The Human Brand Relationship

It is always said, "A Man is a social animal", who relish meeting others of the same kind, making friends and establishing long term relations. In our lifetime, we meet thousands of people, remember few hundreds, but develops a long-term friendship and relations with only handpicked out of those hundreds. This social behavior and ability to establish long-term relations are not only visible in our personal life but in every decision throughout our life. This is the reason why we prefer one brand over other despite both giving the same benefits because we make a relation with them.

Since our infanthood days, we developed the relation of brother/sister, niece/nephew with our relatives based on our parents' relations with their friends and relatives. We got our uncle & aunt because our parents chose to develop long term relations with them from their hundreds of college friends. In a similar manner, we developed a relation with "Jhonson & Jhonson" because our parents chose J&J over other brands and established a relation of trust for us. We looked upon "Nestle" with trust when we were served Cerelac three times a day and were not ready to accept anything else if ever tried by our parents.

Till the time we went to kindergarten, relations with people and brands were gifted by our parents and we automatically developed long term relations with them, but as we began going school, met new kids, developed an ability to pick and choose both people and brands.

We started demanding "Disney" characters to play with, "funskool" toys and "Hotwheels" cars to feel proud of our game collection. We developed a relation with our favorite "Natraj" pencil, sharpener, and eraser and were excited for the art lecture to use the new pack of "Camlin" crayons. We deliberately rough handled our old school shoes to buy a new pair of "action" school shoes, our first "pilot" pen when we entered 6th standard.

As we reached adolescence, we were already having the bunch of close friends and certain brands with which, relations will be a lifetime, but also had faced many heartbreaks, loss of trust both by people and brands. Sometimes we changed our priorities for people, and switched to other brands, and sometimes people change theirs and brands left us as they discontinued or lost their identities.

We realized the importance of relations with people and brands when our best friend and "Old monk" gave us his shoulder to exude our tears on our first breakup. We became responsible when our parents gifted a "Raymond" suit for our first job interview and we felt accomplished with the first salary credit notification from "HDFC" bank in our "Nexus" phone.

When we will become parents, we will trust the same brands which our parents gifted us when we were infants, and this led to generational relations with brands, which is best for any brand. In today's world of brand flood and communication tsunami, it is difficult for any brand to establish long term relations with consumers and in this scenario, if any brand is abe to establish relations with more than one generation of its consumers, it becomes immortal.

Human relations with brands changed according to human life phases from infanthood to adolescence to parenthood. At inception, we received relations from our parents, then learned to develop relations but were not able to understand their importance and with time realized the grandness of relations and established life-long relations.

"A man is known by the people with which he spends time", and a man is known by the brands he carries. This ability to reflect the personality of a man in Brand makes the idea of celebrity endorsement so successful. Brands utilize charming personalities of Celebrities to develop brand personalities which become the most important reason for a common man to carry that brand. We want to add that personality element offered by the brand to our personality and as a result, choose different brands which complement each other and develop our overall personality. Here brand act as the medium for human-human relation.

In return, brands also get something from our personality when we carry them. Brands built their personality further with the help of its users when a user carries it with other brands. Here human act as the medium for Brand-Brand relation and one brand utilizes personality of another brand to further built its own.

Just after parking your range rover endeavor, you received an important call on your apple i phone 6S, and suddenly looked at your omega and realized you are late for the meeting, rushed to the meeting room and at the end you happily took out parker from your Van Heusen suit and signed the contract. Here, you carry brands like apple, omega, parker, Van Heusen and range rover to add their personality elements to your personality. At the same time, all brands complemented each other and utilizes each other's personalities to develop their own personalities.

Man builds relations with bands and brands builds relations with other brands and thus, the chain of human brand relationship keeps on the building.

Why 'travelling' is the best gift you can give yourself ?

Travelling has been an important part of human civilization from centuries. The early man used to travel in search of water, food and shelter. When the early man started living in civilizations, he learned to farm and started traveling in search of fertile land. As more and more civilizations flourished, the man learned to trade and he started traveling for business.

With sands of time, the man turned greedy and started traveling for invasion and loot. Part of the civilization who were called as 'wise men' started spreading their knowledge through the education system and people started traveling for receiving the education. As more men turned wise and aware of right and wrong, traveling for invasion and loot decreased and major traveling was for business and education. 

As the man become technologically advanced, he invented technologies like the telegraph, the telephone, mobile phone and the internet and virtually reduced the distance of miles to zero, which allowed the man to not travel cities-countries-continents for business and education. Now he can arrange a business meeting on video conference rather than traveling to other city and can get online lecture without the need to travel to foreign university.

