Bhoogol : Gol hai Gyan

Being a regular at management institutes, I

come across many facets of students. Harmless

white lies, confident replies, voluntary acts of

ignorance, short term memory loss are just a

few of the student behaviors I come across each

day.

So this was a bright sunny day when I was asked

to sit through the final marketing presentations

of 30 students. This was a project presentation

as part of fulfillment for the management

degree. I was joined by one more eminent

panelist and he had prior experience of going

through such sessions.

For some reason he had such a smile on his face

which I was not able to decipher initially…well in

time I was definitely about to know what was

going on in his mind.

We generally inquired from the batch about the

companies they have done their project with

and few said..MAMAGAMA Automobile, more

voices about TARARA FMCG, some about

DINGLONG Labs(DL) : names have been

changed for obvious reasons. Hearing this, my

co-panelist whispered in my ear ”Don’t sweat

over it, in Dec 2012, I have went through at-

least 10 presentations each about the same

companies so these may be same projects being

presented by different students”. Ok. I said to

myself, this cannot be as grave as the

gentleman suggested and in came the first

presenter.

I am reproducing the script of what we went

through in those 10 minutes of presentation:

Student(S): Very good day Sir, I am coming here

to present the project report on “Business

Potential Analysis of South Delhi Market for

DINGLONG Labs.

Myself (M) : What is your role number?

S : Oh Sir. It’s XXXX9999

Co-panelist(C) : You did this project yourself or

in a team?

S : Sir all by myself.

C : For what duration were you involved in this

project

S: Sir 2 months

C : Ok. Proceed

S : Sir, I got a list of 350 people to visit and ask

about preference for DL services. Of these then

company asked me to contact 100 people and

get a questionnaire filled. I will start with the

company profile : DL is a big company with

many people. It was much more offices and

wants to grow very fast. It provides lot of

services but only to corporates.

M : You contacted 100 people or 100

corporates?

S: Sir, 100 people.

C : in how many days you contacted 100 people

S; Sir 1 month.

C : In 1 month you visited 100 people or called

them up ?

S : No Sir, I met them all personally.

C : Are you sure ? 100 people in one month

S : Yes sir, it was very tiring and tough but I

managed with hard work, dedication,

commitment and passion

M : I thought the company only served

corporates. So you met 100 people or 100

corporates.

S; Sir, it’s the same thing, I met 100 people and

they would be in some corporate. My job was to

meet 100 people with the questionnaire and

with great difficulty get answers from them

C; You got answers from all the 100 ?

S: Yes sir, I spent 2-3 hours with each person

and ensured they answer.

C: And in one month you covered 100 people,

spent 3 hours with each and also travelled

within south Delhi to meet these people? Very

impressive, you are a Super girl.

S : yes sir, thank you sir

M : So which area of South Delhi did you visit?

S: Ummm….let me think sir, it was 6 months ago

so kind of forgetting.

M: Where do you belong to?

S: Sir Noida, I was staying in Noida and coming

to Delhi for the project.

M: ok. So which place in South Delhi you

focused?

S; yes sir, I focused on central secretariat(CS)

M; Sure?

S: yes sir.

M : CS is not in south Delhi.

S : But sir our company said that area and they

only said it is in south Delhi . So I didn’t ask

them

M; CS has government offices and they don’t

have those kind of offices or consumer profile

to answer your questions

S: Sir, company told the area and also gave the

questionnaire. So I filled whatever the people

there said. Our project was not to do customer

profile.

M: ok proceed with next slide

S; Yes Sir. Next slide shows, I contacted 100

people and in Noida the response was positive

from 80% and no response from 20%.

M : Noida? The consumers were in CS..right?

S : Yes sir, but I did additional work by including

Noida also. I wanted to learn as much as

possible.

C : whispers( see this is the fun I was telling you

about, the report will have something else,

presentation will have something else and the

student actually would have done something

else…or may not have done anything at all)

M: Where is the graph for CS customers?

S; Oh sir, CS and Noida responses were the

same so I just made one graph of Noida as

representative. Actually Sir, I was doing

objective as well as exploratory and subjective

research. So much data got prepared that I

could not show all of it in the presentation.

M: Do you have a hard copy of the report?

S: Yes I did sir but submitted it to college. It was

a very elaborate report.

M: Do you have a soft copy of the report

S: Not on this laptop sir. This laptop is of my

friend.

C : I am going out for a minute, will ask

someone to get tea(winks at me)

M : ( I watch the confident and hardworking

student in front of me and struggle for words).

Ok thank you.

S : thank you Sir( rushes out- am sure she had

friend waiting to go for a movie or to hang out)

C came back and said….just spend 10 minutes

each listening my friend. Just remember not to

burst into laughter since in many presentations

you will have an urge to.

I heeded his advice and we took 30

presentations in 7 hours…..and then me and C

had one helluva laugh on our way back.

Subsequently, I will share more episodes with

you all.