India is the biggest democracy in the world and now has faced 14th Parliamentary election. In India voting ratio never goes up to the mark it remains very less. For promoting the people to cast their valuable vote in this election a 4 km march was organized by Deshpande Fellow Cohort-II and LEAD scholars of Deshpande Foundation in the collaboration. This march was started from BVB engineering college and ends at Rani Chennamma circle, CBT bus stand, Hubli. In this march the main motive was to encourage shopkeepers, passengers, students, vehicle drivers, community people and office people etc. Fellows interacted with all people and distributed them pamphlets.
Deshpande Fellow Ajay and Chandru along with lead program manager Annie facilitated this march. About more than 50 youth from different colleges participated in this "March towards polling booth". All the participants concluded the program with lightening the Deep (lamp).
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Challenge 5 K
A Report on 5 K Challenge
Introduction
In life there are some challenges that people must face. Some of them occur unexpectedly and some are planned. Challenges that we take in planned way, we make a particular strategy towards them to complete successfully. One of the pre-planned challenges was given to all fellows of Deshpande Foundation. This ‘5 K Challenge’ started on 17th April and ended on 27th April 2009. As an important part of the Deshpande Fellowship Program the all fellows made a specific plan for business before starting business activities. In this activity all learning and strategies of guerilla marketing and Market Oriented Value Enhancement (MOVE) were also used. In this activity fellows gained experience in selling sarees door to door. After getting negative feedback from customers’ fellows changed the strategy of selling sarees to new customers.
Module Description
‘5 K Challenge’ business activity was to learn about marketing and entrepreneurship skills. Fellows Gayatri and Ajay were on one team. Before going to purchase any product the team had plan. The fellows came up with the idea of saree selling because equal ratio of one boy and one girl in the team could do the business well and there was no problem in entering in to houses. Fellow found that this business they can do any time to approach the women in the houses or offices. So on the first day the fellows visited local market of Hubli. First fellows visited the market individually to know the market price of sarees and then both together for purchasing.
The team members planned to not spend full amount so they purchased sarees at a cost of Rs. 1685 in the first shop and sarees from another shop at a cost of Rs. 1020. Fellows preferred sarees that cost between Rs. 115 and 305, these particular sarees were purchased by keeping in mind customers preferences. Two qualities of cotton sarees were purchased along with all other sarees. On the same evening fellows made plan, how to sell the sarees so first planned to visit apartments. Fellows fixed the rate of selling sarees Rs 30 more than the purchased price. While visiting apartments got many difficulties like not to getting permission to enter the apartment and lack of interest from women. Fellows again reviewed the plan and approached the colonies and offices to sell. Through this strategy fellows succeeded and were able to sell 8 sarees. Then three sarees were sold to ‘Safe Hands’ security women and some of them took sarees on credit. They promised to pay the amount in the coming month. After this there were still some remaining stocks of 5 sarees so fellows made collaboration with other co-fellows to sell sarees with their product who were also doing the saree business and other garments business. In the last day of business fellows went to slums and here they introduced sarees but the response was very poor. In the slum, women were pricing very less than real price of sarees and they were also suggesting that you have purchased these sarees in a very high rate and price is not relevant to the quality of sarees. Here fellows were able to sell only one saree. Fellows sold sarees on very less profit when fellows saw that they were not able to sell according to their decided price. At the end closing stock was of four sarees.
Key Points
In the ‘5 K Challenge’ business, fellows applied different strategy to attract the customers to purchase sarees. The main part of process was to use guerilla marketing techniques in selection, approach and selling the products to the customers and changing the way of selling. This activity was real experience to know the market risks and identification of customers. One thing is very important that one should think all about the product, market, customers and do the research to know all terms clearly according to the business.
Lessons Learned
In the ‘5 K Challenge’ fellows learned many things such as one should engage directly with customers to better understand the market and customers. Before planning for a business one must conduct market research on the particular product. When fellows introduced themselves as Deshpande Fellows to the customers, in some place it was good but in some places customers were suspicious. Fellows also used some references and were able to sell the sarees easily. Customer’s choice change as per their standard of living.
Introduction
In life there are some challenges that people must face. Some of them occur unexpectedly and some are planned. Challenges that we take in planned way, we make a particular strategy towards them to complete successfully. One of the pre-planned challenges was given to all fellows of Deshpande Foundation. This ‘5 K Challenge’ started on 17th April and ended on 27th April 2009. As an important part of the Deshpande Fellowship Program the all fellows made a specific plan for business before starting business activities. In this activity all learning and strategies of guerilla marketing and Market Oriented Value Enhancement (MOVE) were also used. In this activity fellows gained experience in selling sarees door to door. After getting negative feedback from customers’ fellows changed the strategy of selling sarees to new customers.
Module Description
‘5 K Challenge’ business activity was to learn about marketing and entrepreneurship skills. Fellows Gayatri and Ajay were on one team. Before going to purchase any product the team had plan. The fellows came up with the idea of saree selling because equal ratio of one boy and one girl in the team could do the business well and there was no problem in entering in to houses. Fellow found that this business they can do any time to approach the women in the houses or offices. So on the first day the fellows visited local market of Hubli. First fellows visited the market individually to know the market price of sarees and then both together for purchasing.
The team members planned to not spend full amount so they purchased sarees at a cost of Rs. 1685 in the first shop and sarees from another shop at a cost of Rs. 1020. Fellows preferred sarees that cost between Rs. 115 and 305, these particular sarees were purchased by keeping in mind customers preferences. Two qualities of cotton sarees were purchased along with all other sarees. On the same evening fellows made plan, how to sell the sarees so first planned to visit apartments. Fellows fixed the rate of selling sarees Rs 30 more than the purchased price. While visiting apartments got many difficulties like not to getting permission to enter the apartment and lack of interest from women. Fellows again reviewed the plan and approached the colonies and offices to sell. Through this strategy fellows succeeded and were able to sell 8 sarees. Then three sarees were sold to ‘Safe Hands’ security women and some of them took sarees on credit. They promised to pay the amount in the coming month. After this there were still some remaining stocks of 5 sarees so fellows made collaboration with other co-fellows to sell sarees with their product who were also doing the saree business and other garments business. In the last day of business fellows went to slums and here they introduced sarees but the response was very poor. In the slum, women were pricing very less than real price of sarees and they were also suggesting that you have purchased these sarees in a very high rate and price is not relevant to the quality of sarees. Here fellows were able to sell only one saree. Fellows sold sarees on very less profit when fellows saw that they were not able to sell according to their decided price. At the end closing stock was of four sarees.
Key Points
In the ‘5 K Challenge’ business, fellows applied different strategy to attract the customers to purchase sarees. The main part of process was to use guerilla marketing techniques in selection, approach and selling the products to the customers and changing the way of selling. This activity was real experience to know the market risks and identification of customers. One thing is very important that one should think all about the product, market, customers and do the research to know all terms clearly according to the business.
Lessons Learned
In the ‘5 K Challenge’ fellows learned many things such as one should engage directly with customers to better understand the market and customers. Before planning for a business one must conduct market research on the particular product. When fellows introduced themselves as Deshpande Fellows to the customers, in some place it was good but in some places customers were suspicious. Fellows also used some references and were able to sell the sarees easily. Customer’s choice change as per their standard of living.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
An Eco-tourism visit to Dandeli Forests
Deshpande Fellows Eco-tourism visit to Dandeli Forests. In this Eco visit fellows got new learning with fun in recognizing the nature and it's importance in human life including wildlife conservation. They also had stay with 'Vanavasi' community.
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