The Audaz - A Dream

 Product :

The Audaz is a fortnightly knowledge paper for management students. It aims to provide management-related news to the students in concise and easily-explained language in a manner which is relevant to them.

The entire product is packaged in the form of a newspaper which is handy so that readers can access the information at their leisure and in a convenient manner.

Problem:

The primary need for the product arises from the fact that management students are short on time with the numerous activities that they have to manage in their curricular life. Often, the students come across various terminologies in their curriculum which they would like to know more about, but are not able to do so due to lack of time and inability to put in effort to collate information.

Apart from this, most students coming from an engineering background face the problem of poor understanding of business concepts. They tend to depend upon business newspapers which provide complicated stories to begin with, resulting in the waning of the students’ already low interest.

Opportunity:

The Audaz tries to address this need of the students by giving them a single-stop solution for this problem. It attempts to put together the most relevant topics across various disciplines in a single newspaper, which are explained in a lucid and pertinent manner. The student not only gets to know the most important topics related to a particular domain but also gains knowledge with regard to those topics.

Approach:

The Audaz tries to approach the problem explaining managemnts concepts not by relying on in-depth theoretical knowledge but rather on a combination of concise, jargon-free expanations, more importantly followed by an example of application of the concept in actual and practical industry conditions. This methodology not only piques the student’s interest in reading the article but also provides him with knowledge which is actually useful in real-world applications.

v Structure:

The newspaper consists of several sections, which are outlined as below:

·         Business articles (one from each of below domains)

o   Marketing

o   Finance

o   Operations(SCM)

o   Systems and Safety

·         Interviews with

o   Professors

o   Alumni

·         Application of Management Tools on day-to-day events

·         Case Studies

·         Articles and Poems

·         Fun Corner

o   Business Cartoons

o   Did you know?

o   Games

o   Photograph Contests

v Value Proposition

The value proposition offered by our product is as follows:

1.       Value Experience: The newspaper provides value to students by providing a one-stop solution to students aggregating all the important news required for a management student in a single and consolidated hand-out, which can be conveniently accessed.

2.       Offerings: The newspaper primarily offers knowledge to the students. Apart from this, it also provides students with access to competitions, chance to win prizes and a platform to showcase their skills in writing and photography

3.       Benefits: The newspaper provides the target audience a perspective about the industry from a students’ view in a relatively short period of time, which proves to be valuable in today’s life, crunched short for time.

4.       Credibility: The articles presented in the newspaper are validated anonymously by professors, with relevant expertise in the domain. Apart from that, alumni of the college, who are currently engaged real-time in the industry also offer their views via interviews, thus adding to the authenticity of information in the newspaper

5.       Differentiation: The newspaper is different from other offerings in the market in the sense that it is the first of its kind focussing entirely on the unsaid needs of the students. Moreover, it is almost entirely driven by students due to which it helps in providing a relevant perspective to the students.

6.       Market: There is a ready market for the newspaper already existing in the form of management students. The initial market would be limited to the students of a particular college (NITIE) only but the same could extended after the newspaper undergoes an expansion.

v Target Segment

Current scenario:

In the initial stages, the target audience of the newspaper would be the students, specifically of NITIE. This would include students of  IM, IE, ITM and ISEM (both first and second year) of the college, along with the faculty members.

This could be gradually expanded to other management colleges in the vicinity, specifically SJSOM, SP Jain, JBIMS, etc.

Future scenario:

After testing the readership and acceptability of the newspaper locally, the targeting could be increased both geographically and demographically.

The reach of the newspaper could be increased to a large scale to target the exisiting management colleges in the Country, beginning with the Western part. Management students with a desire for knowledge and industry learnings could eventually become the readers along with interested students from non-management colleges.

v Competition

Direct Competitors:

There are currently no direct competitors for the product existing. The newspaper is the first of its kind to come up in NITIE, aiming to tap a completely new market.

Indirect Competitors:

The basic premise of the newspaper, which is to provide knowledge to students, is currently being done by numerous sources. Primarily, in the current scenario, this is done via magazines published by various forums as well as various business newspapers in the market.. Apart from this, the students are exposed to various case study competitions, assignments and exams which stretch them to acquire the required information. Moreover, there is also the ever-present source of Internet which can offer any information to the students.

