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Yamaha Opens with a Internship Profile for 3 Months for the new campaign “Bring Back the Joy”. Please download the file for More detail.

CAREER COUNSELLING EXPO

iASPIRE 2011, The CAREER COUNSELLING EXPO at HK Institute of Management Studies & Research (Oshiwara) to be held on June 11, 2011 (Saturday) is an initiative by the management students to create a forum where practicing professionals will help career aspirants know how to build a successful career by pursuing an MBA which offers RIGHT kind of [...]]]>

CAREER COUNSELLING EXPO

iASPIRE 2011, The CAREER COUNSELLING EXPO at HK Institute of Management Studies & Research (Oshiwara) to be held on June 11, 2011 (Saturday) is an initiative by the management students to create a forum where practicing professionals will help career aspirants know how to build a successful career by pursuing an MBA which offers RIGHT kind of curriculum and industry orientations.

The theme of the expo titled iASPIRE 2011 is to let the MBA aspirants know the power of RIGHT kind of an MBA that can secure their future. There are various issues that confuse any MBA aspirant:

• Is the MBA curriculum RIGHT enough to bridge the gap between ‘what is being taught in the classroom and what is applicable in the real world?’
• How can MBA help in developing emotional, ethical, spiritual quotients which are critical traits for a successful business leader?
• Is Soft Skills a critical success factor and helps to really raise the employability quotient?
• Will the MBA qualification help to get a white-collared managerial job?  etc., etc.

The forum will provide clarifications to many such pertinent issues important from the perspective of a RIGHT Career decision. The expo will begin at 9.30 am and continue till 4.30 pm, where two hours seminar will be held in a spacious, high-technology auditorium, where corporate and industry professionals will provide an insight to the aspirants.

The lead speaker of the seminar is Ajeet Khurana, the highly acclaimed author of CAT & GMAT books published by McGraw-Hill Education. Mr. Khurana started his career in formal training as a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin (United States). Eventually, he set up his own training institute and now a popular speaker in India and abroad on MBA as a career. He is currently the Editor of Business Majors at About.com and Director of Corpus Collosum Learning, a conventional book publishing company in India.

Similar high profiled public speakers and experts will engage and enlighten the aspirants on the value of an MBA in the corporate world and for a society as a whole. Post seminar there will be

• Free counselling sessions on career opportunities in the field of Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, Operations, etc.
• Independent sessions where theatre and film makers will use the simulation techniques to help you build a RIGHT kind of attitude and confidence, the most important aspects of personality
• Grooming experts will help you learn the social etiquettes critical for your survival in the corporate world
• Corporate trainers will enunciate the value of soft skills required for corporate success
• Business Quiz to help you assess your management aptitude

During the event, the institute will be launching a SOFT SKILLS LAB, where the MBA students will be trained by professional trainers on modules beyond curriculum. This will be  pioneering effort by any management institute in Mumbai to hand-hold, develop and chisel the students on their various soft skills and quotients and help enable them to be effective leaders.

For further information, please contact,KavitaPingle, Academic Counsellor(+91 9004966569)  |kavita.pingle@hkcollege.ac.in| OR Vishal Singh(+91- 9773410799), AbhijithBalan (+91- 9823420068),NileshGupta(+91- 9819891575).

Facebook is a privately owned website and social network founded in 2004 by Harvard university students Mark Zuckerberg with his fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. It was operation in the limited area of Harvard in 2004 and become fully accessible in 2006. The main purpose for [...]]]>

Facebook is a privately owned website and social network founded in 2004 by Harvard university students Mark Zuckerberg with his fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. It was operation in the limited area of Harvard in 2004 and become fully accessible in 2006. The main purpose for launching the website was bringing a connection between Harvard students, to know each other more and in better way but now the same purpose is being followed worldwide.

