Day-4

Before I talk about my day-4 I would like to share some traditions prevalent at IIMA. Here the freshers(1st yr) are called Futchas, the seniors are called tuchaas while the students in the fellowship programs are called Chachas. One reason for the success of IIMA in the campus placements is the unity the Futchas and Tuchas have. There is a software called DC++ which is similar to G drive of AIM. However all the seniors share their resumes with the juniors in DC++. The seniors take responsibility for the summer placements of the juniors while the juniors reciprocate by working hard for the final placements of the seniors. One incident I would like to mention here is that yesterday while our CBBS group was discussing about the presentation we are suppose to do today, one futcha came and asked for the help on his resume from one of our group mates(who is a tuchha). Rather than telling him that he would come once he is done with the discussion he immediately left the discussion and went to help the junior. This is something I saw missing at AIM. I hardly knew my seniors there. Although the AIM campus is so small and the community is also less in number as compared to IIMA(each year of MBA has on an average 330 students) why is the camaraderie lacking between the seniors and juniors. After pondering on this matter I came to a conclusion that there were two primary reasons for the same.

1. The lack of support from the college administration in conducting seminars or events where we can meet and network regularly. IIMA has had a tradition of having various events like confluence.

2.The missing sense of security about getting a job at AIM. The students at IIMA are almost assured of the jobs and hence are open to help others and try to make close relationships here during the free time they get. There may be some other reasons also but these are the two which immediately struck me.

After 1 week of time at IIMA I can vouch for the quality of students at AIM. We are at par with students here at IIM if not better. I think my other batch mates who have also been to other IIM's will agree to it. What we need is a similar tradition which brings the seniors and juniors together regularly. However I don't see it happening in the near future after looking at the mails with regards to pool side party.

I think after this stuff not many would be interested in the boring details of what I did on Day-4 however I would mention it anyways :-).

I had 2 lectures that day. The first was Marketing Research and Information systems where we had a case on Radio Mirchis entry into Kolkata Market. Radio Mirchi was a monopoly in the cities it had earlier operated however Kolkata was a different market. It was fragmented qualitatively and 3 other Radio Channels Aamar, Power FM and Red FM were planning to enter the market at the same time as Radio Mirchi. Also Radio Mirchi was facing huge losses due to the high licensing fees paid to the government. Thus it had to come up with a correct entry strategy to become successful. Radio Mirchi did various Marketing Researches on the basis of these findings we had to decide on four aspects.

1.What RJ language to use

2.What music language to use.

3.What music content to use.

4. What would be the primary target market.

It was a very rich case with almost 18 exhibits and the discussion was very healthy. Finally it was decided that RJ language should be predominantly bengali because of the large bengali speaking population and the pride people relate with bengali, The music language should be Hindi as Radio Mirchi was targeting the age group of 15-35 which consisted 40% of Kolkata population and the music content should be Contemporary hits of bollywood (CHR) as the bengali film industry was not doing well at that time and it appealed more to the target market.

The second lecture was on Internet Marketing and E-commerce(IMEC) where the prof discussed about internet technology . No class discussion as such as not many knew what exactly Internet technology is. I came back at 4 , read TOI and some parts of Economic times and then went to gym. It was a great feeling looking at my weight down by 1 kg in just 2 days of workout and having just one meal in a day. Of course not having New Bombay food here helps my cause.... :-))))))))))))