ICON Part IV

After the lunch break, we again assembled for the next round. Here, came a little schoker for us. As the event was totally under the wraps, we had no clue what was coming our way next. It was eliminate 2 people now as the per original plan. But since only person from IIM A already left due to personal reasons, the organisers decided of elimination just one more as they wanted to keep an even number of people in the game. The dreaded time came and the participant from IIM L was eliminated.

Now, the details of the next round were disclosed. This was in partnership with Cafe Coffee Day (CCD). We were made into teams of 2 (total 4 teams) and were assigned a CCD outlet each in Connaught Place, which has around 7 CCDs :D Our task was to maximise sales for CCD when we were there for 2 hours. And the sales were not through coffee or ffod, but through the merchandise CCD sells in each of its outlet. It includes, cookies, mints, discount cards and many other things.

Apart from this, each team had to come up with a business plan in order to boost CCD sales. The evaluation was on the basis of sales and the B Plan submitted to the CCD management.

I was teamed with a person from FMS and both of us started making the plan while traveling towards the assigned CCD outlet. We were assigned the Shivaji Stadium CCD outlet. Oh yes, forgot to mention! We were required to wear the CCD cap and Apron alongwith the ICON sweatshirts. This dress really gave us the feel of the task at hand.

Once we got there, I got down to making the B Plan and the other person started the selling part. He was quite successful in selling stuff in first 30 minutes but dearth of new customers really did us in. For some time, we together worked on the B plan and finished it once for all.

For the next one hour, we had more customers in the outlet and they did listen to the offers very patiently (apparently IIM C and FMS were enough to make an impression ;) ) But somehow, no one was interested in buying the stuff. After long persuasion, we were able to sell one more merchandise only after the initial success.

The results were not officilly out for this round but I am sure, we must have lost it. But we did not lose the lesson - SELLING IS TOUGH !!!

Continuing with the excellent hospitality, we were taken to Rajdhani restaurant in CO only, which is famous for the Gujrati thali menu. And my friend from IIM A was not really happy to go there :P :P but other were! It was an excellent meal and we were told to stuff in as much as apparently a "tough" round was due next.

About the next round, it will be in my next post...