Product

• Facebook has launched number of products including friends, messages, games, groups, photos, links, videos, a marketing space, advertisements, products pages, uncountable applications and a lot more.
• Users can communicate so well with their far off friends by sending them virtual gifts according to the occasion for a minimum price of one dollar. This type of applications are visible on almost every user profile on the occasion like Christmas, Eid, Independence day celebrations, birthdays etc (Michelle, 2008).
• Facebook offers social plug-in, graph API, Social Channels, Authentications and the open graph protocols to the web developers.
• Proxy and private settings are provided to the users to settle up their profile availability along with the customization of the material being loaded up on their profiles.
• Users are now provided access to Facebook through their mobiles; this has rendered more clicks to Facebook by increasing the daily user percentage because of any time access.
• Facebook has provided an opportunity to Facebook users to register their complaints for the website access, while improving the services miles forward.

Price

• People that are lured into Facebook enjoys all services free of cost, while one controversial statement says that this is a virtual cost by means of using personal information of users but this actually is not the case, as one can put as much secrecy and privacy one can.
• Facebook earns most of the revenues by the commercial groups, online events that are organized by the company, advertisements that come on the side of logged on page.
• Facebook being a private company doesn’t opens up its revenue earning units but always welcomes Brand advertising, performances advertising. Virtual goods and Microsoft advertising and has earned up to 1.1 billion dollars from this, according to a rough estimate (Dempsey, 2006).

Place

• Almost 600 million users are registered with Facebook, being accessed mostly by U.S community.

• The network is most popular nowadays as it can be accessed anywhere, in schools, colleges, universities and homes throughout the world.
• Facebook has its availability along the globe and Egypt revolution is commendably associated with the promotions provided by Facebook.

Promotion

• Facebook had become partner with Microsoft, Pandora and Yelp according to a planned strategy, and has earned a lot of promotion by taking this step, by increasing user number along with ads promotion on Facebook by different companies (Rosmarin, 2006).
• The website is providing small businesses big blow opportunities to establish and this promotes face usage as well, by their product customers being Facebook users ultimately.

Extended Mix:

People:
Facebook employs about —- people

Process:
Systems used for the FB servers, the thousands of applications, games available to the public

Physical Evidence:
Nothing per se, but if we are to measure, we can measure the FB site and chat connectivity

Social Media is a term widely used today. Everyone around only seems to be speaking of the various social networking sites. It’s not uncommon to see children of age 5 and 7 facebooking and tweeting today. Social media has become part of our daily lives and it is widely used [...]]]>

