Orange Cream Biscuits

I had fallen into this habit of eating orange cream biscuits when I was at Chennai during the summer season. Being new to the place and not knowing Tamil, I preferred to go to shopping places (MTO's) like Heritage, Spencers, Lifestyle, etc for buying the biscuits.
Now at the stores the following biscuits were available:

So, going w.r.t cost per 100 gram of the biscuit, we see that Parle is the clear winner and it offers the maximum weight for a rupee.
However, before concluding anything w.r.t value for money, we also need to consider other things like taste, hardness, etc.
In my opinion the taste of all the above biscuits except, the Complan biscuits, is similar and not much differences can be attributed to taste. (Complan biscuits taste a bit like medicine).
In terms of the hardness of the biscuits, I found that the Sunfeast Special orange cream biscuits were a bit tough and needed quite an effort to break inside mouth. The other biscuits were comparatively soft and could be easily handled by my teeth. (Meaning the moisture content in the Sunfeast Special orange biscuit is less as compared to other biscuits).
Thus, in terms of properties which I look for in an orange biscuit - Taste, Value for money (here weight), hardness, Parle Kreams is the best.  All this was w.r.t consumer’s point of view.
However, thinking from the point of view of the company, I feel that Parle is losing out w.r.t ITC and Britannia. Britannia is the market leader in cream biscuits market even though it charges the highest per 100 grams (Complan can be left out of discussion due to its taste and positioning as a complete food) Parle is charging less for what the consumers are willing to pay more. Why not cash in? Why is Parle not getting aggressive? ITC on the other hand is currently applying the best strategy. It has orange cream biscuits at both the Rs 5 and the Rs.10 price levels. In addition, I found that ITC biscuits were replenished every 5 days or so thereby keeping the shelf always filled with biscuits. On the other hand, Parle biscuit shelves were always half filled or so suggesting that the focus on the distribution of Parle isn't as good as that of ITC. Britannia's replenishment was moderate i.e not as frequent as that of ITC but not as low as that of Parle Kreams. Currently, Britannia is the market leader in the orange cream biscuit segment. However, because it is charging the most and new player like ITC is introducing new pack sizes at both higher and lower prices, I believe that ITC will surpass Britannia in this segment.
Thus, if we think with respect to company, I feel ITC is doing the right thing while thinking from consumers point of view, Parle is better.
 
Conclusion: It is not always necessary that the consumer is always right. If we think only from the point of view of consumer, we might lose out on creating shareholder value. Thus, marketing personnel should be aware that doing too much for consumer can be detrimental to the sole purpose of the company.

Decision Making - An irony in life

I have often felt that life is all about making decisions – be it with regards to work, children, parents or society. Every decision taken by a person is the determinant of what he/she is likely to face in the future. The path on which a person walks is shaped by the various decisions taken by him. An appropriate and a wise decision could get person lots of goodwill and success while an inappropriate decision could lead to misery. So, it is extremely important for individuals to take appropriate decisions.

Now, at every point of life we take decisions - be it deciding about which clothes to wear for a birthday or buying/ renting  a house or getting gifts for friends or choosing a stock in the market.  Some decisions have a short-term impact on our life while other decisions have a long-term impact. Ideally, for a better life in future, the long-term impacting decisions need to be taken with more care and thought as compared to decisions which do not have such a long-term impact. These long term decisions should be taken considering all the pros and cons critically. So, the time required for a long-term impact decision should be more as compared to short-term impact. But does it actually happen?

Consider the following situations.

1. Gift to be bought for a friend for his birthday - We do a thorough review on his belongings and find out what he is in need of. In addition, we also keep an open ear for his desires so as to know what is he longing for and so on. I typically start thinking about the gift 1 week in advance before the present is to be gifted. A lot of consultations and discussions occur before arriving at the final decision.  Thus, for deciding the time required to do a simple thing such as this, we take close to 7 days.

