Thursday, August 31, 2006

IIPM Knowledge Centre > Marketing > Whats in a Name


Articulate or irrational, juvenile or mature, an impulse or a whim… it really does not matter as long as your moniker delivers the goods, says NAVEEN CHAMOLI
How would you like to wake up one morning without a name? The question sound’s bizzare, doesn’t it? Actually the scenario would present an uncomfortable situation for just about anyone in whose life such a momentous event unfolds. Okay, now just imagine a Fortune 500 multi-billion dollar company being confounded with a similar fate. Visualise the mayhem that would be unleashed on the unsuspecting employees, markets, shareholders, debtors, creditors, competitors, not to mention the bewilderment of the consumers. Get the picture? No. Okay. Let’s look at the life-saving questions that neo-entrepreneurs try to answer when launching a new company: Will venture capitalists fund the project?; Will talent buy into your vision and join you?; What is the revenue model?; When will you break even?; How big is the market?; Who will be the competition?; Is your product/ service/ technology unique? The questions, each more critical than the other never cease. Unfortunately, in the pandemonium, an equally important question loses out: have you thought of your product’s brand name and what should your brand stand for? Egads! Questions and more questions. One hopes that by now the reason for all the above theatrics and hysterics is clear. Typically, brands are worth 10-20% of a company’s capitalisation, often worth even millions and sometimes billions of dollars. Just as naming your new-born baby is important for his unique identity in society, so is naming your brand crucial to your company’s development. No doubt, naming is an emotionally loaded topic, for parents, consumers, organisations and even countries (refer the confusion over naming us India, Bharat or Hindustan?)

Phonetics, Allusion,Alliteration or Plain Genetics
You could be a chief engineer for General Motors who quits and buys the Maxwell automobile works, and changes the car name to his own. But then everyone is not Walter P Chrysler. Be social. Talk to your employees and their families and you could possibly name your car after one of their daughters, Miss Mercedes.You enjoy the Grand Prix! Then you could name the fifth car company to be acquired under your General Motors flagship after your favourite Swiss-born race car driver: Louis Chevrolet. You could be a designer working under the personal supervision of Herr Fuhrer Adolf Hitler on what the latter called “the peoples’ car” – the Volkswagen. Later you could use much of the engine and chassis parts to build a sports car which would bear your name or at least apart of it: Dr Ferdinand Porsche.You could be standing in front of a shaving mirror, in the year 1885 with your razor performing its job as well as always. Suddenly you realise that very little of the blade was actually used in the shaving process.

Could there be a new type of blade, one practically all edge. And one that made shaving cuts and accidents nearly impossible… better still disposable. Then before your competition could say ‘Jack Brown’ you designed a blade that was thin, flat, efficient, cheap, and disposable. And well, your surname happened to be Gillette, so you decided to dedicate your idea to yourself. Congratulationsand welcome!You could also be a pharmacist. Not just any pharmacist, but one who invented a “brain tonic” in 1886, which among other ingredients had “the properties of the wonderful Coca plant” and the famous “Cola nuts” and you sell the world’s most valuable brand to be, for five cents per glass. Thanda, really thanda!Maybe, your biggest (and only) client is the Army. So aptly you decide on the name that comes from saying out aloud the Army’s nick name for “General Purpose” or “GP”, and hey pestro, you have a brand new name for your vehicle: Jeep.But then why take the trouble to go through short forms and long forms. All that you could do is recycle an old name, maybe even that of your competitors’. The name Explorer, for instance, was a 1954 Chrysler concept car before it became a Ford sports utility vehicle (SUV). Mahindra’s Scorpio was a name of another automobile elsewhere in the world.
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Wednesday, August 30, 2006

News At Work (continued alongside)

News > News At Work
World Conference on Global Opportunities & Threats Analysis: The GOTA programme for this year has had sponsorship and support from some of the world's leading organizations. IIPM students visited various organizations in Europe, North America & Asia during the months of March, April and May 2002 and understood global dynamics of managing international businesses and undertaking strategies in multi-national corporations. Finally, this culminated in the World Conference on Global Opportunities and Threats conducted at the ADIU Convention Center, National Chambers of Commerce & Industry, New Delhi on July 1st, 2nd and 3rd 2002 wherein student & faculty participants from various business schools across the world were sponsored by IIPM to participate and learn from the combined experiences of various IIPM students & faculty. Many multi-national corporations also sent their corporate participants to the conference, thus enhancing the industry involvement. The conference was a huge success with extremely high levels of involved learning gained by participants from across the world. Commendation Certificates and Letters of Appreciation were designated and awarded to various top management personnel in organizations across the world for contributing to the GOTA programme.

IMI professors from Europe, Professor Luc Van Mele and Dr. Patrick Martin, submit Class of 2002 degrees after the Annual Convocation lecture at the New Delhi campus. Professor A.Sandeep awards the MIS degrees at the convocation at the Mumbai campus.
European Commission funded Wilton Park Conference rates IIPM faculty amongst top 50 thinkers of South Asia.

Arthur Andersen Commendation Letter to HRIC: "This is to put on record the Outstanding support from HRIC...in the Business Consulting Practice of Andersen..." ADIU Online Library becomes one of the largest online library resource database in the world. Students of the Class of 2004 joined the best that the industry had to offer. More than 100 companies participated in this year's campus placement session. The companies that vied against each other for recruiting the Class of 2004 included HSBC, LG, McKinsey & Co, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Electrolux, Asian Paints, ICICI Prudential, Coca Cola, HDFC Bank etc. More than 20% of the companies that came to the campus were first time recruiters. Like last year, the specialization stream that took the maximum recruitments was again marketing. However, Salary average was the highest in the Finance specialization. HR and IT were at ranks below Marketing & Finance specializations.