Social Media is a term widely used today. Everyone around only seems to be speaking of the various social networking sites. It’s not uncommon to see children of age 5 and 7 facebooking and tweeting today. Social media has become part of our daily lives and it is widely used like any other media such as newspapers, radio and television. Social media today is however used much more than just sharing information. Today, social media is used for creating and exchanging ideas much quickly and widely than the conventional media. With the invasion of social media the power has been transferred from corporations and institutions to individuals and communities. Today it’s all about creativity, communication, connection, creation of new ideas, community, collaboration and competition.
Facebook, twitter, flickr and blogs have made the world a smaller place. It is now possible to stay connected to anyone across the globe.
The biggest news today is of the Japan earthquake and the tsunami. While the news channels tried to cover the latest updates the initial news of the earthquake had flashed all over twitter and facebook. Locals from Japan used social media to share images and videos and also constant updates of the tremors felt and the impact of the earthquake along with added individual emotions. These constant updates left a deeper impact on people as they heard of the news and saw images shared first hand through people who are actually undergoing this devastating calamity. Within minutes of the earthquake people had expressed their sympathy and support for Japan through twitter and facebook status updates. Barack Obama president of the United States updated his status constantly to inform citizens of the measures taken by the US Govt. to ensure the safety of Hawaii another island which was under immediate threat after the tsunami hit Japan.
The impact of social media is evident from people’s reaction to such calamities. Probably a decade ago when such calamities occurred in another part of the world people did not feel close enough or could not express their empathy towards the victims or feel their pain. However today with the help of social media the world has truly become a smaller place. We are now able to connect to the victims and share their emotions irrespective of not personally knowing them. We are also able to now express what we feel and communicate with people living in areas that are affected by such disasters. Similarly in such situations, friends and relatives use this medium to connect with their loved ones.
Another striking use of social media today is by communities. People with common interests make groups on facebook and twitter and use this as a medium of communicating and updating group members of events etc. These group members might be sitting in different continents but are still operating as a team and ensuring their certain goals are met. This is the level of connectivity today. You don’t have to be living or working on the same continent as your colleagues but you are still an integral part of a team that helps in achieving group goals.
We see politicians using social media to reach out to the laymen in the country. Barack Obama constantly updates his twitter messages and tries very well to stay connected to his people. Similarly, Narendra Modi uses this medium to give updates of his campaigns and rally’s. We also see journalists like Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai give updates and their views on the current affairs of the nation. This helps us stay connected to the world even without a news paper or a television box.
Similarly a lot of celebrities today use twitter as a platform to connect to their fans. Hence, the classic myth of celebrities living in a far off land and not being ordinary people has been contradicted and it’s now easy to understand their whereabouts and their day to day lifestyle through social media even if they are situated continents away.
But the true question is, is social media like facebook and twitter only used for communication and exchange of ideas and to increase connectivity? The answer to this is obviously No! This is evident from the high stakes and investments in social media today. Goldman Sach a leading bank has invested $450 million in facebook, as a part of a transaction that implies the social network has a valuation of around $50billion. Facebook and twitter is way beyond just a networking website. It is now also a platform for companies and institutions to connect to the common man. We see big companies investing high funds in social media and social advertising. Tata Sky had a big campaign in 2009 on twitter where they had a TV set as a puppet with constant tweets.
A lot of businesses are using social media to get in front of their Target Audience. By doing this companies are now able to understand what people ad consumers view their Brand as. This is commonly known as Brand Monitoring. Marketers are seeing a significant increase in web traffic with only a few hours invested per week. Through facebook and twitter B2C networking is increasing while linkedin is used to strengthen the B2B network.
I would like to speak about the Social Media changing the business world in my next artivle however today I will conclude with a statement that is rightly said that social media is a revolution and is changing our lives and our understanding of connectivity and networking.

Namrata Kumblekar – namrata@managementfunda.com
Media Analyst

The crazy country of cricket fanatics – that is what will define India for the coming month. That is not to say that cricket fever will then subside, just normalize after its crescendo. During a time that everyone’s eyes are riveted to the television screen, and with the onset of [...]]]>

The crazy country of cricket fanatics – that is what will define India for the coming month. That is not to say that cricket fever will then subside, just normalize after its crescendo. During a time that everyone’s eyes are riveted to the television screen, and with the onset of summer, presents a nice opportunity to Cola manufacturers to capitalize on sales. And leading the vanguard is PepsiCo.
Pepsi has always been at the forefront of capturing advertising and image rights for all things Cricket. And it routinely comes out with special marketing campaigns and the like during the oft occurring cricket tournaments; case in point – the Indian Premier League. During IPL Season 2 in February 2009, PepsiCo joined hands with Team Chennai Super Kings, the winners of the inaugural IPL as their official beverage sponsors. Their image was significantly boosted by the appearance of the charismatic captain M S Dhoni in CSK’s and Pepsi’s adverts. Then during the last IPL, season 3, they came out with the ‘PEPSI YOUNGISTAAN WOW’ contest wherein fans could play a mini-game on a website or their cellphones. Star power was in the form of Ranbir Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt. PepsiCo flexed its muscles by emerging as the sole bidder for the IPL title rights. Thus, Pepsi will get exclusive rights from the BCCI for the next edition of the Indian Premier League.
Pepsi also used cricket as the launch platform for its new packaged nimbu-paani drink ‘Nimbooz’, by associating itself with the Kings XI Punjab. Everytime a player from KXIP hit a boundary cheerleaders would perform the bhangra and one lucky Nimbooz customer would win an all-expense paid trip to South Africa and also get to meet all the KXIP players. Cricket, nimbu-paani and cheerleaders – an explosive combination – and a match-winning one!
Being environmentally responsible is also on Pepsi’s list and it uses their achievements to good effect. In 2009 PepsiCo India recycled and gave back more water than they consumed through various initiatives like recharging, replenishing and reusing water. The green campaign won them many admirers and improved their image.
Another coveted campaign is the Pepsi ‘MyCan’. Here the Bollywood bigshots – King Khan SRK, the suave John Abraham, the svelte Deepika Padukone and the young Imran Khan featured for Pepsi to round off the veritable list of stars. The unique form factor of the can and the stylish packaging made it a great hit with the youth brigade. Unique concepts like Pepsi Diet for the health conscious, 2-litre bottles for the party animals and recyclable cola bottles for the environment-caring also positively affected their bottom-line.
‘Change the Game’ is their tagline as the Official Sponsors of the Cricket World Cup 2011. It features different cricketers in different short-films. Designed to address the Youngistaan crowd, you have the big-hitting Dhoni with his ‘Helicopter Shot’ and Kevin Pietersen with his ‘Switch Hit’. The selection of famous cricketers with an Indian setting to the ad films shall surely endear them to Indian fans. ‘Change the Game’ appeals to today’s Indian youth who wants to break free from the shackles of orthodox thinking and define their own rules.
Pepsi also has offers galore for one and all. They have a tie-up with Pizza Hut where consumers get a Pepsi free with each order of a Medium Pizza. Pizza Hut provides the marketing while Pepsi delivers the goods – a win-win for both.
Among all these advertisements during the World Cup, it shall be interesting to see what Coca-Cola’s reply shall be. I’m sorry, Coke-who?

