Amit Chhabra Cimr Final Report

8/6/2019 Amit Chhabra Cimr Final Report

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CHETANA’S INSTITUTE OF

MANAGEMENT AND RESEARCH

PGDM 2010-2012

SUMMER INTERNSHIP

PROGRAMME

FINAL REPORT

FACULTY GUIDE COMPANY

GUIDE

PROF. SUNITA SRIVASTAVA MR. SHYAM P

NAIR

(HEAD FACULTY {MARKETING}) (DY GENERALMANAGER)



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SUBMITTED BY

SRIKESH RAMKRISHNAN

{ PG – C (08) }

A

PROJECT REPORT

ON

PROMOTION OF MINT

SALES IN INSTITUTIONS

{ HOTELS, HOSPITALS, B-

SCHOOLS, 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 indirectlyassociated with my project.

This project is dedicated to them all.



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Amit Chhabra



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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TOPIC PAGE NO.

1) INTRODUCTION

a) Background of the organization

6,7,8,9

b) Objectives of the study

10,11

c) Limitations 12

2) LITERATURE REVIEW 13 -

17

3) METHODOLOGY 18 -

23

4) CONCLUSION

a) Key learning’s 24

b) Recommendation 255) BIBLIOGRAPHY 26

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 hashelped 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

daily’s industry , I have studied the various methodologyby 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 wasinaugurated 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 newspaperthrough 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 Mediaoperates 19 printing facilities across India with aninstalled capacity of 1.5 million copies per hour.

In addition to Hindustan Times, HT Media alsopublishes a national business newspaper, Mint .Mint is a one-of-its-kind newspaper in the sensethat the company has an exclusive agreement with

the Wall Street Journal to publish Journal-brandednews and information in India. Mint is today thesecond-largest business newspaper in India withpresence in the key markets of Delhi, Mumbai,Bangalore, Chandigarh, Pune and now Kolkata too.

HT Media has also made its foray into electronicmedia. Diversifying its ambit of operations, thecompany in a consulting partnership with VirginRadio, has launched the FM radio channel - Fever104. Currently available in Delhi, Mumbai,Bangalore and Kolkata, Fever 104 has establisheda strong presence as being one of the most vibrant

channels on air.

Internet businesses of HT Media incorporated underFirefly e-ventures, operate leading web portalsHindustantimes.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 whichhas received high appreciation from consumers

and industry for its innovative design and usabilitycrossed 2.2 million registrations. Desimartini.com -a social networking site was also launchedrecently.

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 organization’s image is built. These helpthe 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

company’s objectives, strategies and values.

Empowerment

Support our people and give them the freedom toperform and to provide our readers with

information to influence their environment.

Continuous Self Renewal



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Determination to constantly re-examine and re-

invent 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 company’s

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 USP’s 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 peoplethought 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

OVERCOMING OBJECTIONS

CLOSING



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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

India’s 2nd largest English newspaper and the

largest in Delhi.

The Wall Street Journal is the most authoritativebusiness publication in the world for over a

hundred years. It is the world’s 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.

FOLLOW-UP AND MAINTENANCE



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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 day’s 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 reader’s convenience. The major

USP’s 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 December2007

As per Fortune magazine, “Mint has raised

India’s 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 Media’s expert sales

trainer and Ms. Angela is a product trainer.

On the 1

st

day of HT Media Mr. Paramjit Singh gaveus 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 thisstages the most effective way. The following are

the stages of REED PPB:

o R = Recognition of need: At this stage it is

upto the salesperson to recognize the need

of the client and accordingly cater to theclient. The salesperson should be able to

germinate the need within the customers

he meet.

o

E = Evaluation of Options: Afterrecognizing 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 availableoptions.

o E = Elimination of Doubts: At this stage the

salesperson should be able to do the cost

benefit analysis i.e. the salesperson shouldhelp the customer to identify the factors

which will lead the customer’s 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.

o D = Decision to Buy the Product: At this

stage the customer finally makes the

decision to buy the product.

o 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 majorsuccess 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 headbranch 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

PRINTING PRESS

( PRINTING LATEST DONE BY 3 OR 4

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 designingand formatting is done with due care. After this a

rough print of that day’s 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. Thenthe 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 readersreceive 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 acore 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 itis 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 beimproved 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 invarious 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, AbrahamKoshy, Mithileshwar Jha ;“Marketing

Management”, 13th ed.(Pearson Education,

2009)

• www.htmedia.in

• www.wikipedia.org

http://www.htmedia.in/

http://www.wikipedia.org/

http://www.htmedia.in/

http://www.wikipedia.org/



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• www.net-mba.com

http://www.net-mba.com/

http://www.net-mba.com/



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APPENDIX

QUESTIONNAIRE:

1) Which all business papers you know ? Which

one do you read?

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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Amit Chhabra Cimr Final Report

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