Most people consider traveling a headache & waste of time and thus are happy to rely on technology as an alternative to the traveling. But they do not realize what they miss when they choose technology over traveling. It is always said, 'the more you see the more you learn' and 'change is the only constant thing', and traveling is the only way to see more and to experience the constant change in life.

Some of the reasons why traveling is the best gift:


The feeling of Euphoria

We humans are blessed with an imaginative mind and when we are traveling to new places which we have never visited before, it paints an image of the place in our mind.

This image is being painted on the canvas of our expectations, excitement, past experiences and our resistance to change. That feeling of ecstasy when that painted picture turns into reality or of amazement when it turns out divergent is what it makes traveling a fun and the reason people still love to travel in this technological dependent world.


Building contacts

While we travel, we meet new people with different beliefs, mindsets, and experiences. This helps us to develop both personally and professionally. While we observe and interact with them, we get to learn things which no book can teach us.

On personal grounds, we get to understand different belief system, different cultures, different living styles and methods to deal with different situations. Sometimes you even get lucky and meet your prince charming or princess Fiona, but do not travel for this intent only.

On professional grounds, we learn from their experiences, are able to generate new ideas from their stories, learn what to do and what not to do in our career and get new opportunities.

This way we develop a unique perspective towards life and a unique approach towards our career which is the result of all the knowledge which was absorbed from countless contacts you made while traveling.


Boosts your confidence

In our day to day lives, each one of us has to face uncertainties in both personal and professional lives. A flat tyre when you are already late for office, or elevator went out of order when you returned home after long day's job, or you find your partner dating your ex. Well, this may sound bizarre, but it is also true that anything can happen in our lives and the main thing is how we handle those situations. Traveling is a tool to make self-comfortable to handle any unpredictable situation in a much better way than we do.

How is that so?
Because traveling gives us exposure to anomalies at every step on which we don't have any control but we have to face them and find a way out of it. This experience of facing oddity helps us to handle uncertainties in our day to day lives.



Try different mode

While we travel, we always have to use more than one mode of transport to reach our destination. Traveling gives us the fun of the feeling of butterflies in stomach everytime plane takes off, the fun of rocking every time train changes its tracks, fun of stopping at a motel for refreshment on a long highway and fun of increased blood circulation when we walk.

The real fun is when you travel to rural parts, and experience an auto rickshaw, jugaad (very popular in rural India), horse carts or bullock carts. All these amusements which you get in traveling via different modes are unparalleled.

Makes you an explorer

When we travel to new places, we desire to see its tourist attraction spots, taste its special dishes. So to explore a new place in a better way, make the checklist of places to be covered according to the time you have, make an itinerary and start exploring,

The best way to explore a place is by taking an alternate route from one place to another when we travel between for more than one time, have our meals at different eating places rather than sticking to one place each time we have your meal outside the home.

Time for yourself

Traveling gives some time for us to introspect and think about matters which we don't in our daily routine. This helps us to get a fresh start with new ideas and strategies which will improve our present condition both professionally and personally.

So, the next time you plan for a video conference, think twice and plan some traveling and I guarantee you will not regret it.

If old is 'Gold', new is 'Platinum'..!!

Those long arguments lasting for more than an hour where you both try to prove your point, you think she doesn't understand you and only obtrude her decisions, you don't talk to her for days and finally this cold war comes to peace when she comes to you with all her love in eyes and gives her agreement on what you want.

Well, some of you have already started thinking about quarrels with your girlfriend, but don't WhatsApp her because here I am talking about your Mom. We all have faced this situation with not only with our mom but also with our dad and the extreme case is with our grandparents.

Generally this war of words is followed by a long speech by our respected orators on the subject of respecting elders and the phrase which each one of them uses to arouse some sense of guilt in their auditors is "Old is Gold".
It left us speechless and we question to ourself, "If old is gold, then what is new"?

This dissension between our elders and us is never ending because its root cause is something which can never be quashed and only be minimized, which is 'generation gap'. When there is so much trouble in our real lives due to this 'generation gap' then just imagine how big pain in the a** it is for companies, particularly for marketers.

The marketers are always in a dilemma of either focusing on our parents or us, as it is strenuous to cover everyone. Today, Earth is the home to more than 1.8 billion youth (10-24 years of age) out of 7 billion total population and according to a UN report, 28% of India's population is youth, making India the youngest country of the world. Every third person in India is youth which is going to be increased to every second person by the year 2020 taking the median age of country 29 years of age. After all these facts and figures if any company decides to focus on our parents and grandparents, I am sure that company is in the business of adult diapers only.

