Prof. Mankekar is reclusive investor known to few, and he also takes finance course, which is more from equity and stock market point of view. A deep understanding of how we analyze businesses, and why it is important to deep dive in and get the feel of the company in which you invest is what we have learned from his lectures. We all were told to take any listed company and analyze it go deep into it and understand of what drives that company. I took Relaxo Footwear Limited and this whole exercise was so good experience, where in I got to know the natural monopoly created by Relaxo to compete with its competitor’s, kind of a moat theory where in Relaxo sells its product cheap and makes profit at economies of sales (huge sales) and keeps its competitors at a bay by using the operating leverage concept to its maximum use. This whole understanding of how the process works is so important to analyze any company.
At Bajaj, it is not all finance-finance, the drive we have got in marketing, the whole understanding of what strategy is and how you compete in markets. Marketing applications subjects was taken by Prof. Nitin Ghadiyar, who happens to be a great marketeer and great strategist for almost anything you talk about brands, personality, politics, he has marketed everything and successfully. He believes in sticking to the basics, tweaking around strategies, then in graining the innovation in the brand. We have analyzed 10 brands up till now during this semester, these are those brands or companies which are bleeding money and not only we have analyzed the root cause we have also thought about the turn around strategies for them. This whole exercise is so good, it has increased our understanding of how businesses need to think and channelize the whole strategy. We have analyzed brands like Uber, Mahindra Reva (electric cars), Kissan tomato ketchup, Boost, Protein X, Big bazaar, Durex, Air India.
Understanding of how Uber is in deep oligopoly competition with Ola and both the brands are bleeding competing on prices, one of the key insights we reached was if Uber was to continue in the India, it has to acquire Ola by writing a cheque that is the way forward, so that later on Uber can increase prices gradually to break even. Also spending on ads with Virat Kohli is the dumbest idea, Uber is a famous brand, which is suffering from usability interface problems it needs to teach people how to use their app, Uber thinks its target market is only all those corporates in Mumbai Delhi urban cities and hence believes its customer to be very tech savvy and this is where it fails badly. It is leaving out a big market there open for others to penetrate which is mid age women, old age people who are not tech savvy and still depend on local taxi people because they don’t know how to use the app and have to rely on the children or kids to book a cab for them and this is a huge market which will pay them even more than those corporates or Tech Savvy people because tech Savvy guy will search on 10 apps before booking a cab.
This whole exercise of tearing apart brands their problems, their issues and asking the right questions is what we have learned from Ghadiyar sir and its has impacted our understanding. The whole positioning of Durex is dumb where again they think their target is only high-class people as if only they have sex. Making all those sensual ads and Facebook campaign, I mean all that is okay, but this is not a quantum growth strategy this won’t grow the category as a whole. We need to tell people its most important characteristic safety from sexually contacted diseases and pregnancy, positioning it as a brand which promotes safety and love and then a bit of sensual things in your ads would differentiate from other brands and grow the category as a whole, where in every damn brand is talking about pleasurepleasure, you talk about safety along with other things as well.
All these we have got from Ghadiyar sir, a deep understanding of brands and strategies.
There are many other faculties and I can go on and on but they all are great, there are some boring subjects as well, but we try to clear them somehow. Overall it is superb (except exams which are quite tough to clear).
I believe every student on the JB campus is truly a risk manager. Risk was never about profit or loss associated with the process, it was about the Uncertainty. There are many things over here that are so Uncertain, that over this one-year period our mind has become accustomed to the uncertainties and we have started to manage them, as companies try to hedge their risk and reduce the chances of them happening. And I can proudly claim that no other campus would have this, so we can manage 10 things at a time and make sure every process gets it due respect. Because we have been accustomed to this from the very first day since Induction.
Oh!!! wait I didn't tell you about the Induction. Ideally, we should not tell anybody, but I will surely give you a glimpse.
THE INDUCTION!!!!
The first day you come, 5.59.59 AM in the morning and then you start to feel the heat of the MBA college. 5 mins break in 3 hours interval, and you pay fine on every rule you broke, 150 for a shave, 150 Bajaj formals, 150 for laughing, 150 sleeping, 150 for coming in late after 5 mins break, 150 for everything……. All this just for one session of 3 hours. So, you need to shave in the 5mins break, get your Bajaj formals correct, get food, eat, go to nature’s call. Risk managers they said, very well said.
And the best part about induction is that you don’t know for how many days it will last, and you leave by 10.59.59 PM (not AM), and assignments for the night to be submitted by 1.59.59 AM. That is the best thing one can ever experience, we have, and hence we were already prepared to face everything going forth and we are truly proud to be part of this great place!
We are truly in a sense student-driven college we fix the time of lectures, the professors, induction, festivals, placements, everything is done by us (except setting of exam question papers and correcting them, giving grades). I guess I have given you enough flavour of JBIMS, for knowing more you need to visit us our campus!!!
ABG is a huge conglomerate and to say which one I want would not suffice, because I love to learn. Each of your company in itself has a different story, different markets, different economies to learn, different strategies.
ABG portfolio has a strong mix of Resources companies, and resources is something I love (driven by Gokhale sir). Hindalco industries limited purely driven by love for resources. ABG being the number in aluminium rollings, the understanding of how this whole thing works would surely give a boost to my understanding and theoretical knowledge of resources.
Being a civil engineer, cement is what I have played during my engineering days and the understanding of how Ultratech Cement Limited plays competitively in the cements and also the ready-mix concrete market is something that would really help. Infrastructure is yet to be developed in India, hence an understanding of how well we are positioned in this space and how much ready we are for the opportunities to come.
Telecommunication industry is at its consolidation, going forth there will be 3 or 4 major players after the Idea-Vodafone merger and the JIO phenomena. Idea-Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, JIO. This is going to be like the pure-pure play of oligopoly and hence to understand the market and the strategies required going forth, this industry presents a great challenge and a great competition for upcoming MBA grads like us, and hence Idea Cellular limited would be the company that I would love to be in.
- Satyam Mishra
MMS - II, JBIMS
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