Why MBA

In my previous posts I have always criticized Masters of Business Administration course and its usefulness. This post will be a welcome break.

During any MBA interview "Why MBA" is always asked. Lesser mortals like us have limited foresight of the future and we end my giving cliché answers. Few top answers are

1. I want to be an entrepreneur

2. I am a Manager in the Making

3. I want to expertise in Finance, so on and so forth.

I will present my perspective on this Legendary Question. I would like to start by squashing myths about Entrepreneurship and MBA. MBA can never inculcate entrepreneurial traits in anybody. Though, it can easily take them away. It is because of the inherit structure of the whole MBA course. You will learn Marketing, Finance, HR, Ops, Systems but not entrepreneurship. Best route to be an entrepreneurship is to become one. Nothing else matters.

MBA for me is about following things.

1. Change of Perspectives: As an undergraduate or working in the technical arena the way we look at things is different. For example 3 years back when I used to see an aircraft I used to think about the great engineering effort that must have gone into building it. Formula 1 was the mother of my imagination. But now Formula 1 is more of a brand to me rather than anything else. WWF now is a legendary because of the way they market themselves rather than anything else. You are able to appreciate a TVC commercial, in a new manner.

2. Environment: I have always believed that the culture and environment around you changes you as much as you change it. When you are among bunch of smart people, who talk about MBA fundas all day night, they way you perceive things also change. The Environment helps in transition of Technology oriented mind to business oriented mind, which is an important goal of MBA. One is better able to appreciate important terms like Positioning, Market risk, Prime lending rate…

3. Meeting Business leaders: Meeting and listening to top business leaders can influence your thought process more than anything else. As a part of MBA program one gets ample opportunities to meet these great thinkers. It is also about the self realization that happens after meeting these people. You tend to get overwhelmed by the vision they have. In the process seeds of great traits of these leaders are also sown in your heart, ready to bear fruits in the coming years.

4. Professors: These angels can change the course of your life, literally. They don't influence your thought process but in fact make it. Everyone must have had overwhelming moments listening to these great academicians. They introduce you to the world of Business. They hold your hand and walk you through complex jargons of MBA.

Ideas/criticisms are welcome, as always.

Experience Management and Leadership @ “The Apprentice”

I would like to start with a brief introduction to “The apprentice” for all of you who do not know about it. It is reality based TV show in which 15 candidates compete for one job for 15 weeks. All the candidates have impressive credentials, with some leading their companies and some with best education in the world from the likes of Harvard, Boston, and Cambridge et al. Some are street smart high school dropouts as well. The Job is to run one of the companies of Mr. Donald Trump who is a biggest real estate developer of New York City and owns more than 100 companies. Mr. Donald trump is a great leader and is highly respected for everyone in USA. He enjoys a true celebrity status.
All of what has been said by me would not be making any sense if I miss this word, which is the spirit of the whole show, Leadership. There is a great emphasis of leadership qualities and the respect a leader should command from the team.
As management students we have read a lot about Leadership. We have tried our best to define it, understand the spirit of it and lots more. But personally I was not able to appreciate it, until now. I had a vague idea of what leadership is. Also we read about “Type A” personalities, different types of leaders which some with dictator like qualities and some who believe in engaging their team and lot more terms which have started to sound more like a cliché by now.
Now here is one TV show which has got everything into it, which can enable anybody to understand and experience all the jargon they come across or have read text books of management. Prima facie it may look like any other TV show where people come together, compete and somebody wins. Its Business orientation differentiates it from all other shows. The tasks of the teams are complete related to business and nothing else. For all of the tasks along with business sense one should have knowledge of demand supply principle, pricing, consumer behavior, marketing, advertisement, sales, value proposition to the customer and lot more. The judges for all these tasks are top executives from HUL, Pepsi, P&G, Levis jeans, depending on the nature of the task.
I will give you the glimpse of few tasks that teams undertook:
Design and new bottle of new flavor of Pepsi, Design a new advertisement campaign for Levis, Market and sell new burger from burger king, Develop a piece of real estate, Set up a restaurant and get the best user review
All these tasks need great leadership skills from the team leader, which is chosen for every task by the team. Now lots of time leader has to operate in the background and sometimes he/she has come in the front. Sometimes if someone is not doing a good job you have to decide whether to go for a change as time is crucial in every task. There is lots of back stabbing, maligning, strategy, creativity involved in every task. One should know how to manage “Type A” personalities, which perhaps is as tough as anything could be.
I have had many overwhelming moments while watching this reality show. I am sure that what I have learnt from this show is much more than what I learnt from the management text books for the last one year. Watching this TV show has again made me wonder, if we really need a management degree to be successful in business of it’s the practical experience which matters more.