Now-a-days the concept of takeaway has become catchier than the restaurants. Life in cities is fast moving, no one [...]]]> The first part saw the changing facets of restaurant from 1980’s till now. Now let’s notice the other changes that have taken place. For e.g. the new trend of “Takeaway” & “Easy-to-Cook”.

Now-a-days the concept of takeaway has become catchier than the restaurants. Life in cities is fast moving, no one seems to have the time to wait in a packed restaurant for their turns. They did rather choose ordering a takeaway and enjoy the food with their families or friends in their abode.

A lot of takeaway joints have sprung in the last few years. Take the example of Domino’s-you love pizza, so you can enjoy it at your doorstep without taking the pains of travelling and not only that its 30 minutes or free. Well this is a marketing gimmick but it does work for them. Why just Domino’s a lot of restaurants are including this concept. Say you are busy and need a quick fix to refresh before heading to an important meeting, all you have to do is grab a cup of coffee but since you don’t have time for it, takeaway works just fine and a Café Coffee Day or a Barista serves your need.

Takeaways have always been popular in the western countries. This concept is new to India and we are still getting a hang of it. We have always been a country that indulged in slow food contrary to the new trend of fast food. Slow food refers to cooking a proper meal with the help of your family members, despite the time spent in kitchen women enjoyed it, but fast food, has taken it all away. Since the time we completely “accepted” the western culture we wanted quick fixes and well takeaways are quick fixes to hunger. Every coffee shop or a fast food joint seems to offer takeaways and yes it does save time.
That was about takeaway, its no different with “Easy-to-Cook”. Easy-to-cook are generally packets containing mixture of spices, all you have to do is just add certain ingredients and tadda!!! Your favourite recipe is ready to eat. This is popular among bachelors, paying guests, students in hostels etc. they don’t have the time to cook and everyday restaurants are definitely expensive, that’s the time when easy-to-cook packs come handy. Now-a-days its just not the bachelors but even homemakers have taken to these ready packets like soups, vegetables, rice mixtures etc. to savour the same taste like that of a restaurant they resort to these packets. We all know how healthy they are??? But that’s debatable. These easy to cook not just save time but also burn a very small, unnoticeable hole in your pocket and thus are preferred by many.

Well to sum it up, we witnessed various facets of restaurant. From Udipi to Stylish restaurants to Takeaways and also competing with these the Easy-to-Cook packs. Easy-to-cook packets definitely aren’t part of restaurants but it was to show how they can eat up a restaurants business because of convenience offered to the customer and we all know that “The Customer is King”.

Part I – Changing Trends in Restaurants

Contact Author: – vidhi@managementfunda.com