MARKSTRAT 2

Monsoon has arrived in Hyderabad in full strength.

Amidst these showers some of the things that took place in the last 48 hours include the strengthening of our team position in Markstrat in Industry ‘I’. Our net contribution is a 12 thousand more than the team in second position. It was a tough decision session as we had changed our two top products and game could have gone anywhere.

Most of the clubs here at ISB have steadied after the elections of various Presidents and selection of the team members. Some clubs have even started their activities and brain storming sessions. Some interesting guest speaker sessions are also expected in near future.

One of our seniors from the previous batch Deepak Mittal, who was working as a TA for Economics course- before joining his assignment in BCG- took a farewell ‘knowledge sharing session’ today. He is leaving to proceed to join his company. Knowingly or unknowingly he was very helpful for many of us, as interaction with the senior batch is not easy in a one year MBA course.

Lastly, have you ever come across the great saying, ‘There are no free lunches’? Well! It is heard quite often in the management world. I will be coming with my experiences on the same in my next post.

The MARKSTRAT World

This note was long due, but the culprit for this delay is the topic I am writing about. I am talking about MARKSTRAT, the simulation marketing game, which is a part of the curriculum for the course on Market Decision Making.

There are ninety teams taking part in the game. The teams have been divided into 5 Industries A, E, I, O and U, each having their own advantages and disadvantages as in a real life market. There are 5 consumer segments each having its own characteristics. The teams are doing research to improve their products, developing their own strategies and learning from the strategies of their competitors and also launching new products.

And as the fate of the teams is changing after every round as per their net contribution, the Products of companies- stars, cash cows, dogs and question mark of the BCG matrix are also basking in glory one day and are flop on the other day. As a summary and as I always say, I am rediscovering Marketing and management. What could be more interesting than seeing your competitors go in red all the way? While you a business czar think aggressively of price wars and acquisitions and watch the novice falter on every step.

But as the game is progressing, the pressure is building up. After all, it is only a small contribution of 6000 Markstrat $ that separates us from the team which is second in Industry ‘I’. Whatever is the outcome -for me like many others- MARKSTRAT is more than part of a course, and we are spending disproportionate time on it aggressively planning for our future actions.

At the same time, Ziv Katalan, our Decision Modeling Professor from Wharton has covered the Monte Carlo Simulations using the Crystal Ball software. Now we are modeling our decisions on oil prices, options valuations, and have also revisited the old Newsvendor Problem.

On the whole this term is more intensive than the last but the component of fun has also increased. And in case if our team does well in the marketing game, I will write more about our progress. And if we do not do that well, I leave a clue for you, I adopt a non disclosure policy (The copy right to the last line belongs to our Accounting professor).

A long post, from the heart

Last one week was full of hectic activities on more than one front. Of course there was the end term that means that we are a 12.5 % MBA already (though this is not my joke but it is quite popular here on the campus).
But before that we had well contested elections for the student representatives for the next one year. ISB now has the President and 5 Directors for the various Councils.
Talking of elections, I cannot help but go back in time to the year 2001 when I was on Protocol duty with Mr. Lyngdoh, Election Commissioner during his visit to our district Burdwan. Being an IAS Probationer gives you unparallel opportunity to meet the Masters of their respective trade. So there we were all prepared with power point preparations about our readiness for elections and there was our boss, who just wanted to move to the field and get an insight from the grass roots.
In one of the villages, Mr Lyngdoh had commented about the political awareness in rural Bengal and that he anticipated something from his visit which could be of general use. Since the election was one of the very first when the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) were being introduced, one of the villagers had asked about the absence of an option on the EVM where vote could be polled for ‘none of the candidates’.
Our reaction was that in such a case the person should not go for voting. But the villager had explained to us that the political functionaries may press public to go for vote. However, the earlier Ballot paper had an opportunity to leave the ballot blank. EVM in contrast produced this Beep sound which could reflect whether the person had voted or not. And so there was needed this option to vote for 'none of the candidates'.
There were also suggestions on ‘Right to Recall’ the public representatives in case if they failed to perform. By now both these issues have been discussed at much higher forums a number of times but I know they had very humble origins, from the masses. And I had a lesson that day; never belittle the intelligence of the public.
However, during election soap box in ISB we hardly had 40 people listening to the probable candidates, and most of them were the friends of the candidates themselves. Another 45 minutes after that the auditorium was full with 400+ people attending a case study session.
People have their own priorities, I respect that, but I still believe that we will have no right to blame anyone if they fail to deliver as per our expectations. Then there was a signature campaign by a few for pushing their candidate into election during what was supposed to be the official voting time. Election was postponed by a day, probably to take a decision on the merit of the signature campaign. And someone pulled out of the contest amidst this nonsense chaos.
In contrast in 2001, after the day’s work, we had visited the grave of Sher Afghan, the Bengal governor and first husband of Mehr-un-Nissa, the lady who was later married to the Mogul king Jehangir and went on to become the Indian empress. Mr. Lyngdoh had read almost everything about Burdwan from the district Gazetteer by then. I had my own version of history arising out of the traditional romantic versions, being from Mogul town of Agra and a fresh pass out of the Civil Services Exam. I know my DM had so much faith in me that I was free to escort and talk to senior most officials, on topics ranging from elections to history, a privilege which most DMs would not allow even to their ADMs.
The evening had a party to end the day, hosted by the first lady of the District. There were officers in their formals, soft music was being played, and words of wisdom and advice were flowing. And for discussion we had the passionate Mogul ‘Prince Salim’ and his childhood love ‘Mehr-un-Nissa’ with all her charm, ambition and that mystery behind a woman’s mind and a valiant ‘Sher Afghan’, who probably had earned his wife and death for his integrity and bravery.
In the next few days we had conducted one of the smoothest elections with almost zero failure. EVMs were grand success, even if there were some technical snags, there were fixed or EVMs were changed. Elections are not to be stopped or postponed, until something drastic happens was the learning. It is just not a sin to postpone the election, it is blasphemy.
Some twenty days after that, the District Magistrate had a mail from the Election Commissioner about the successful conduct of election and containing the exact details of the Mogul and Bengal history, of which our district had had its role to play.