Deepesh Singh’s Blog Rewind: What Does 2013 Say?

December 31, 2013 ~ Deepesh Singh

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 33,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 12 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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How to disable file search or indexing in Start Menu

December 28, 2013 ~ Deepesh Singh

Few of friends, who follow my blog have complained about a problem in the comment box of “How to permanently disable VLC recent played list on dock” that even after disabling VLC history when they do search on start menu, video can be seen. So here is solution. Actually it is not with VLC playlist of history. It is a default feature of Windows. When we type something in Start Menu, it start searching everything in our PC. It could be Files, Document, Software, Application etc. Here I am searching for “Bigg Boss Video”.

Since VLC is default player so there is a sign of VLC icon. Now we will disable this feature. Follow these steps.
Step 1: Type Services.msc on Start Menu as shown in the image below and open it.

Step 2: Now search for “Windows Search”. Right click and go to ‘Properties’

Step 3: Disable Start Up type. Select ‘Disable’. Click Apply and then OK.

Step 4: Now restart your PC and search “Bigg Boss”

As you can see in the above image, Bigg Boss videos are there in my PC, but they are not been shown at Start Menu. But Disabling Windows Search has its own consequences so do what actually you need to.

Copyright © 2013 ·All Rights Reserved · Republishing or copying this article or any part of this without giving reference would come under WordPress Copyright Act.
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Info Edge Placement Papers- Interview Questions and Tips

December 18, 2013 ~ Deepesh Singh

Info Edge pvt. ltd. mostly known as Naukri.com is one of the biggest internet based Indian company. It has many brands under its umbrella like naukri.com, firstnaukri.com, jeevansathi.com, 99acres.com, 99levels.com, mydala.com, policybazaar.com, shiksha.com and many more. If you want to read about Info Edge and its business, you can download their annual report from here.
Download Annual Report

Info Edge - Placement Paper

Read also Mu Sigma Aptitude Paper for Placement
Now let’s talk about placement. Today I want to share my experience with info edge placement process. Actually 99acres.com (which a part of Info Edge) came to a campus in Gwalior and they called MBA students from our campus as well. We were invited to attend the pool campus along with that particular college and one another college. We were around 90 students from 3 campuses, all from Gwalior only. We were told to reach there before 9:30 AM and we reached by 9:45 AM. We were expecting that processes would start by 10:30 or 11 but HR people were coming from Delhi by train. Due to fog train was running late by more than 2 hours. So we had no choice, we had to wait. They reached to the campus by 1 PM. They started with presentation with all boring thoughts and concepts like what they are selling. We will not ask you to carry a medicine bag and to sell products door (but they will ask to carry your laptop and sell internet door to door). They did not say that. 😛
They came for 2 posts.
1. Senior Executive – Corporate sales
2. Direct Sale.
They took one and half an hour to finish the presentation. Then we were left to decide either we want to sit for that or we want to move back. They gave only 10 minutes and told that they will take GD and then PI, which will start by 3:15 PM. Then we were divided into few groups, each group carried 10 students. I was in group 4. They started their GD round at 4:30 PM. What I have seen or read everywhere about GD was completely different than what I saw today.
Actually there was a table in a classroom. 2 HR people were sitting one side and 10 chairs were kept in front of them. We all were told to sit one by one according to name on the list. Then they encouraged us to ask any doubt or query. I just asked, “Sir, as your organization info edge has every kind of business profile. You are here to hire for 99acre.com. So can I move to Naukri.com after getting experience from 99acres.com?” The answer was BIG NO. We have a rigid organizational structure. So sorry we can’t allow that.
Read also Mu Sigma Aptitude Paper for Placement
Then after putting bakwass questions and all, they started the GD. The boy sitting at the corner was asked to introduce himself. He had just started, took only 20 second. That’s it. Tell me something about your parents; another bullet was shot on him. I don’t understand, I am getting or fighting for the job, why they are asking about our parent’s profiles instead of mine. Bull shit. Then next, then next and then me. I started; Sir my name is blah blah and blah and I did 10th from here and there 12 from here and there. That’s it. Then next question as expected about parents. Next which profile you want to apply for. It hardly took 2 minute to finish my GD round.
Finally our group took 10 minutes and came out of the room. There were around 8 groups and after finishing all groups, they took just 10 minutes to make a list. A faculty member came to hall and announced all selected students. I was not shocked as my name was not there. I do not know how they can judge a person on the basis of just 2 minute introduction. They shortlisted one girl from our group and out of 20 shortlisted students, there were only 3 boys. 10-10 for each profile.
The more shocking incident is when they called for PI. They called 5 students simultaneously and instead of asking questions about the candidates, they were just trying to convenience them that if they get selected, they have to purchase a car by Jan 2014 with proper driving license and after 15-20 minutes they told the group to leave. They also said that there would another round which would take place either in Delhi or by Skype.
This is all my personal experience. I really did not expect this from such reputed company. Info edge is perhaps the biggest internet company in India and their hiring process was so dull. I felt like that we students had been discarded badly.
Few tips on the basis on my personal experience:
1. Try to be in formal. Suit yourself properly.
2. When they ask to introduce start with your current education and your projects.
3. Try to show them that you are so much interested to join the company.
4. If you have any former experience regarding sales or marketing, please do not forget to put it before the panel.
As there were not any written tests or Proper GD round or proper PI, I could not comment on that. Sorry guys but I hope this article would give you a rough idea about info edge placement and interview.

