in India. Another info from the net.
"McKinsey Global Institute last year estimated India's middle classes numbered only 50 million"
Lets see what he still has in store till an Obhama or a Clinton comes in.
That's all on the world front.
Its really nice to be back home, have taken a day off today as I wanted to be with my sister on her B'day. Will be in Hyderabad for the weekend. Now gearing up to watch the IPL with my dad. Hope Deccan Chargers win.