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CHETANAS INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AND RESEARCH PGDM 2010-2012 SUMMER INTERNSHIP PROGRAMME FINAL REPORT
FACULTY GUIDE GUIDE PROF. SUNITA SRIVASTAVA NAIR (HEAD FACULTY {MARKETING}) MANAGER) COMPANY MR. SHYAM P (DY GENERAL

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SUBMITTED BY SRIKESH RAMKRISHNAN { PG C (08) }

A PROJECT REPORT ON PROMOTION OF MINT SALES IN INSTITUTIONS { HOTELS, HOSPITALS, BSCHOOLS, STOCK

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BROKERS, BANKS, CORPORATES }

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

With immense gratitude I acknowledge Mrs.Madhumita Patil, Director of CIMR Mumbai for giving me the opportunity to do my SIP. I am extremely indebted to Mr. Shyam Nair, Dy General Manager at HT media, for giving me an opportunity to take up this project. He tried to give a direction and focus to my project and helped me throughout the journey. I would like to thank him for his continuous support and also his never ending patience which he showed towards my ideas and efforts. I express my sincere thanks to my faculty guide Prof. Sunita Srivastava, Faculty, CIMR, Mumbai for her guidance, support, valuable suggestions and co-operation which motivated me to push my limits and scale greater heights. I would also like to thank to my family and friends who constantly supported and assisted me in the successful accomplishment of this project. Finally, I would like to thank all those who are directly or indirectly associated with my project. This project is dedicated to them all.

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Amit Chhabra

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TOPIC
1)

PAGE NO.

INTRODUCTION
a)

Background of the organization 6,7,8,9 Objectives of the study 10,11 Limitations 12 13 18 -

b)

c)

2)

LITERATURE REVIEW 17 METHODOLOGY 23 CONCLUSION

a) b)

3)

4)

Key learnings Recommendation

24 25 26

5)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

6) APPENDIX
a)

Copy of questionnaire

27

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The project undertaken by me covers all the areas that deal with the promotion of newspapers. It covers the areas related to the overall strategic planning in the newspaper industry. For better understanding of the project needs, I have studied the whole system of newspaper branding and promotional strategies. This has helped me know what is done where and by whom. With the knowledge of this I have studied the work done by various heads. As my project revolves around the study of business dailys industry , I have studied the various methodology by which the newspapers are promoted and distributed by the company and what are the benefits and disadvantages of the same. I have also analyzed the various schemes and type of subscriptions that the publication house provides. The distribution channel seen in the newspaper industry as a whole is also studied. This has been done keeping in mind its implication to my project.

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I have also put in the details of the leads i.e. my target population and the flow of the project undertaken. The project speaks about all these factors in detail and briefs about everything that I have come across and was of importance to the project.

CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE ORGANISATION :

HT Media found its beginning in 1924 when its flagship newspaper, Hindustan Times was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi. HT Media (BSE, NSE) has today grown to become one of India's largest media companies. Produced by an editorial team known for its quality, innovation and integrity, Hindustan Times (English newspaper) and Hindustan (Hindi newspaper through a subsidiary Hindustan Media Ventures Limited), have a combined daily readership base of 12.7 million (based on round 2 of Indian Readership Survey 2009) to their credit. Both

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dailies enjoy a strong brand recognition among readers as well as advertisers. To cater to the large readership base, HT Media operates 19 printing facilities across India with an installed capacity of 1.5 million copies per hour. In addition to Hindustan Times, HT Media also publishes a national business newspaper, Mint. Mint is a one-of-its-kind newspaper in the sense that the company has an exclusive agreement with the Wall Street Journal to publish Journal-branded news and information in India. Mint is today the second-largest business newspaper in India with presence in the key markets of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Pune and now Kolkata too. HT Media has also made its foray into electronic media. Diversifying its ambit of operations, the company in a consulting partnership with Virgin Radio, has launched the FM radio channel - Fever 104. Currently available in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata, Fever 104 has established a strong presence as being one of the most vibrant channels on air. Internet businesses of HT Media incorporated under Firefly e-ventures, operate leading web portals Hindustantimes.com and livemint.com in the

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general and business news categories respectively. The company's year old job portal Shine.com which has received high appreciation from consumers and industry for its innovative design and usability crossed 2.2 million registrations. Desimartini.com a social networking site was also launched recently.