However, for all of these sources, the content is not exclusively focussed on satisfying the need of specific knowledge of the students, but rather covers a general spectrum of topics. Also, for sources like the Internet, a huge amount of effort is required from the students’ end to gain a small piece of information.

v Distribution Channel:

After the printing of the newspaper is done, it will be distributed as below to enable it to reach the audience:

Storing:

The newspapers will be printed at a selected printing press initially in Mumbai. Once the printing is done, it will be stored in hostel rooms before beginning distribution. Printing press warehouses could be employed once the circulation increases.

Distribution:

For the initial few editions, the printed copies will be directly door-delivered to the student rooms, which would not only facilitate distribution but also would play an important role in publicity. Volunteers could be utilized for subsequent editions. Once the circulation increases, distribution agencies could be employed for the same purpose.

A similar model could be followed when launching the newspaper in other colleges, with every college having a SPOC who would ensure collection of the newspaper from printing press and overlooking the distribution.

v Revenue Generation Model

The main sources to garner revenue would be as follows:

Pricing:

The newspaper would be priced at a minimum of Rs. 5 to a maximum of Rs. 25 per edition depending on the final cost structure. However, participation in all our competitions and offerings would be completely free.

Advertising:

Our main advertisements will consist of B-School competitions, which we foresee as a step towards our Relevant Advertising Model. Apart from this, Profile/CV building consultancies, live projects and research options would find relevance in advertising in the newspaper. Job openings for B-School students would also form another source of advertsing.

Sponsorship:

Also, voluntary sponsorship would be another source to fund the newspaper. The sponsorship would primarily come from alumni. Agencies like mess, canteen, newspaper distribution agency, etc. could also come up with sponsorship as a part of goodwill.

v Key Partnership

        The Audaz would have partnership with the following players for its functioning:

•     Reader – The reader i.e. the students in NITIE, NITIE’s faculty and the alums in Mumbai would play the vital role in the running of this newspaper. The inputs provided by each of them would be processed to evolve this newspaper model to best suit its customer requirements.

•     College committees / Forums - The college committees and forums can leverage this platform to reach the students in a better manner. They can use this medium to float technical/non-technical articles, case studies etc. They can use this newspaper even as a platform to create buzz for a forthcoming event.

•     Crowd Sourcing – This newspaper will provide a platform to the writers in the college to display their skill.

•     Printing Press – The major expense portion of the newspaper is the printing cost. A strong relationship build with the printing press will be a valuable asset.

v Key Resources

        The Audaz is dependent on the following resources for its smooth functioning:

•     Intellect – The regular writer for the newspaper need to constantly challenge themselves and build their technical knowledge to meet the demands of the newspaper. Moreover they need to get their articles validated from the professors of various subjects. They need to be ahead of the game and constantly learn from all the resources available.

•     Reader’s Feedback – The most important resource at our disposal is the reader’s feedback. This would enable the newspaper not to be something rigid but an evolving business model. Since the newspaper is started to cater to their needs, the inputs provided by them is of utmost importance. The feedback from the readers would be taken from the following manner:

o     Informal feedback from some students

o     Survey

o     Email request for suggestions/opinions

o     Comments on a facebook page

•     Advertisements – A newspaper will be run essentially on the revenue generated from advertisements. Thus we need to ensure what we substantial assistance we can provide to them through our newspaper.

v Key Activities

•     Brainstorming & Evolving The Business Model – After every issue meeting are to be held and the agenda of such meeting would be “How we did in this issue? Where did we lose? What needs to be there in the next issue?”  After discussions, the business model as well as the newspaper’s content can be altered to best suit the customer’s requirements.

•     Gathering, Interpreting and Explaining Information – The writer of a particular article has to devote substantial man-hours in gathering information about a topic, interpreting that information and finally writing it in a manner that is suitable to the needs of the students.