 2. Campus recruitment - Typically, in an engineering college or a B-School, students are intimated about a company 1 or 2 days before the recruitment day. The ppt by the company happens just before the process of recruitment begins. We are left with no more than 30 minutes to decide whether we want to join the organization or not. The exact details like the location of job, the salary package and the exact work profile are told only during the ppt. While it is true that in the 1 or 2 days when we have been intimated about the company, we can do some research by asking peers, seniors, etc about the company, the exact details are only obtained only during the ppt. So, a decision has to be made considering the newly added parameters within 30 minutes or so.

Thus, for taking a decision for a job which could have a long term impact w.r.t career and future, we are left with less than 30 minutes while for a trivial matter like a gift, we get full week for decision. Such an irony.

Yet, another example where the irony is visible is the arrange marriage decision. We need to take a decision about our life partner in around 2 or 3 meetings and that too short duration meetings of 1 hour each or so. I mean such a major decision - marriage - has to be taken by meeting a person (with whom we wish to spend rest of our life) for a total of only 3 hours.

Thus, I conclude that the time given to take a decision is inversely dependent on the amount of the long-term impact the decision is going to make in one’s life. Greater the long-term impact of the decision, lesser is the time given to take the decision and vice versa.

What else do you learn at MBA !!

I am a big fan of Bhel Puri and Samosa Chat. The taste, the variety, the mixture of different chutneys, the salt, the sev, etc all make my mouth water as soon as I see it some a Bhel Puri stall. During my stay at Chennai, I have found a lot of Bhel Puri stalls at T nagar and at Adyar area. However, the Bhel Puri at Chennai is quite expensive. The lowest charge of Bhel Puri I've found out is not less than Rs. 20. The average cost is around Rs. 25. I've tried Bhel Puri at many places like Sangeetha hotal, some tapris here and there, the Sri Krishna Sweets, etc. However, I haven't been satisfied with the taste of the Bhel Puri anywhere. The best taste (Chennai ka best) I've ever had was at a small stall near Adyar fly over. While the place where I found a good Bhel Puri isn't important, what I feel is worth considering is the young man who operates the Bhel Puri stall.

The stall he operates through is heavily coloured with the menu written on the front side and pictures of different chaat items on the sides. He calls himself a 'self employed' youth and makes it a point that people notice it. It is written in bold letters at the top of the stall.
As soon as I entered the premises, he greeted me with a welcoming smile, asked me what will I have and then quickly started making the chaat item I ordered. While he was preparing the food, he started talking to me about my whereabouts and telling me about his hometown. During the talks he said that the speciality of his stall was that it is the most hygienic Bhel Puri stall in the area. I had a glance at his table and I actually found the whole table very clean with different chutneys and other stuff stacked properly in the small space. He also kept his stove a good 1 meter away from other stuff, a rare sight at Bhel Puri stalls. (Generally, people keep all sort of things around the stove creating a potential hazard). He said that for customer satisfaction, hygiene is the most important factor 'Agar khana acha aur hygienic hai toh customer phir se aayega'. He chatted with me for quite sometime until he had other customer. However, even while serving them, he asked me whether I'll have chutney or any other thing for about 3 times. (Customer care and service).
As I looked around, I found that he had a covered dustbin a good 10 metres away from the stall, water (some mineral water brand I can't remember) too kept around.
After I was done with the chaat, he asked me whether the food was fine or not. (How many stall owners ask this?). The chaat was also not expensive. Infact, it was among the lowest charge I paid for a samosa chaat at Chennai. (Rs. 20). While going he asked me to visit again and gave me a masala puri.
He jokingly said - "Mera customer hamesha wapas aata hai. Hum sabse acha service aur khana deta hai".
Now that is quite an exaggeration but still, I will visit him at least once again definitely.

Why?
1. Good, hygienic food (Product)
2. Cheap compared to others around (Price)
3. Customer Satisfaction provided
4. Aims to build up a good relationship (Promotion)
5. Located at the heart of Adyar (Place)

What else do we learn at an MBA? A young Bhel Puri owner also knows it!

