After a long hiatus, I’m back. Term 2 was not as hectic as it was made out to be. I guess one of the reasons for that was the intelligent distribution of work within our study group. I was primarily responsible for Marketing, which means I had to lead the Markstrat game and also make notes and prepare my group for the exam. Others did similar things in different subjects. We were apprehensive at first because it means you’re not as heavily involved in other subjects as much as you want. But trust me, you wont lose much at all. Give this method a shot.
In my earlier post, I’d mentioned that Global Eco was my least favorite subject in this term. Thanks to the superb prof we had (Dr. Krishna Kumar), it has now changed into my most favorite subject. As numerous alums have pointed out, one of the best features of the course was ‘Commanding Heights’, a documentary produced by PBS. Even a layman can understand stuff in it and I strongly urge you to give it a look, even if you are not planning to head to b-school. Here’s where you can find it: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/story/index.html
Dr. Jagmohan Raju taught us the 2nd half of Marketing and he pretty much lived up to all the hype surrounding him. On the flip side, he seemed ‘exhausted’ most of the time. Is age catching up to him? He was also definitely more mellow in class and did not cut off arbit CP as much. Fun part was the photo cold-call and yours truly was also summoned to answer, which, thankfully, I successfully did.
I must finish up with my favorite part of Term 2 – Markstrat. If you’re in b-school, you probably already know about the game (if not, then you don’t care about the game), so I won’t go into those details. We were Team I, and our competitors in our industry was with 4 other vowel teams (A, E, O, U) and our competition for grades was 17 other Team ‘I’s in ISB. Team I is the worst team to be in, because you’ve got crappy products which naturally get positioned crappily. The only thing you have going for you is low cost. You need to do lots of R&D and the razor thin margins force you to take a loan (well, at least we did). As Team I, we knew we couldn’t compete in the Sonite market and being first mover in the Vodite market was our primary goal. We did that, made boatloads of money, goofed up and lost it all away and staged another come back later. Overall it was great fun, and in terms of net cumulative contribution, we ended up 2nd among all 18 Team ‘I’s, which was pretty darn satisfying. How do you succeed at Markstrat? There are no secrets really.
The best Markstrat tips are the ones you receive often:
1) Apply theory that you’ve learned in class. It’s amazing how many times you forget to analyze the weakest link in the chain Share of Voice X Share of Mind X Share of Distribution
2) Don’t ignore R&D, but don’t think R&D alone will suffice. Ad spend, and more importantly ad research is key.
3) Don’t spread yourself too thin. Focus on a few brands, but do them well.
4) Read the manual diligently. There were a couple of lines tucked away in corners of the book, which we wished we’d read more carefully and at an earlier stage.
5) Be organized. There’s lots of data you’ll have to wade through. It’s advisable to create your own excel sheets and have formulae, etc. to plan your next move and also document your decisions. Note that having lots of data to wade through doesn’t mean you need everything. Pick the reports you need, wisely.
And finally
6) Stay honest, don’t collude with the other vowel teams in your industry and don’t ask alums for specific help on what to do. It kills the fun and kills the learning process. A couple of alums rightfully declined my request for help (when I’d asked them for it before the markstrat game even began) and I respected their decision. In hindsight, I am pleased we did everything independently and learned from our mistakes. And hey, we didn’t do bad at all. If we could end up 2nd inspite of all this, it just goes to show that enthusiasm to do well in the game and corresponding hard work pays off.
For our team, we targeted 2 markets that no one else went after (Buffs, HiEarners), then 2 products for Others and Singles. For Vodite, we went after Early Adopters and Followers. Multiple R&D is important, as well as spending 10% of ad budget on ad research to maintain shares, and bumping it upto 15-20% when introducing a new product or reintroducing an existing product. Most of all, for the semantic scales, we measure not the ideal value at current period, but what we project will be the ideal value for the next period. This way, we’re not chasing after the segments, but anticipating the trend and direction they are moving so they move to us. Really, it is about following the trend!
Here’s our results after 8 periods. For vodite, 2 groups introduced superior products at Period 7 that targeted Followers, and since the game ends at Period 8, we didn’t have time to counter with an R&D, which is why we lost market shares.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v314/Audicted/Markstrat/
Oh, our group is group Y,the winning team =D