•     Staying ahead of the textbooks – This newspaper isn’t setup for the purpose of educating the masses but brining out something unique and for that purpose sticking to the curriculum will not be a something would be encouraged. Topics that are in news or that are “hot” in the industry are what we want.

v MARKET ANALYSIS

1.      Survey Questionnaire

1)      You are a

a)      Management Student

b)      Prospective Management Student

c)       Professor

2)      Gender

a)      Male

b)      Female

3)      Interested Stream

a)      Finance

b)      Operations

c)       HR

d)      Marketing

4)      Current Stream?

a)      Finance

b)      Operations

c)       HR

d)      Marketing

e)      Other

5)      Work Experience (months)

6)      Current Major Source of Management Knowledge

a)      Newspaper

b)      Textbooks

c)       Internet

d)      Magazines

e)      Other

7)      Do you like the idea of launching a new fortnightly "Knowledge Paper" which will give you the knowledge of management concepts with live industrial applications according to your field of interest?

a)      Yes

b)      No

8)      Price willing to pay

a)      3 -5 Rs

b)      5 -7 Rs

c)       7-9 Rs

9)      Do you participate in inter college competitions?

a)      Yes

b)      No

10)   Your B-School?

2.      Analysis

Through Primary Research we identified that the most significant indirect competition we have is Internet and Magazines. These provide information which in most cases is not relevant to the topic under consideration. Also, it wastes a lot of time and effort of the seeker since the information is scattered across lots of sources.

 

72% of our respondents take part in inter-college competitions which gives us an impetus to launch our Relevant Advertising Model in which we advertise different college competitions and also generate revenue.

 

95% of our respondents were interested in the idea of launching our knowledge paper which is very encouraging to go ahead and launch the product.

X or Y?

Today I would like to take my audience to a relatively very old concept in management, the concept of 1960’s.Too Old but very useful in understanding human behavior in an organization. The Concept of Theory X and Theory Y. This concept was proposed by Prof. Douglas McGregor.

Prof. Douglas McGregor was a psychologist, management consultant and author. He wrote a book entitled Human Side of Enterprise. In his book ,he described two distinct set of assumptions about people at work. McGregor labelled these set of assumptions as Theory X and Theory Y. He believed that these assumptions influence the thinking and attitude of most managers about the people at work.

If my audience are still reluctant to accept the importance of these theories, we will find out what the Theory X and Theory Y are. Theory X presents a pessimistic or negative view of human nature whereas Theory Y reflects an optimistic or positive view of human behavior. These theories of 1960’s are based upon Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. 

Theory X and Theory Y relates to Maslow's hierarchy of needs in how human behavior and motivation is the main priority in the workplace in order to maximize output. In relations to Theory Y the organization is trying to create the most symbiotic relationship between the managers and workers which relates to Maslow's hierarchy of needs of Self Actualization and Esteem. For Self Actualization the manager needs to promote the optimum workplace through morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, and acceptance of facts. It can relate to Esteem when the manager is trying to promote self esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, and respect by others.

Theory X is about taking a pessimistic view of employees and don’t trust them. Theory X managers generally take an authoritarian stance with their employees and work better in control-oriented organizations. Theory Y states that employees may be striving for the higher level of Maslow’s hierarchy and searching for creativity and problem solving. Theory Y managers provide encouragement and trust for employees fulfillment. The end of the management course suggested that we as new managers should seek to balance between the two. Apparently, this is now considered a very old fashioned view of management and has been incorporated into other theories.

Assumptions:

The assumptions of Theory X are:

1. The average human being inherently dislike work and will avoid work, if possible.
2. Since human beings dislike work, they must be coerced, controlled or threatened with punishment to    make efforts to achieve objectives.
3. The average human being prefers to be directed.
4. The average human being wishes to avoid responsibility.
5. The average human being has relatively little ambition.
6. The average human being wants security above all other factors associated with the work.
7. The average human being is inherently self-centered and indifferent to organisational objectives.
8. The average human being by nature, resists change.
9. The average human being is gullible, not very bright. He may be duped by charlatans.

The assumptions of Theory Y are as follows :

1. The average human being does not inherently dislike work. Employees find that work is as natural as play or rest if organisational conditions are appropriate.
2. Employees will exercise self-direction and self-control if they are committed to objectives. External control and the threat of punishment are not the only means to make employees to work towards objectives.
3. Commitment to objectives, is a function of the rewards associated with their achievement.
4. The average human being can be motivated by higher-level needs i.e. esteem and self-actualization needs.
5. The average human being learns not only to accept but to seek responsibility. Avoidance of responsibility, lack of ambition and emphasis on security are generally not inherent human characteristics.
6. The average human being seeks responsibility because it allows him to satisfy higher-level needs.
7. The capacity to exercise imagination and creativity in the solution of problems is widely spreaded throughout the population. It is not the sole province of the managers.
8. Under the conditions of modern industrial life, the intellectual potentialities of the average human being are only partially utilized.