Thoughts on National Anthem

Today, after a very long time (because I've not been to cinema hall for a very long time now), probably after the 15th August last year (I missed the anthem on this Republic day too) I heard the national anthem tune being played on television right before the all important India - Sri Lanka 20-20 world Cup match. I'd seen the anthem played before the commonwealth games and the Olympics games but before a cricket match this was the first occasion.
The reasons why a national anthem becomes important before a sport may be as:

• Get inspired to perform to the utmost potential
• Get a sense of feeling that a player is playing for his national team (May act as a Great motivation)
• Get patroitic

But the most funny reason I obtained was -

• because of national anthem being sung, the players will atleast feel a sense of responsibility towards the country and not indulge in things such as match fixing and betting.

On a serious note, after hearing the national anthem tune I really felt a bit energetic. I felt like doing something for our country. I felt the urge to help develop our country and make it a global power.
Such is the power of national anthem. It has the ability to inspire everyone.

In India, national anthem is played at schools regularly. (everyday). But as one becomes old, as one joins college, office, etc one rarely hears the national anthem. Only when one goes to cinema hall for a movie or during National days, we listen to the anthem. One gets distanced from the wonderful song.
I feel the song should be played at more places and more occasions (and yes without any change in its playing rules like 52 seconds). This will help foster patriotism and help the country as the case with the players. Who knows playing national anthem in government offices daily  might help to reduce corruption.!!

Shopping Malls

I generally avoid going to shopping malls to buy household things like oil, toothpaste, etc. My intention is to provide business to small shop owners and help them in whatever small way I can. But however, in Chennai, because of the language barrier, I have decided to go to shopping malls for buying these items.
So, I entered a shopping mall at Adyar (one of the most expensive and better places in chennai to live in).
The mall provided a wonderful atmosphere to shop - ample of space and AC (Relief from the heat and humidity outside).
Things were kept in the best possible orderly manner. Everything was in its place and I could find FMCG items of almost all the I knew about.

I had pre-decided the items to be bought so that I do not have to waste too much time. (Only the brand decision was left to be done on the spot depending on availability). I was of the opinion that one should enter a mall with the list of items to be bought otherwise one ends up buying unnecessary things and spending lots of money. I've always given this advice to my mother and aunts.
But after I entered the mall the orderliness of the mall, the atmosphere there, the availability of things right in front of eyes and the freedom to touch the things couldn't help me resist buying a lot of things which I had not planned. I bought chocolates, biscuits, etc which I hadn't planned. The marketer just got the better of me. So, not I accept that it isn't possible to buy exactly from the list. I'll now stop giving advices to mom and others. No more suggestions


I observed one more thing in the mall. The biscuit section had biscuits - Britannia, Parle and Sunfeast. Each company had its own brand in each biscuit category. I found that for the same weight of biscuit (and same biscuit category), the prices of Britannia biscuits were Rs 1 or 2 higher than of other two companies. Seems like Britannia has milking as its corporate strategy. Also, I found one more thing. Bourbon biscuit which is a fantastic Britannia product is now sold as the original Bourbon name. It is sold still at Rs 12. However, I found that the weight of the pack has reduced. Thus, for Rs. 12, Britannia is now giving less biscuits (about 10 grams less). Not fair.
Thus, Britannia is following a milking strategy to by charging more or reducing the weights of the packs. Existing customers like me are bound to notice this and shift to other company products like I did and bought Sunfeast biscuit pack.
(Although biscuit was not in my list of items to be bought :P)

Summer Training - Is it really required?

It is summer time when people doing MBA are forced to do a 2 months summer internship job at some company. I am pursuing my summers at Ashok Leyland in the beautiful city of Chennai.
Some of the experience I have had with the company:

• The company HR started working on our projects only after we joined the office. No prior thought was given with regards to the project to be allocated.
• The HR just escorted me to some person in the sourcing department and then left everything about my training to the poor guy. He had to talk to his boss and after giving a thought for 2 days, he finally made up a project and assigned me a project called 'Costing of electrical wiring harness'. He then introduced me to some other guy in the department and asked him to explain me the project details. He tried explaining it to me but then he just gave me some excel files and said that I could myself do the project. So, on a whole, I have not been adequately briefed about my project and I have to find a way myself to do costing and fit the collected data in the excel sheet.
• Now I report to no one. The junior guy expects me to report the senior and the senior guy expects me to report to the junior.
• And so on....