The world population is grouped into generations on the basis of cohorts, and the three generations which are the most active buyers are:

Generation X
Born: 1961-1980
Age in 2015: 35 to 54

Generation Y, Echo Boomers or Millenniums
Born: 1981-1995
Age in 2015: 20 to 34

Generation Z
Born: 1996-2015
Age in 2015: 0 - 19

Generation Mismatch

There was a time when more years you spend on the Earth, more experienced you were considered, but now higher the age, higher constrained your thinking is considered.

In the era of Generation Y and Generation Z, most companies' senior executive posts in the discipline of marketing are occupied by Generation X, which is only suitable for understanding wants of Generation X not of Generation Y & Z. This is the major reason, most companies are still in an abyss of focusing Generation X and not Y & Z.



India is a young country with major population lying in Generation Y and Z. These two generations are the present of the country and will be the future in another 10 years.


Relationship between Age and Loyalty

Pick up any study measuring risk taking ability and age of an individual and you will find same results. With growing age of a person, his risk taking ability decreases. There is an inversely proportional relationship between both,

Risk taking ability (RTA) ~ 1/ Age (A)

There is also a relation between risk taking ability and loyalty. Higher the risk taking ability, lesser loyal a person is to his choices, whether brands or girlfriends. There is an inversely proportional relationship between both,

Risk taking ability (RTA) ~ 1/ Loyalty (L)


That means, There is a direct relation between a person's age and loyalty,

Age (A) ~ Loyalty (L)

Leser the age of an individual, less loyal he is to his things. In childhood days, we want new games every day and something new to eat in our every meal. We are least loyal to anything and we are only focused on wasting things we got in order to get new things quickly.

As time passes and we join youth force of our country, we become somewhat loyal to some brands in some categories. But real shift comes when we reach the age of 35, avoid changes and have decided what is good for us for the rest of our lives.


Relationship between Age and Inquisitiveness

There is a similar relation between age & inquisitiveness as that of age & risk taking ability, inversely proportional,

Age (A) ~ 1/ Inquisitiveness (I)



The younger we are the more inquisitive we are, and as we climb up the stairs of aging, our inquisitiveness comes straight down the ladder and finally on the ground.



Generation Gap

When we talk about Generation X, it has the median age of 44.5 years, that means most of the people who belongs to this generation have lower risk taking ability than those in generation Y and X. Moreover, the former one is far less inquisitive than the latter and thus they restrict to pre-tested things and do not readily try new things. It can be said that generation X is far more brand loyal than generation Y and particularly generation Z.

Due to this rare characteristic of loyalty, companies loves generation X and try to attract these honey bees to their nectar. But one thing they fail to realize is they already have a favorite nectar and now it is a waste of resources to try for these honey bees.

On the contrary, Generation Y & Z are much more inquisitive and have need of trying out different things, which makes them less loyal or it is better to say negligible loyal. Both the generations, particularly Z, frequently changes its brands and keeping this in mind companies do not try to focus on these generations. But they again fail to understand,

• These generations are majority of population and hence potential pool of customers
• These generations will also face the effects of aging and by the time they decide their loyalty, they will still be in majority
• Looking in future and constantly hammer the childish minds of generation Y & Z, so that by the time they become loyal to one brand, it is your brand, not the competitors'.

Thus, for any company it is inevitable to focus on generation Y & Z, which is only possible if there are same generation people creating products and strategies for that generation customers.

For becoming generation Y & Z centric, the first thing a company has to take care is of its leadership. The person holding a lantern for the whole team should understand the importance of Gen Y & Z and then the only rest of the company will follow him. Next level comes of functional heads of the company, who guides the path of a function, be it Marketing, Sales, HR or finance. It with the mutual consent of all the functional departments, a company can be on the top priority of Gen Y & Z.

In the recent past, there are many companies belonging to different industries which have realized the need to change the focus toward gen Y & Z. A recent article of Brand Equity, mentioning one of the homegrown company Dabur focusing now on gen Y & Z and turning the new leaf after peeking into the future.