Theory X assumes that lower-order needs dominate individuals. Theory Y assumes that higher-order needs dominate individuals. McGregor believed that Theory Y assumptions were more valid than Theory X. Therefore, he proposed such ideas as participation in decision-making, responsible and challenging
jobs and good group relations for maximizing employee job motivation.

In these days, Managers are being more inclined to Theory Y as compared to Theory X just as we are shifted to more right-brain approaches. But a balanced approach between the two results in success of the organization.Keep Learning and keep applying was the motive of this interaction!

Decision Making and Problem Solving...

A manger's job deals with two things - deciding, doing. His task is to focus more on the deciding part, making decisions and then guide the workers in processes of implementing those decisions. It looks simple, but the reality is quite different.

Both decision making and implementation can be done in two ways:
1. Individually
2. Team Effort

Individual Decision Making And Individual Implementation	Individual Decision Making And Implementation by a Team
Team Decision Making And Individual Implementation	Team Decision Making And Implementation by a Team

Let each Quadrant in the above table be called Qij, where 'i' represent the number of row and 'j' represent the number of column, then in the above table

Q11 represents an artist or a craftsman who takes his own decisions and implements them.

Q12 represents a sports team where the captain or a coach takes a decision which is implemented by the entire team.

Q21 represents an air force mission where a team of Senior Air force personnel decide upon the targets and a pilot executes the mission by destroying the target.

Q22 represents majority of all processes in an organization. In this scenario, the top level or middle management comes to a consensus and the decision is then implemented by a team of workers.

As we move from one Quadrant to the other in the order in which each is explained, the complexity increases and the decision making process becomes difficult.

Why does the team decision making process become difficult?

A team  decision making process become difficult because it involves the following:

      1.      Situation Analysis

                      -      Valuing

                      -      Priority Setting

      2.    Problem Analysis

                      -     Information Gathering

                      -     Problem Definition

      3.  Solution Analysis

           -    Getting Ideas

           -   Decision Making

      4.  Implementation

           -  Involving Others

           -  Planning

Again the complexity increases as we move down the team decision making process with the most complex task being that of driving the team to implementing the decision effectively.  Also, decision making is a dialectical process. It has Points and Counter points. Unless it is a dialectic process it cannot be matured, enriched and improved.

Let me break a myth here, decision making does not become complex because of the problem solving required to be done to implement and complete the process. In fact, decision making is only a part of Problem Solving.

Coming to problem solving the first question that arises is what are the types of problems?

According to Sam Pitroda, problems can be classified as:

  1. Rich people's problems
  2. Poor people's problems
  3. Problems with simple solutions
  4. Problems with complex solutions

According to Sam, most of the problems and most of our efforts are in the direction of solving Rich men's problems. We tend to ignore the poor men's problems. He further adds that problems are not simple or complex; instead their solutions are. The most simple looking problem can have the most complex solution and vice-versa.

More on problems and problem solving will be discussed in the next blog. Keep visiting!

Management Lessons learnt from Three Monks...

Let us first see an award winning Chinese animated feature film "Three Monks"and then discuss the management lessons learnt from it.

Let us first discuss the Technical Lessons learnt from this film:

Effort: When only one monk lived in the monastery, the effort to fill the buckets of water and bring them back to the monastery was more than the individual effort required to fetch water when two monks were living. When more and more people are added in an organization, the amount of effort per person must reduce and the synergy of all individual efforts must produce the desired results.

Active Participation: There is one incident where the two monks measure the length of the stick to hang the barrel, center is measured by one while marking is done by the other. This shows that there is active participation from both the monks to get the work done. A management should strive for such participation because improves productivity, efficiency and also acts as a motivator.

Process Improvement: The first monk, second monk and in the end all the three monks together used different processes to satisfy their needs of water. Every method proved successful. But the same method might not be effective in a different case. What a management needs to learn that different tasks need different processes or the same process to be improved over time, if necessary replaced. The primary purpose is to get the task done using the most economical and productive process.

Attribute	1 Monk	2 Monks	3 Monks
Effort	Maximum	Less than 1 monk	Minimum
Productivity	Minimum	More than 1 monk	Maximum
Output	2 buckets at a time	1 bucket at a time	1 bucket at a time

Let us now discuss the Lessons on Human Behavior learnt from this film:

Team Wok: The importance of working as a team can clearly be learnt from the movie. It was only co-operation and team work that finally helped in saving their monastery.

