Eveready finals

After winning the campus round, we had to work only on toothpaste/toothbrush industry and drop the biscuits idea. There were other specific instructions from the company asking us to work on exact requisite details - Positioning of product, target group, launch, geography, marketing plan and even the financials for the next 3 years.

We thought the best way to move forward is to contact our faculty. we mailed some profs and 2 profs were ready to help for the same. Firstly, we met our strategy prof and got some inputs for the same. He advised us to knit everything around the core competency of the company and also to drop the toothbrush launch. According to him, it is always better to focus on one product only whenever a launch is planned by a company. After garnering some more inputs from him, we started to work on our project.

Google is the best friend for such stuff and we searched analyst reports, company annual reports, competitor's reports, industry setup etcetra. Making a strategy involved elaborate discussions amongst ourselves, difference of opinions and even heated discussions! But everyone had a point to put forward but in the end, it brought to table many issues which are difficult to think when working single-handedly on such stuff. This is where, I believe team dynamics make a phenomenal difference.

After 4 days of sleepless nights :D, we met our marketing prof also, but one night before the final competition ;) We spent concrete 2 hours with him and got honest feedback, improvements and excellent suggestions. With less than 12 hours to go for our final presentation, we still decided to incorporate the changes. In the end, all of us were quite satisfied with our final outcome.

After managing a 4 hour sleep, I had to haggle with my prof to give me attendance for the class which I had to miss to attend the competition. He was quite cool about it and gave me attendance without much problem. As the presentation was to be held in ITC Sonar Bangla in Kolkata, Eveready arranged a pickup for us from the campus.

Upon reaching there, we met our competitors from IIM B, L and XLRI who had arrived in the city the previous night and were accommodation in ITC itself! It was quite a socialising session for all of us and we also did not miss out on the opportunity to click some pics of the scenic beauty there :)

The competition started at around 11 with Board of Directors being a part of the audience. The judges and the audience consisted of all division heads of the company and various other senior and respected people from the industry. Deep down, I really felt honoured to be making a presentation in front of such an august gathering.

XLRI was the first one to present, who proposed the idea of Eveready foraying into personal care products. Next came IIM L, which told them to move into portable chargers using USB ports. IIM B was up next, advising them to launch gamut of products for men only, which they divided in 2 categories - pre shave, shave and post shave! Our team was the last to go and the strangest thing happened with us - not a single question was raised for us after our presentation was over. We thought, we weren't so also ;)

Well, it was lunch break and results were due after it. Lunch gave us an opportunity to interact personally with senior people from the industry. We had a talk at length with a gentleman who had been in the marketing field for the last 35 years and worked with leading brands like HUL, Colgate and Airtel to name a few. He pointed out some of our mistakes and it was quite insightful to talk to him.

Once the lunch was over, we got together for the results. As always, the teams were called in increasing order of performance. We were the first ones to be called i.e. we were the 4th best team, XLRI being 3rd, runners-up were IIM B and IIM L were the winners.

The concluding part of the competition was a group photograph with the judges and all the participants.

Ya, its sad to lose but 50k prize money was some consolation though ;)

Our marketing prof is still more than happy with our efforts and wants us to write a case study on the same. Lets see, how does that turn out to be.