Coke selects 8 students, PricewaterhouseCoopers selects 5 students, becoming the top two recruiters in terms of numbers of students selected during campus placements.
University of Leeds, Brisbane University join an admirable list of US, Canadian & Australian Universities that have opened doors to IIPM students for undertaking further studies.
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri's recent book 'Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch' creates a record in India for having the maximum number of copies sold, beating titles like Jack Welch's 'Straight From The Gut' etc.

United Nations provides the first ever of its kind 'Security Council Briefing' to IIPM students in the previous GOTA tour.

Confederation of Indian Industry invites IIPM faculty to undertake key note speeches at the annual CII conference.

IIPM & Rotary Blood Bank organize blood donation camp.

IIM Calcutta selects IIPM alumni for higher education & advanced management courses.

News At Work (continued alongside)
Faculty from INSEAD, teach IIPM students during the GOTA tour.

IIT Kharagpur invites IIPM faculty to speak at the annual festival Ideon 2002.

IIPM sponsors year long academic research fellowships for fellows to stay in China, Malaysia and Indonesia.

IIPM Alumni meet in December 2002; National & International Alumni Chapters finalizing the exact details in August 2002.

Two IIPM alumni sponsored by Brisbane University (Australia) to visit Copenhagen (Denmark) as a part of the annual student exchange programs.

O&M commends IIPM's ICMR division for providing one of the most excellent best market research support.

HRIC's workshops rated as 'Outstanding' & 'Excellent' by top managers of Fortune 1000 organizations like Sony, Samsung, Adobe, Government of India.

Microsoft & Andersen become highest net worth clients of HRIC.

2002 saw Nike, Mahindra & Mahindra, Planet Sports take ICPAR services for PR efforts.

Indian Oil Corporation, O&M, Akai, Sony become clients of ICMR. India's biggest research on the consumer durables segment undertaken by ICMR for a leading electronic segment player.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

IIPM Academics > Global Outreach Program > Stephen Covey


STEPHEN COVEY

Topic: Effective Habits. Effective People. Effective Leadership.IIPM students had the opportunity of interacting with Dr. Stephen Covey, the most influential non-fiction author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Stephen Covey’s principle-centered approach was a unique experience for our students. Students gained value in terms of gaining insight into areas such as “integrity”, “character”, and “responsibility”. He presented an overview of his acclaimed SEVEN HABITS of Effective People.
Dr. Covey emphasized on ingenerating in ourselves the foundations for success, effectiveness, and happiness in life .

Students gained a perspective on how to achieve goals; instill a positive attitude; create the power to change; manage their own development and most importantly engendering the attitude to win. He also enlightened the students with the importance of passion to achieve excellence.

This was followed by an intense question and answer session where our students gained tremendous value by such close interaction with Dr. Covey. Students, thus got an opportunity to learn from the best and understood the importance of incredible energy to achieve excellence in life.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

About IIPM > Dean's Message

Dean's MessageProfessor Arindam Chaudhuri, renowned management guru & economist; Dean, Center for Economic Research & Advanced Studies

We need to understand that sustainable growth can be achieved only by committing ourselves to macro level growth strategies that would encompass the bottom 80% of the population and not just the top 20%. This conscientious approach would make a growth rate of 12% per capita per annum possible. In the light of globalization of the Indian economy and capitulation of Indian brands, it is imperative for tomorrow's leaders to be aware of the above mentioned facts, so that they can face the emerging global challenges of international markets with confidence, while remaining committed to remove massive poverty of Indian masses within a generation. While some wealthy nations enjoy the luxury of material of plenty, the fact remains that more than twice the number of people killed in the 2nd world war die every year of hunger and curable diseases. And yet we fail to realize that unrestricted satisfaction of all desires is not conducive to human well being! Nor is it the way to happiness, or for that matter, even maximum pleasure!! When the wealthy nations today talk of 'being one' with the rest of the world, and of concepts of global village, their talks simply border on hypocrisy. The time has come for India to lead the way in showing that this carnage can be stopped with the help of determined leadership and long term committed vision. The Indian managers need to develop a strong vision for their companies, and most importantly, for the people who work for them, apart from having a terrific sense of commitment for the country, great motivational skills and leadership qualities.

A growth rate of 12% per capita per annum would imply that India can beat U.S.A. in terms of purchasing power parity within the next 25 to 30 years and become economically the strongest country in the world. For this, the Government of India needs to support the Indian organizations with suitable pro-people & pro-India policies, which would help Indian organizations in becoming stronger to compete in the world market successfully. Future leaders must be aware of this and not remain intellectually handicapped. IIPM strives for these commitments and continuously endeavours to educate its students and clients on these issues with the belief that sooner than later, structured economic independence can be achieved through a coordinated effort...

Friday, August 25, 2006

IIPM Alumni

Rendezvous with the IIPM Alumni

The Indian Institute of Planning and Management’s Alumni Network looks forward in fostering valuable connections between students and alumni and providing useful benefits to members for life on campus and beyond. A vast number of IIPM Alumni have distinguished themselves in almost every aspect of management across the world. Those waiting to enter the corporate world would come into interaction with the successful alumni and would be able to learn from their experiences as well.

Membership is open to all who have participated in the Institute’s Undergraduate, Post-Graduate and Fellowship Programs. The student members will be invited to the alumni meets and will also receive privileges such as special invites to college events, social activities, seminars etc. The Institute’s activities and programs for its alumni are directed towards building lifelong bonds of kinship with the Institute.