Joining IIM Nagpur just after completion of my degree in Mechanical Engineering I was very delightful to meet new peers and enter another exciting phase of my life- A career in Management and of course, at an IIM. Getting selected to work for Excellon Software for the Summer Internship programme was a great opportunity for me. Being a fresher, and that too in Mechanical Engineering, it was a mix of two kind of emotions for me: Excitement of working first time in a professional organisation and uncertainty of working in a very new field to me. However, marketing being one of my areas of interest, the role as a marketing intern was going to be an exciting task.
After finishing the orientation at the Nagpur office, we were shifted to the Pune branch of the company. Excellon Software is a software product company providing solutions to its clients since 2000. The main product of the company is Dealer Management System (DMS) which is used by dealers of automobile companies to maintain their all day-to-day activities through software. The software companies approach Automobile Companies (referred as OEMs) to provide DMS and maintain their dealer network across the country. As of now, almost every OEM has implemented one or the other DMS from different companies. Some of them has developed in-house DMS. DMS market in India having entered into maturity stage, and the switching cost of the customers being very high in terms of time and money, the company needed to prepare the expansion strategy.
In our Internship project, my colleague and I, were assigned the task of preparing an expansion strategy for the company. We were required to identify the industry verticals for the market expansion. Along with that, we needed to prepare an entry strategy into the market along with market potential. We were also required to prepare a marketing plan as well as the Digital Marketing strategy for Excellon Software.
Our project was almost based on the secondary data research except a primary research with some of the dealers in various industries. During the project, we studied company’s current market, competitor’s study, various other industries, attractiveness in those industries, potential market, etc. Based on some criteria, we suggested few industry verticals to Excellon Software. After that, we proposed an entry strategy and digital marketing strategies of different competitors were analysed. At last, the marketing action plan and the DM strategy for the company was proposed.
During the entire project period, we had a very good support from our mentor cum manager. He was easily accessible to us and he was always ready to guide us with his rich industry experience. Other company employees were also helpful and provided necessary information and advice.
The main challenge during the project was to shape the entire project in a lucid direction and to gather the information about the DMS market as there was no published/secondary data available on this niche market. We gathered most of the data on DMS market from within the company. Proposing the new industry verticals in accordance with the company’s current product offering was also a challenge. Studying the marketing strategies of the competitors and preparing the marketing plan for the company without having a hands-on experience in the marketing field was another challenge. We took the guidance from our mentor as well as one of the marketing professors of our college for the same.
In this internship project we could apply some of the theoretical concepts and frameworks we had learnt during our first year at the college. Convincing others with the use of these frameworks was an interesting experience. We could also use the primary research as a part of our project. In the primary research, we met several dealers/distributors of some of the industries. From this research, we tried to look at the penetration and requirements of software solutions in the dealership business. This research provided support to our recommendation based on the secondary research.
Lastly, I can say that the summer internship at Excellon software Pvt. Ltd. was a great learning opportunity for me and I will strive to use the gained skills and knowledge in the best possible way.
______
About the Author:
Right after completing his mechanical engineering from LDCE, Ahmedabad, he joined the pioneer batch of IIM Nagpur. The reason of opting for IIM-N was the mentor-ship from IIM-A, one of the most reputed management schools of Asia. Here, at IIM-N, He would like to go in marketing or operations consulting job after finishing PGP from IIM Nagpur.