Business @ “Smoking points”, “Drinking places” & “Golf courses”

One day one of our distinguished Professors said that Business (B2B) is all about managing authenticity and building trust. I liked that statement but was never able to appreciate it. I used to think that business is about making great presentations, excellent communication skills, strategies, jargons, business suits et al. It’s about big conclaves, meets where people meet, know each other and do business with each other.

The moment of truth came few backs weeks when even after working (internship) for a big MNC I realized that ground realities are totally different. Real business is about everything but whatever I have mentioned earlier. It’s all about building trust and managing authenticity.

Now the logic is very simple and goes like this. If I have to buy something from you, which can be anything product or a service, I will have to put my money on you. I will have to rely on you to deliver. In short I will have a strong dependency on you. I you fail I am also bound to fail. So you have to win my trust and confidence in order to convince me to put on money on you.

One thing is for sure that one can’t win the trust only by making great presentations and speaking flawlessly in a posh boardroom. You have make connection with that person. You will have to come across as someone who is real and serious about the whole affair. You have to tell him that even your stakes are quite high in this whole affair.

At middle management level I have observed few platforms where people really connect like anything, though I don’t endorse any of these platforms. First one is “smoking points” outside the offices. This is a place where a sales person and his prospective client will fag together and discuss the things openly in non threating environment. If sales person is able to make connection he will win the deal and probability of making connection increases many folds at places like this. Until few weeks back I never believed in this but now I am convinced about it.

Second is “Drinking places”. These are the places where real business happens. Under a bit of influence of alcohol one is able to trust each other better. Also the mask people wear becomes somewhat transparent which facilitates making connection with the other person. This place is a real ice breaker.

I think these are the two places outside board room where people test each other and decide if they want to do business with each other. Now these are the points where business involving small to medium amount of money happens. There is one more place where big deals happen, the “Golf course”. According to one survey 20% business happens on golf courses. I have no personal experience in this as yet but I will share my perspective. On a golf course big industry honchos come together and discuss things in a relaxing environment. They try to understand each other. They test each other’s game and see the kind of energy and passion other person has. Then they decide if they befit for each other or not.

I would like to conclude by saying that few other things like your culture; integrity; values etc do help in managing authenticity and building trust but they rather are the things which one ought to have if he/she wants to be a successful businessman.

Where is the Disconnect between Sales and Marketing in B2B Business?

Marketing and sales look like siblings working in tandem. Marketing creates opportunities and Sales in enchases those opportunities. Together they make a rosy picture.

Having worked for few weeks in a B2B sales profile I can say that when it comes to B2B business, Sales and Marketing behaves like distant cousins. They no longer work in tandem and there is a huge disconnect between them.

I will try to explore where and why this disconnect? Why it should not be there?

B2B business is driven by motivated sales team rather than Marketing evangelists. Marketing people do play a role but it is at the very high level. They have very less clue of what is exactly happening on the ground level. On the other hand sales people think that they are the ones who are putting up all the hard work on the ground. They are the ones who are actually connecting with channel partners, promoting the brand and bringing in the numbers. They pay special focus on developing a channel through channel partners as most of the business is done through them only in most of the cases. Mostly sales force relies on their contacts to build and expand this channel. They will use pricing, products differentiation and every trick in the book to build channel. But they forget one important aspect in this whole picture, “Branding”. But this is not their prerogative; marketing people should be doing it!!!

In B2B scenario one can say that Marketing team has fewer stakes as they don’t have to reach to individual customers. Their target audience is greatly reduced. Marketing people think that it’s responsibility of Sales team to develop the channel and they spend virtually no effort in marketing the company to the channel partners. The whole focus is on customers who do not interact with the company directly, but through the channel partners. What an irony!!!
Hence the disconnect lies in sales and marketing teams approach towards channel partners. Both of these teams have individual plan in isolation and seldom seem to work in tandem to tap these channel partners.

One solution to this issue is to have a marketing team dedicated to market the company to the channel partners. Their effort should be in sync with the effort of marketing team focusing on brand building and marketing to customers. This marketing team should work on branding collaterals, special programs, promotional schemes focused on channel partners. At the same time Sales people should work closely with this team to make them aware about their requirements.

Common sense should prevail…Soon…

Marketing: A rocket science??

Marketing is considered proprietary to Pepsi colas and HULs. It is considered as something done inside the glass ceilings. But have even experienced marketing tactics (if not strategy) adopted by smart businessmen running small showrooms.

Marketing and Small showrooms may sound like a oxymoron but believe me effective marketing strategies are adopted at these place at virtually no cost. Let’s dwell it into a bit more.

Making connection with customer is what every marketer strives for. Look at Airtel ads, they are really able to make that connection, but at a stupendous cost. Recently I visited a small apparel showroom. The way the shop keeper was able to connect with my family was overwhelming. The moment we entered we got acknowledgment of familiarity from his side. Then he started to connect with me by talking about his relatives doing MBA and working with blue chips companies. At the same time he talked about apparel choices of young people. With my family he connected by talking about my marriage.