VISION AND VALUES:

The solid edifice on which HT Media stands tall today was built on high ideals and values. Values HT Media A rich heritage to live up to! Organizational values are the foundation stones on which the organizations image is built. These help the company realize its organizational goals and in turn transform lives. These values are intended to infuse an infectious energy, professionalism and a sense of true empowerment to the workplace.

The solid edifice on which HT Media stands tall today was built on high ideals and values. The company has its roots in the independence movement in the first half of the twentieth century,

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a cause to empower the nation. We are adaptive to the changing times, while remaining steadfast to the values rooted in our culture. Our values drive us towards our goals of expansion, diversification and excellence. These values define our philosophy of operations, guide our important decisions and determine our commitment and achievement.

The values personified by HT Media are: Courage To encourage the ability that meets opposition with skill, competence and fortitude. Responsibility Be accountable for results in line with the companys objectives, strategies and values. Empowerment Support our people and give them the freedom to perform and to provide our readers with information to influence their environment. Continuous Self Renewal

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Determination to constantly re-examine and reinvent ourselves for further innovation and creativity.

People Centric People are our greatest asset. We invest in them expect a lot and know that the rest will follow.

Vision HT Media strives to be a visionary organization and not an organization with a vision. In our endeavour to have a shared understanding, alignment and commitment , we have derived our companys vision that sets the course and empowers people to take action.

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OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY :

To promote HT and MINT sales in institutions (Hotels , Financial institutions , B-schools , Hospitals, Stock Brokers etc.)

Showcase our product to clients After the pre call preparation i.e. homework the main objective was to demonstrate our product to the target client in order to make them aware of the product and its USPs in detail.

Target readers who are already exposed to business papers

The main focus was to target those readers who are reading any kind of business papers and tell them to add on our paper to their existing paper as we cannot tell a reader about his/her brand choice.

Major focus on line copy

HT told us to focus more and more on line copies rather than subscription but we were not able to make conversions rather we sold a good no. of

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subscriptions copies as every reader was interested for subscriptions as they were getting this benefit from other newspapers.

Other objectives:
Learn the business model of the print media industry. Understand the functioning of the print industry. Learn the negotiation skills. Learn selling skills. Acquire first hand experience of the interaction with the clients. Study the human behavior in print industry. Understand the trends in print industry. Understand the practicality of whatever we learned in the classroom during our past 1 year. Understand the distribution process involved in the print industry.

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How to constantly innovate the business model in order to survive the competition.

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LIMITATIONS: Contact HO but difficult to take appointments

This was the major problem faced by many of us as a large no. of corporate offices tell us to contact their head office as the decisions regarding newspapers were taken by HOD.

Strong influence of ET on readers

This was the most common reason given by readers when they were not interested as they were reading ET from a long time and they were not at all interested in changing their existing paper.

Free supplement from DNA

DNA started distributing free supplement as people thought they were giving a business paper for free which was a major concern for us .

Changing mind of readers

There were many leads which liked our product a lot and they gave us appointments to visit later but due to changing minds of readers those conversions were not done. Around 10 conversions were not done by me due to this reason.

Cheque Vs. Cash

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HT follows a very good policy of dealing only in cheque but many of our friends who are students were not able to give cheques which was one of the major concern.

CHAPTER 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW

THE SIX MAJOR STEPS OF EFFECTIVE SELLING:

PROSPECTING AND QUALIFYING

PREAPPROACH

PRESENTATION AND DEMONSTRATION OVERCOMING OBJECTIONS

CLOSING

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FOLLOW-UP AND MAINTENANCE

ABOUT THE PRODUCT: MINT

A business paper from Hindustan Times in collaboration with The Wall Street Journal. It was launched on 1st Feb 2007. Hindustan times is a highly influential 87- year old newspaper , inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi. It is Indias 2nd largest English newspaper and the largest in Delhi. The Wall Street Journal is the most authoritative business publication in the world for over a hundred years. It is the worlds largest and respected business brand.