I guess this occurs in almost all big companies where the summer internship is just meant for enhancing the company brand value and its ties with B Schools. (No motive of knowledge transfer)
And this attitude of companies is completely justified. I mean why should a big company incur so much cost and invest so much time on a summer intern who is just going to leave the company in 2 months time. Why waste time of an employee who could actually utilize the time for company affairs instead of training the 2 month summer trainee?
Some people believe that summer training projects should be really very thorough and should be live projects. Why should a company go through the pain of creating such projects, explaining it to the trainees and then paying them for work? And why should confidential information be provided to MBA students who will be out in 2 months ready to spill all the data out to the world? Also why should company give them tough and critical projects? I mean how can the company trust on the trainee's ability to solve problems which are critical to the company.
Also, the project may or may not appeal to the trainee.

Due to the above mentioned problems, summer trainees are given some simple jargonised projects which appear to be complex to keep them interested. A lot of jargons like Analysis, Feasibility, Modelling, Strategy, etc are used in the project titles. These projects aren't very critical from the point of view of the organizaiton and most of the projects aren't even read by the mentors. The project reports lie in the HR's cabin and serve no purpose. Summer training becomes just a PR activity nothing else.

This brings me to the point that if neither the company nor a trainee (no value addition) is to gain anything by the exercise of summer training, why should this exercise be made compulsory in a B School? It may actually prove to be counter productive - the company has to assign an employee to the trainee, which it could have utilized for a productive purpose, and the student could have learnt more over the internet and the library.
Some may argue that in a summer training, students are exposed to the corporate culture for the first time in their lives and this may prove to be beneficial when they join their final job. Now this arguement has some merit. But when we look at the demographic profile of the students at a B School, more than 50% students already have worked at some place. So, they have been exposed to the corporate culture and stuff like that.
So, for atleast these 50 % students, I feel that summer training is a redundant exercise. A lot of time is wasted and not much is gained. Why should 200 marks be assigned to such a futile exercise. Instead of the training where a trainee has to wait for the mentors attention, wait for data, wait for internet, etc. a student can read a lot and learn many many useful things in his field of interest in the 2 months.

Consider my case: I have been in the corporate office and have been assigned a very insignificant project which has almost no use. (Verify the cost of the material provided by a vendor). I have not much to learn from this project and at the same time, the company has nothing to gain from the project. It can be done by an experienced person in 2-3 days only. It is better I do not do this project and read.

Hence, I conclude that for a person with a prior work experience, the summer training should be optional and not compulsory.

Caller Tune

I have always disliked the caller tunes and I never prefer to have one for my mobile phone.

• Because the person being called likes the song the caller has to hear it. Ridiculous. The person who likes the song doesn’t listen to it but some other people have to listen to it. Doesn’t serve the purpose. A person pays Rs. 25 per month for others to listen to a song. (Don’t get the logic behind this).
• The song can actually act as detrimental if we are to believe that music affects a person’s thoughts and his mood is affected by music. A person who is cheerful and wants to tell the good news to a person who has put up a sad caller tune might become less cheerful while telling the news. Even bad is the opposite situation. When a bad news is to be communicated and rock music is played as a caller tune, it irritates the caller.
• Some time is wasted on commenting about the song which actually lengthens the call time and consequently we end up paying more to the telecom service provider.

An interesting situation occurred in the Ashok Leyland office.