I think me must have read some book on physiology. Something likes “Iceberg”. Nonetheless that worked wonders for him and he was successfully able to convert our visit into sales. He did a great job in marketing plus sales. Marketing by conveying functional benefits the product offers, building authenticity by sharing that he himself uses the brand, boasting about reputation of his showroom etc. At the same time he successfully performed the sales by felicitating customer to make an intelligent choice.

Without ATL, above the line (phew!!!) advertisement he conveyed information about product once customer arrives. He just relies on word of mouth which further depends on how well he markets/serves to his existing customers. So he just has those 30 minutes to market as well as perform sales. The real moment of truth…So even without iota of knowledge about marketing /sales fundamentals shopkeepers often do wonders in their businesses.

This was just one side of the coin. Now look at the other side.

Do you really think big empires like P&G, Coke, Adidas can do the same thing? Because of their sheer size their distance from customers is huge. So they need to have number of channels to get sensitized about customer needs and to connect with customer. At the same time they sell their products through resellers and not directly (mostly). This makes it even more difficult for them to reach customers. So they need marketing plans, advertisement plans, and what not to sell the products.

All this makes me wonder if marketing is just about common sense or hi-fi strategy docs. Do I really need to study marketing courses or I will learn through experience. I am still figuring it out…

Give up the control and flourish

Visiting big retail chain and watching thousands of products displayed elegantly has always been an exhilarating experience for me. One hundred types of Soups, great variety of organic food, stimulating collection of sausages has always given the kick to gourmet like me. But never in my life had I tried to explore the reason, why retail chains emphasize so much on display of products. Marketing aficionados told me that the reason is obvious, not even worth discussing. More product display means better exposure, which further coerce customers to buy, which otherwise they would not have bought. For the good marketing student which I am, I took the logic and convinced myself that the use of million square feet of floor space to display products is to stimulate latent customer needs and in process fuel sale.

But one day something happened which impelled me to question this fundamental, which for me was nothing less than a gospel. I was buying toffee from small mom and pop store. The shopkeeper took the money, signaled me to take anything I want for the sum I paid and turned his face away. Now I had the choice to pick any thing I want to. I don’t have to wait for shopkeeper to handover the things to me. I felt liberated, literally. I felt like a free bird. Like a true iconoclast I wasted no time to frame perspective of my own about the whole situation.

Displaying items alone can’t make customer buy anything. But the display of products in retails is meant to give control in the hands of customers. It makes them feel liberated. He thinks that he has been emancipated. This emancipation is manifested in his purchase behavior. He ends up buying bizarre products, which otherwise he would not have bought.

Given an option to choose between two restaurants, one would tend to choose the restaurant with more choices, even though he may always order the same things. This happens because more options mean more control. More control aggravates his latent needs.

This perspective can be extended to plenty of other areas also.

Business model of Dell for mass customization, millions of tariff plans by telecom service providers, elaborated menu all put the control in the hand of customer and lets him decide his fate.

So if you want to boost those falling sales curve go ahead and give the control in the hands of the customer. He will for sure pay you back, generously.

Convergence of external and internal Positioning makes all the difference!!!

Mesmerizing TVC (Television Commercials) of Vodafone, erstwhile Hutch positions it as a brand which believes in breaking stereotypes. This external positioning is in sync with the young Indian population, oozing with confidence and ready to take off. This refreshing positioning of Vodafone is reflected in its every aspect like brochures, Vodafone shops, customer care executives.

Now consider a scenario where internally employees (including prospective) perceives Vodafone as a company which uses obsolete systems and processes, with poorly trained staff, confused objectives and what not. Then do you think it will be able to hold to its external positioning of a young and cool company?

Employees and prospective employees are company’s internal customers, hence positioning for the internal employees should be on the dot, as well.

We all know the kind of image Google has in the eyes of the employees. Do you think it’s by fate Google achieved this? Certainly not! It was a vision of Google’s founders to brand their company to the employees in a way which also communicates what they are best at, Breaking stereotypes. They introduced the measures like work for one day for your own ideas, offices like play grounds and many more. As a result it’s a dream company of every software evangelist. The speed at which its new innovative products are coming justifies Google’s positioning, both internal and external. Even more, Apple has positioned its company in a way that has attracted the best talent of the industry, which has clearly translated into its artistic products.

I want to emphasize that two seeming different positioning, external and internal are infact not different. And if they are, then brand is bound to suffer. Take State Banks, they are trying their level best to change their external positioning but are taking too long to bring about the change. The reason is that internally they are still the same. Their employees are still the same and take their banks in the same old way. Hence despite flashy posters, big advertisement, core banking softwares people still take them as old shabby organizations.

Hence convergence of internal and external positioning is must to leverage the synergy between the two and to take the organisation from Good to Great.