MINT PORTFOLIO:

Available 6 days a week in a refreshing design ,Mint gives us clear ,relevant and well analysed Indian as well as International business news.

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We get relevant international business news in an exclusive section from The Wall Street Journal inside mint every day. A convenient pull-out stocks and mutual funds from Tuesday to Saturday. Markets Watch gives us comprehensive and relevant market data to analyse the days movements. After a serious week of business ,unwind with Lounge. All about books, travel, technology, parenting and health. This exclusive edition, every Saturday, is filled with advice and suggestions to help enrich our life.

CONTEMPORARY DESIGN:

The design of the paper is given by Mario Garcia who has redesigned Over 500 newspapers worldwide including The Wall Street Journal. Mint gives a separate index for easy navigation for readers convenience. The major USPs of mint are that it uses simple language with no financial jargons ,it gives lively content, the ads are well placed , it uses more and more pictures and graphs that makes the newspaper visually appealing.

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SIZE OF THE PAPER:

Mint has a unique Berliner size which is reader friendly , easy to handle and much more convenient as compared to a broadsheet which is not easy to handle and a tabloid which is considered a size for papers meant for entertainment.

MINT A SUCCESS STORY

#2 business newspaper in the country as per readership survey (IRS R2, 2009)

25% readership share in key markets of Mumbai and Delhi.

Award Winning Business Journalism

Gold in the best in special coverage at 7th Annual Asia

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Media Awards competition organized by IFRA Asia

CNN Young Journalist Award in December 2007 As per Fortune magazine, Mint has raised Indias standards of business journalism

CURRENTLY AVAILABALE IN:

7 Cities Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Pune, Kolkata, Chennai. The price of mint is Rs 2 per copy and it is available from Monday to Saturday. The price of hindustan times is Rs 2.50 per copy (Mon-Sat) and Rs 3 per copy on Sundays.

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TRAINING :

The summers internship project started by HT Media provided us with a 2 day training schedule where they flew down their expert trainer from their Delhi Head Office Mr. Paramjit Singh and Ms. Angela.

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Mr. Paramjit Singh is HT Medias expert sales trainer and Ms. Angela is a product trainer. On the 1st day of HT Media Mr. Paramjit Singh gave us all the tools of sales and introduced the REED PPB model of getting sales: REED PPB: HT Media expert Mr. Paramjit Singh believes that all the customers go through the different stages of REEDPPB and it is the duty of a salesperson to guide the customer through this stages the most effective way. The following are the stages of REED PPB:

R = Recognition of need: At this stage it is upto the salesperson to recognize the need of the client and accordingly cater to the client. The salesperson should be able to germinate the need within the customers he meet.

E = Evaluation of Options: After recognizing the need which is germinated by the salesperson there is always option available with the customers which are evaluated by them and it is the salesperson

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who takes the responsibility of helping the customer to evaluate the options by showing the advantages and disadvantages of the various available options.

E = Elimination of Doubts: At this stage the salesperson should be able to do the cost benefit analysis i.e. the salesperson should help the customer to identify the factors which will lead the customers value for money which will lead him to prefer your product over the competition. The salesperson should solve all the doubts and queries of the customer he is catering to.

D = Decision to Buy the Product: At this stage the customer finally makes the decision to buy the product.

PPB( Post Purchase Behavior) = The final stage is the post-purchase evaluation of the decision. Here in this stage the customer experiences the utility of the

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product purchased. If he is satisfied with the product he will make repeat purchases or else will shift to the competitor.

CHAPTER 3 :

METHODOLOGY UNDERTAKEN:

The model followed by HT to promote its sales is GET SALE method G Greeting and introduction E Engaging to gain interest T Testing need through questioning

S Solution proposal A Acknowledge and resolve objection

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L Lead to close E Evolving a trust relationship

The main focus was on those who were already exposed to business paper. Some of the guidelines given to us were that always respect your buyers choice, do not attempt to change the fundamentals , think from the buyers mind and create hype and curiosity but not to stretch much.