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Heuristic Marketing Concept – Philip Kotler

December 13, 2013 ~ Deepesh Singh

Heuristic Marketing Concept is based on the development, design and implementation of marketing programs, processes and activated that recognizes their breadth and interdependencies. Holistic marketing recognized that everything matters in the marketing – and that a broad, integrated perspective is often necessary.
So this concept recognizes every aspect of marketing and its importance. It is further divided into 4 broad sub categories. These are:

Relationship Marketing
Internal Marketing
Integrated Marketing
Performance Marketing

Heuristic Marketing - Philip Kotler

Relationship Marketing
Today in this competitive market, retaining customers is a major challenge. So every company keeps customer’s need and demand as their main priority. Companies try to establish a relationship with customers as well as its partners and suppliers which can be beneficial to the company.
Relationship Marketing aims to build mutually satisfying long-term relationship with key constituents in order to earn and retain their business.

Internal Marketing
Holistic marketing also identifies internal marketing to ensure that everyone in the organization embraces appropriate marketing principles. It includes hiring, training and motivating. It is very important to train internal people and make them able to provide world class services to the customers. Without smart and professional people in the people, marketing a good service or better product in the market is unworthy.

Integrated Marketing
One of the major tasks of marketing manager is to study marketing activities and assemble fully integrated marketing programs to create, communicate and deliver values to the customers so marketing managers apply 4 P’s of marketing: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. In case of service marketing, we have 7 P’s: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Process, Physical Evidence and People.

Product o Product Quality o Design o Brand Name o Service o Warranty	Price: o List Price o Discounts o Payment Period
Place: o Channels o Location o Inventory	Promotion o Sale Promotion o Advertisement

Performance Marketing
It defines the returns to the business from marketing activated and programs as well as addressing broader concerns and their legal, ethical, social and environment effects. Top management studies not about just sales and profit or revenue; they study also about customer satisfaction, product quality and standard, customer lose rate etc.
Few concepts of performance marketing:
1. Financial Accountability
2. Social Responsibility Marketing

Bibliography

1. Kotler, P. (2009). Marketing management. Pearson Education India.

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Marketing Nano as ‘cheapest car’ was a mistake?

November 29, 2013 ~ Deepesh Singh

I was going through an article titled, ‘Marketing Nano as ‘cheapest car’ was a mistake’ in Times of India – 29th Nov 2013. I was really shocked to see the measurable condition of one of most innovative products of the decade. When launched, Tata group was ranked 6th among world’s top 25 most innovative companies just because of its brand new product- Tata Nano. (Economics Times of India, 2008). It was Ratan Tata’s dream to provide an affordable 4 wheeler to all Indian people who could not afford a car and spend their lives on bikes only. One interesting thing is that India is the biggest market for 2 wheelers so launching a car on that price could be a right choice or we can say could be an intelligent decision. The idea and promotion was hit. People had to be in queue for advance booking. So the response from people was great. In between Singur (WB) incident happened and Tata had to shift its plant to Gujarat, which delayed the production by few months. People were eagerly waiting for the car.
Everything went as planned and finally in 2009, Tata Nano was rolled out in Indian market with a tag line – ‘Khushiyon ki chaabi’. People started calling it – ‘Lakhtakiya car’. They positioned their car as the cheaper one and everyone can afford that one. Sooner they introduce EMI also with just 12K down payment. Tata launched the advertisements in market which was emotional ones. They tried to target the lower income group hence niche marketing. They positioned the car as cheaper and as the best option for small family and safer one also. In every ads they were showing bike with full packed or in rainy season. Actually it is said that Ratan Tata got the idea of Nano after looking at a family who were in bike and it was raining at that time. Mr. Tata was touched and gave an assignment to his engineers to make it possible.

Tata Nano - Image

What went wrong?

Later Tata started changing the concept of cars. Now Tata Nano was not just cheaper one but also gives mileage and can go by bad roads also. Sooner they started targeting college students, friends and youngsters. Sales figure was not as expected but was quite good for 2-3 years. New York times writes that Tata Nano was hurt when incident of fire came in media. Many such incidents came into picture. It was happening not in older one but also in brand new. A Mumbai based customer was taking away his car to home from dealer and it cached fire. Tata Nano started damage control and extended the warranty of its sold cars. But now people started thinking about their safety. A thought uses to come into mind when such incident happens that it might happen because it is the cheapest one. May be Nano engineers did not go through every basic dimension.
On the other hand other automobile companies like Hyundai and Maruti Suzuki were launching small cars with a price range of 2.5 Lakh to 5 Lakh. They were catching the market more aggressively. Tata Nano could not target the business class or higher income group. They only targeted middle class family and because of their tag Lakhtakiya car or the cheapest one, higher income group people use to think about their status before going for it. It was wrong decision by marketing management team. And in same time petrol and diesel prices started touching skies. Tata Nano was made for people who ride bike but petrol price was too high to afford a car. Tata Nano was a great invention but other factors like complementary product, competitors and substitute products were its market share and slowly market share declines. In Though October this year, Tata Motors launched a new version of the Nano with CNG and petrol bi-fuel system options but still sale figures is declining. Ratan Tata also said “It became termed as a cheapest car by the public and, I am sorry to say, by ourselves, not by me, but the company when it was marketing it. I think that is unfortunate.” Indian community has a thought that higher price products must be better than cheaper one. So we prefer foreign brand instead of cheaper Indian brand.

Tata Nano Sales Figure

Fiscal year	Sales
2009-10	30000
2010-11	70432
2011-12	74527
2012-13 (Apr- Sept)	10202

Repositioning

Now Tata Nano is bringing its new brand new Nano model – Nano Pixel. Experts believe that it would be remote controlled and would be a great innovation. We are hoping that the brand new would not be positioned as cheaper one and would be priced more than 4 Lakh.