I have been assigned the Strategic Sourcing Department there. The department comprises members who do purchasing jobs along with scheduling, costing, EOQ and other sourcing and purchasing functions. Here, there are numerous calls made to suppliers for quick and timely supply of the required materials. The purchase function is quite important here because the company works with low levels of inventory and so for the assembly line in their factories to function properly and not halt, the purchase section has to be always on its toes and get the materials as and when required. So, there is a lot of shouting and screaming, pleading over the phone that takes place in order to get materials. For suppliers where Ashok Leyland has a higher bargaining power, supplier is shouted at and made to supply the material at a short notice and when the supplier is big and has a higher bargaining power, the purchase managers request and plead over the phone for faster delivery. This is quite a common scene in most of the purchasing departments. (So much for background)
There is a man in his late 40’s quite frustrated with his job who walks into the cabin where I sit (or pass time playing games and reading books) everyday to make phone calls using a phone in the room. (Don’t know why he calls from the room rather than his desk). One day, he was quite angry at suppliers because a part required on Monday wasn’t shipped till Thursday and a delay of one more day in shipping would make it difficult to Leyland. So, he decided to call up the supplier. Very angry with the suppliers, he was sure going to blast the person who was going to attend his call. Generally, the man calls keeping his phone on loudspeaker mode. (Don’t yet the reason for this behavior). So, I could listen to him calling. As soon as he dialed the number, a caller tune started. The caller tune was not just a song of a movie or a pop album. The caller tune was a religious one - May be a Tamil Aarti or something. The caller knew the song and he started humming it. After hearing the song, the person appeared to be quite calm (compared to what he was before). Because of the song now the person told he supplier in plain words that he wanted the part asap– No bad words used nor there was any shouting. The caller tune changed the whole course of action. It made things go differently. The whole conversation was steered from being a raucous to being a dignified by a caller tune. Such is the power of a caller tune. The reverse may also happen and a conversation could turn from calm to a rowdy one because of the caller tune. Thus, it is better to not have a caller tune.

Chennai Central Station - Some observations

Chennai Central
Date: 11-04-2010.
While I was moving out of the Chennai Central station towards the parking lot with the two people sent by Hanif Bhai (Really thankful to him for arranging for my transport in this new city. Hats off to my father and his friends), I observed the following:
1. The Chennai Central platforms had very few shops where food, magazines, newspapers, etc are sold as compared to Mumbai or Pune stations where on each platform, we come across 1 or 2 such small stores (or khokas)
2. The Chennai Central had quite a lot of people working as a part of South Western Maintenance staff. These people cleaned the train and looked after the maintenance of the coaches from inside. (This isn’t observed in Mumbai Central or CST. Atleast, I haven’t come across such staff)
3. The announcements were made in a lot of languages including English and Hindi. Also, the announcement was loud and clear unlike many other stations in Mumbai and even Sangli where the quality of sound of the announcements isn’t so good.
4. The people in the station were quite disciplined. A waiting area is present at the Chennai Central station for sitting about 200 people. I observed the whole waiting area full of people waiting patiently watching Television (But Local language). There wasn’t any commotion as seen in Mumbai CST station. The waiting area at CST should be revamped and some arrangements like those at Chennai Central should be considered
5. A distinct thing observed at Chennai station was the existence of Dormitories – both for Men and Women and that too at cheap rates of Rs. 80 per person. It makes things easier for a person travelling alone and who has come for a day or two. There were also separate arrangements for AC and other upper classes. CST, Pune stations lack this feature. I feel that commercial places like Pune, Mumbai, etc should have dormitories in place so that people can change, have a bath there and leave for work directly from the station. It can also add to the revenue of the India Railways. They should at least give this concept a try.
6. Entrance/ Exit – I came across 2 exit points and around 2 entrance points to the station (There could be some more). However, they kept open only 1 entrance and 1 exit point for security reasons which I found good. (Other stations can also learn from such a security arrangement)
7. Parking/ Taxi area – The Taxi/ auto areas were clearly demarcated from the private vehicle parking area which prevented any unknown vehicle from coming near the entrance of the station. This arrangement also ensures that the coolies at the Chennai Central station get a good business transporting luggage from station to private parking space. Also, each private vehicle is charged about Rs 10 per hour or so. At CST, the rates are quite less while at Pune, I think it is free. (Valuable revenue lost by IR at these places).
8. Chennai Central station is able to turnaround coaches faster as compared to CST. (Only 1 data point available – still it proves). The train coaches at Chennai are cleaned, water filled and checked right at the stations, whereas at CST such a facility isn’t available. For water filling and other activities, the coaches need to move to a place between Masjid and CST, where such equipment are available. Hence, the train turnaround time is lesser at Chennai Central as compared to Mumbai CST.