PATTERN OF WORK:

Banks
We 1st started targeting banks which was a major success as a major amount of subscriptions were coming from banks.

Hotels
We then moved to hotel category which was not at all a successful task as many of them were already subscribed and many of them told to contact head branch office but at end it was not a successful task.

Hospitals

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We contacted a large no. of doctors but they were not giving appointments at all.

B - Schools
We were allotted two B- schools each of which one was chetanas and Sydenham college. In chetanas they were already subscribed with 2 copies for library and In Sydenham college they were not interested in going for more no. of copies.

Stock brokers
I contacted many stock brokers of which I got conversions also but the success rate was very low as compared to banks and personal subscriptions to friends and relatives.

DISTRIBUTON CHANNEL:
H.T. MEDIA LTD.
( DESIGNING , CONTENT , PLACING ADS ETC. )

PRINTING PRESS
( PRINTING LATEST DONE BY 3 OR 4 A.M. )

DEPOTS

( ACCORDING TO REQUIREMENTS )

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DELIVERY

VENDORS

CUSTOMERS / READERS

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HT Media Ltd. : News from various agencies and journalists are gathered and edited in the office. All the designing and formatting is done with due care. After this a rough print of that days edition is taken and then finally sent to printing press. Printing Press: Once the final scrutiny is done, the mail is sent to the printing press which is located in Airoli. Then the printing starts latest by 1:00 am and all the printing work should get over latest by 4:00 am. Depots: After the printing is done the papers are sent to the depots where bundles are made according to the requirement of the vendors. Depots are generally located near railway stations. The agency responsible for distribution of HT - Mint in Mumbai is Ms. Dagdat News Agency. Vendors: Vendors collect their respective bundles from the depots and start distributing in their respective areas.

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Readers: Finally between 7:00 am to 7:30 am the readers receive their copies of newspapers.

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CHAPTER 4 : CONCLUSION
KEY LEARNINGS:

Sales - a pre-requisite As I am a fresher and I am doing my specialization in marketing this was the best opportunity for me to start my career as it is rightly said that to start with a career in marketing you should always start with a core sales job.

Convincing power
As a sales job gives you an opportunity to interact with so many people and selling newspaper help you build a better convincing power.

Interaction with business class

This job has given me an opportunity to interact with a large no. of elite class people like businessmen and managers which has helped me to grab a good amount experience to become successful at every walk of life.

Confidence boost up
While working with HT group it has helped me to build my negotiating and interpersonal skills through

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which I have gained a good amount of confidence in a positive way. Thus , Failure in sales will always make us learn more and more lessons

RECOMMENDATION:
To fasten up all the documentation formalities. Steps must be taken for brand awareness as it is just a 3 year old paper.

According to the survey, the above two points were seen quite frequently where MINT lack in comparison with any other business paper like The Economics times or The Hindu, which could be improved to increase the overall sale of the newspaper. To solve the problem further recommendation can be given they are: Internal organizational structure should be carefully monitored. Timely feedback should be taken in the organization in order to minimize the delay flaws.

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Brand awareness Regular promotional campaigns to be done in various B-schools, corporate houses etc. Advertisements should not be printed on the cover page as every reader expects relevant business news on cover page.

CHAPTER 5 : BIBLIOGRAPHY
Philip Kotler, Kevin Lane Keller, Abraham Koshy, Mithileshwar Jha ;Marketing Management, 13th ed.(Pearson Education, 2009)

www.htmedia.in

www.wikipedia.org

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www.net-mba.com

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APPENDIX
QUESTIONNAIRE:
Which all business papers you know ? Which one do you read?

1)

2) What do you like about the paper you are reading?

3)

If reading MINT then do you find it different from other business paper? How?

4) Are you subscribed to any newspaper and why? 5) Do you have any idea about MINT?

6) What are your expectations of an ideal business paper in terms of contents and news?
7)

What are the other business paper activities been carried out in your institution?

8) Who is your vendor and how is the newspaper supplied ? 9) Schemes offered by the vendors for other newspapers? 10) What is your 2nd preference and why?

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