IIM Calcutta Innovation Park (IIMCIP) in association with the Directorate of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Government of West Bengal conducted 3-day residential programmes for the officers of the District Industries Centre and the Directorate of MSME at IIM Calcutta. The training programmes were held in 3 batches.

IIM Calcutta Innovation Park in association with the Department of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises & Textiles (MSME&T), Government of West Bengal organised the first Entrepreneurship Development Centre Network (EDCN) program in West Bengal at the IIM Calcutta Campus from 5th to 7th July 2018. The program aimed to ignite the Young Minds by helping them to ideate, have them nurtured and thereby create an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem right at the grass roots.

IIM Calcutta Innovation Park (IIMCIP) in association with Department of Science and Technology, Government of India has launched North East Accelerator Program (NEAP) to create a supportive eco-system for the entrepreneurs in North-east with STPI and Ennovent as partners of the initiative. Out of over 150 applications from start-ups across North-east, 12 most scalable ideas were shortlisted and subsequently considered for acceleration by IIMCIP. A total of 3 bootcamps were held in Guwahati, Assam. The first one was held from April 3 to 5 at the National Institute of Rural Development while the second was held from June 8 to 9 at the Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship. The third bootcamp was held from August 2 to 3 at the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj. Start-ups from the following domain are part of NEAP: Food and Agriculture, Logistics, Education, Fashion and Tourism. The program concluded with Demo Day where NEAP start-ups pitched to investors from banks and FIs, investor organisations, HNIs located at Assam, Kolkata and Bangalore.

The capacity building program was undertaken by Mr. Prakash Mundhra, (Marketing Director Prmotex Industries). The workshop attended by 10 startups.

Mr. Mundhra spoke about the element of a marketing system that includes the development and delivery of company or product messages to targeted customers. Paid advertising along with a number of other unpaid promotional tools are used to accomplish marketing communication objectives.

There are different types of marketing strategies available. Picking up a marketing strategy includes analyzing the needs of business, target audience and specifications of products.
The two main types of marketing strategy are:

1. Business to business (B2B) marketing
2. Business to consumer (B2C) marketing.
According to him “Marketing begins with a creator and ends with a consumer. It’s the process by which consumers learn about and obtain products and services. Marketing is more than just advertising, though it does include that aspect of the process. It also includes the media through which a product or services offered and the research that goes into the final decisions of how to package and sell it.”

Some do’s and dont’s in Email-Marketing :

1. Bulk email is not very effecting marketing strategy

2. While drafting an email subject line should be very important

3. Email should not be too long

4. Keeping track of the bounced mail

Lastly he mentioned about an impotent tool of marketing which is digital marketing :The Internet and all its permutations is the latest frontier for marketers. An online presence is almost a requirement in the 21st century as part of any marketing efforts. Marketing can be done in a huge array of formats, from websites to social media and mobile applications, and can allow for customization, content-based ads, and interaction from the audience.

The workshop ended with an interactive Q & A session, where questions were posed by not only the participants but faculty as well.

The workshop was undertaken by Mr. Arindam Som, Consumer & Market Insights (CMI) Lead at GSK CH; ex-CMI & Marketing Director at Unilever .The workshop was attended by 10 startup.
Mr. Som spoke about “India needs to nurture the dreams of start-ups as they become the future engine of our economic growth”. He mentioned that the Start-ups have great innovation ideas, many of them are positioned to solve some genuine problems of ours or enabling people to aspire big.However there are few basic questions which we need to solve for to make a profitable business out of it. These are:

(i) ESTIMATE THE UNVOICED or PERCEIVED NEED GAPS

Is there a genuine or perceived need gap in people’s livestoday, around which we our idea exists? Would people really spend more money than usual, to buy this new product / service from you? How do we understand or observe for people’s genuine needs which many a time, may remain unvoiced?

(ii) THE NEED FOR A BRAND

In many instances, people would spend a bit extra to buy a product (over any other) because it comes with certain credentials. Is it just the highest quality? Or are they looking for an enhancement of their image, what they would like others to think about her / him while consuming this product / service?

(iii) APT COMMUNICATION IN THE RIGHT CHANNELS

How do you make sure that the news of your product / servicehas reached the right people in the right way, hopefully at the minimum of the expenses? You may not be able to advertise in TV but you still need to make the news viral. Are you doing things required as per the evolution of the product / service?

(iv) VALUE FOR MONEY, ITS NOT ABOUT THE PRICE

Indians need to feel smart while buying your stuff. We would like to extract the maximum value for whatever we spend our money in. Is your product / service up for this challenge? Have you packed ‘more things for less cost’? Do people see a value of your idea beyond its usage life cycle?

These are some of the things for which I had the opportunity to talk to with 10 start-ups from Bengal at the IIM-C campus, in early February 2018. What was intended as a lecture, soon became a session when it was about empathizing with the realities of what our entrepreneurs are facing and co-creating some potential ‘solutions & tactics & strategy’ which we can realistically implement. It was a session when I had to quickly go back to specific examples from my experiences in Unilever or when I had my own consulting or now in Glaxo SmithKline, and distill the real learning from it and devising a course of action.

(v) RUTHLESS CONSUMER CENTRICITY

In a market when a maximum 5%-10% innovations survive with decent margins, I really think ‘consumer centricity’ is the answer which can fool-proof our idea against all odds (even while talking to potential investors and incubators). Spending time with consumers (even potential) and shadowing them and having genuine conversations with them is going to provide the much-needed solutions for need gaps, branding, communication approaches and how to optimize cost and price. If we do this for atleast 3-4 hours in a week with discipline and without distractions for all members of your organization, its bound to provide practical solutions for not only your business but also your self.

Lastly he mentioned that , our entrepreneurs are already superb with their thoughts, are willing to sweat it out and are focused on making a business. At the same time, the market is ruthless in weeding out the ‘weak’. Therefore, we need to think practical and always think ‘how to make money’. It really helps us in prioritization.

The workshop ended with an interactive Q & A session, where questions were posed by not only the participants but faculty as well.