Saturday, September 29, 2012

68th Week@XIMB

68th Week@XIMB - 23rd September to 29th September, 2012

23rd September - There was an alumnus visiting the campus who was working with Dow Agro Sciences (Dow Chemicals). I decided first not to attend his lecture because he may be endorsing and promoting Dow Chemicals. Its not the fault of individual but one has to take ethical stand on the corporate misdeeds. The viewpoint of my college differ from me but that is a sort of independence and freedom of speech one is looking for in the college. Then, I reconsidered my decision and attended the lecture to understand his point of view. It is difficult to resist the winds of change and lucrative job offers; nevertheless conviction is all that one needs to withstand the same.

Industry Talk of Mr. Amiya Kumar Bartia, National Market Development Leader, Dow Agro Sciences (Dow Chemicals)

Career Planning : There is strong need for 4-5 years of investment in field to understand the ground level working of industry. There are five stages of a student in the market : commodity, product, brand, super-brand and cult. New recruit is a commodity and M S Banga is a cult like Harley Davidson. Learning agility will set one part from fellow colleague and competitor.

1- A dichotomous question offers just two answer choices, typically in a yes/no format. A double-barreled question raises several separate issues but provides only one
set of responses.

2- There is a shift in fertilizer policy where there is now more focus on giving incentive's at farmer level. Hence, there is shift from commodity to trading system i.e. a competitive environment. In risk gain matrix, fertilizers come in low-low segment while seeds come in high-high segment. Defect is an area of improvement. Dow Agri Science focus on cotton and is new entrant in paddy. 450 rs is a labour charge in peak season for plucking of cotton.

3- Sales of Financial service and agro chemicals require a techno commercial skill while consumer goods require only commercial skills. Market development is done by field staff in agri input companies. They must have sound knowledge of product and also be more knowledgeable than farmers. A valuable lesson in rural marketing is economical does not always mean cheaper. The cash flows of consumer must be studies for designing of the product.

24th September - SCM class. US logistics costs were over 12 percent of GDP in the early 80's steadily decreasing until 2003 to 9 percent of GDP. That was achieved by focusing on reducing the their costs as well as of their supply chain partners. Currently, that can also be done in India and only 1% reduction with save $18.5 Billion US dollars at current prices - 2011.

I was selected in BASF live project. BASF is a leading Chemical Company in the world.

Objective of the Project:
• To explore the local residents’ purchase and consumption and identify the need gaps and assess perceived needs of products/services amongst the community.
• Proposal for new products/ delivery mechanisms to address the needs of the BoP customer base.
• To study the current practices and trends for rural households in following three segments : Rural Housing, Performance products for Water Treatment & Products for increasing efficiency in Storage (Increase in shelf life of stored produce,energy efficiency of warehouses).
• Identify the potential for BASF products/services in the three segments.

25th September - In the third STM lecture, we learned through various example Porter five forces.

26th September - SCM : Information sharing is required for integration of the whole supply chain. Customer relationship management (CRM),Integrated Supply Chain Management (ISCM) and Supplier relationship management (SRM) together focuses on increasing the size of pie rather than fighting over share of pie.

27th September - In 4th STM lecture, there was discussion on competitive positioning. Our faculty gave example of delayed service of Air India and Indian Airlines that affected schedule of eminent personality like Louis Kahn and I G Patel

In CBRM class, we learned about Perceptual mapping, social conformity and attitudes.

The behavior of buckling under group pressure due to the risk of social rejection is lot more common in society on the controversial issues. There can be wisdom in crowds but not always. People do this to avoid the discomfort that accompanies disagreement with the social conformity. Let us see this in given video.
Asch's Conformity


There was a prep talk by Mr. Deepak Sachude from Natueco farming science. The whole talk revolved around spiritual values and farming. I had an interaction with Shanu Prasad and Prabin Nath post prep talk. Got an insight of marketing side of Tafe and operation side of Fino. I need to learn about online auction and tender process.

28th September - There was discussion n tacit and explicit knowledge with a discussion on case study : “If Only HP Knew What HP Knows . . .”. Knowledge is created, captured and stored through bottom up approach while it is used, updated and reused in top down approach in any organization.

29th September -  I participated in CEAT Campus Compass project. This was about radial tyre industry. A good reading material was enough for us.

Industry Talk of Mr. Debaraj Behra from BRLPS.

Mr. Behra took an interactive session on the Livelihood projects undertaken by BRLPS. Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS) is an independent society set up by the Government of Bihar and supported by the World Bank. Key Learning Points are mentioned below -:

1- Creation of choice in credit is one of the major development tasks required for poor.
2- BRLPS work without any subsidy hence chances of corruption is far less.
3- Affinity based SHG is formed by them. There is a Para professional chosen from the community who keeps books for the community.
4-134 signs were required for a loan of 12,000 by 3 women. This shows the bureaucratic hurdles in the financial inclusion.
5- A person can assess the credit needs, value chain, supply and demand gap by working at the ground level only.
6- Never compromise on health, integrity and dreams.