Change in Behavior: The monks were initially very generous and polite towards each other but as time passed the differences began to surface. The lesson to be learnt here is that no matter how many differences one has with the other person in the team, one should put them aside as work together as a team to achieve desired results.

Hidden Lessons: 

• The film uses no language, but still effectively communicates so many important lessons. This teaches us how trivial a role language plays in communication. Effective communication needs good listeners, strong content and any simple method to convey the content fully.
• It is very necessary to stay calm and composed in times of crisis. The behavior of monks during the time of fire is a lesson in it itself.

I believe there are many other cues we can learn from in this video. I’ll definitely look for them. I’d like you also to look for them. I’d be happy to have your comments and views on this.

The Pygmalion Effect...

"When we envision what to achieve and work on it, we not only achieve it but also inspire others on the way."

1) So first things first: Envision i.e Set a goal.

Goal setting in management involves not a random choice of a target; rather it needs a SMART choice.
A goal should be:
Specific:        Goal should be clear, unambiguous and must tell exactly what is expected and why it is important.
Measurable:  Goal should be such that the progress towards achieving it should be measurable. This helps the team to stay on track and reach the target dates.
Attainable:     Goal should be realistic.
Relevant:       Goal should be relevant to the business. Resources needed to achieve the goal should be available and easy to identify.
Time Bound:  Goal should accomplished in a limited time period.

The Goals can also be SMARTER.

Evaluate: Goal should be evaluated regularly and adjusted to account for changes.
Re-Do:   Goals should be re-evaluated after the evaluation process.

Goal setting need not always follow this conventional method. Your goals can be SMART and yet unconventional.
S:    Strategic, Scale - Up, Superiority
M:  Manage, Mastery
A:   Assess, Attract
R:   Reach out, R&D, Re-Use
T:   Transform, Think outside the box.

2) But is Goal Setting Enough?

NO.

Only setting your goals, in the conventional or unconventional method, would not matter if you donot gather resources and start towards attaining that goal.
Once the goal is set, establish building blocks, fundamental tools and processes to reach the goal. Divide work according to the potential and deadlines, divide the goal into short term accomplishments,
timely evaluate the progress and work upon the feedback from this evaluation.

3) When almost all organizations do this, why don't all of them succeed?

Because the most important thing is to cultivate success in your workforce.
Align personal goals of your employees with the goal of the organization. Cultivate a faith of achieving a common goal and use the positive power of expectations to drive your organization to success.


For more on Pygmalion Effect please follow the below links:

http://raymondgarraud.com/2013/02/03/the-pygmalion-effect-in-management-2/

http://humanresources.about.com/od/managementtips/a/mgmtsecret.htm

The Blocks of Management...

Everyone of us has either heard this story or read it in our childhood.
More importantly, everyone of us remembers the moral of this story.

'Slow and Steady wins the race.'

A New Story: In a Principles of Organization Management lecture by Dr. Mandi was given a task: To build a single block tower using the given blocks.

Team 1 : Consisting of 3 people in which one will be blind folded,the other will help him without touching him nor the blocks,and the third will just observe and come into the picture only when required. (Craft Management)

Team 2: One open-eyed person to build the tower. (Modern Management)

The rest were asked to bet on how tall the tower would be. The bet was high on the open eyed person, for obvious reasons. But wait. The final result was 27-22 in the favor of Team 1.

Learning: 

• In an organisation, the blindfolded person is the worker, the person guiding the worker is the manager and the third person overlooking the whole affair is the CEO. The story shows us how a good management can increase the productivity of the workers and subsequently the organisation as a whole.
• Proper and effective communication between the various levels of an organisation is very necessary,.
• Proper division of labor can improve the productivity many fold.

Parameter	Craft Management	Modern Management
Workforce	Single person doing an entire work.	Multiple persons working on separate modules.
Skills	Increase	Decrease
Productivity	Low	High
Satisfaction	More	Less
Innovation	Less since a single person is responsible for possible failures.	More as employees have insulation from risks because of the presence of upper management

Moral:

Hire the best. Pay them well. Communicate frequently. They will knock your socks off.

I hope this story also stays in your mind for as long as the first one has.

For more management fun learn, keep following.