Gen Y & Z characteristics which should be understood by our modern marketers, to make themselves equip to stand the tough competition are:

• Have high awareness about things around them because of their high level curiosity, 
• Impulsive in nature and do not ponder much before buying, because of their risk-taking ability, 
• Price factor comes last, what matters is the ability of a product to make them feel unique and better than before, 
• Communication matters a lot for them, should be reminded about product very often and from different sources, 
• Time & convenience is more important than price, thus favors to shop from air-conditioned hypermarkets than a local Kirana store,
• Creative advertisement is more impactful than celebrity claims of making them better, 
• Increasing purchasing power as they believes in saving less and living a larger life, 
• High aspirations, go out of the way for fulfilling their aspirations,
• Easily influenced by peer group, everything is a fad, not a trend

On the basis of these characteristics, marketeers favourite concept of 4Ps can be mixed and served according to the taste of Gen Y & Gen Z

Product & Price

For marketers, there has always been a trade off between Product & Price, but for Gen Y & Z, their problems are much less. Focus on product and price will be paid by these generations. These generations always craving for something new irrespective of the price which they would have to pay for it.
The gretes example is of Fogg deo by Vini Cosmetics, which chaged the whole deo category. The price was much higher for their gassless deo, but gen Y & Z walcomed it with their both hands open and and a result every company including hotshots like Unilever had to launch gassless deo to stay in market.

Place

In this technology era, where everything is only a 'touch' away from us, it is inevitable for companies to make themselves present digitally. Whether you are present in a Kirana store or not, you must be present at supermarkets and leding e-commerce sites.

Promotions

Whether you have POPs (point of purchase) at the retail outlet or not you should have google ads
Whether you communicates through TV, banners, print medium or not, Faacebook, Twitter, Youtube and mobile advertisement is must


Rural Youth

All of the things holds good for the urban youth, but what about rural youth? Can it be ooverlooked over the urban and neglected? Well, let us look over some facts:

According to world bank report less than half of total world's population lives in rural, but 68% of India's population lives in 'Bharat', the rural India. Since the major population of country lives in its rural part, so the major part of its youth force breathe in rural area. So it is clear, rural youth is as important as urban one.

Rural Gen Y & Z is moving to cities either for higher studies or for better job opportunities. Highly influenced by their urban counterpart and thus their behavioural characteristics is same as that of urban.

With smartphones available at considerable low prices and internet pack prices dropping down, Internet has reached to 350 million population of the country, second largest internet users in world and is expected to reach to 500 million by year 2017 (according to IAMAI-KPMG report). More rural youth is using internet through their smartphones, opening a door for marketers which is common for both rural & urban youth.

When one eye of company is gazing Generation X, other should search for generation Y & Z because if old is 'Gold', new is 'Platinum' and latter is more expensive than former, you know what I mean.

FMCG & Politics Kinship

"Faltu Me CHU jaise Ghoomna" is the funniest expansion of the abbreviation "FMCG", I know till date, which actually means "Fast Moving Consumer Goods".

FMCG is the industry which makes daily-needs goods available at your nearest kirana Store (Mom & pop outlets), Departmental Stores, Supermarkets - hypermarkets and online stores, from where you easily purchase your favorite brands whenever you need them.

Just imagine how your life would be if this industry is not there. You wake up in the morning and will not have toilet paper to clean up your a**, no toothpaste and toothbrush available to brush your teeth. No soap, shampoo and conditioner to make your bath delightful. No Gillette to shave your unwanted hair off. No Deodorant to make you smell good.
Not only this, no Bread, no biscuits, no Cold Drinks, no snacks, nothing available.
Life would reverse back to a caveman life. Thus, FMCG can be considered as the most important industry for the survival of today's humanity.
But is this industry a well structured and principal oriented industry? If you think yes, think again and if no, then by the end of this article you will feel proud to think the way you think.

The level of disorientation and mismanagement even in so-called multinational companies which hires top MBA graduates from top B-Schools across globe is to such an extent, I did not find a better word than "Politics" to relate with FMCG industry.
Politics, as everyone knows is an another word for complete chaos, implementation-less rules, high level of corruption at each level, complete selfishness, the list is endless.


In many aspects where FMCG is a kin to Politics are:

DALDAL (SWAMP)

You must have heard this dialogue in many Bollywood & Hollywood movies, Politics is like a dirty daldal (swamp) and if you jump into to clean it, you have to get dirty. Same is the condition  of FMCG industry. We have been shown all flowery image of FMCG industry by our eminent professors (except few), but the real image is thorny rather than flowery.

Before entering FMCG, I painted it as a systematic industry, where policies and industry norms control everything, but after entering into this daldal I found it is a mammoth task to make things in order. By the time you work on shaping one thing in order, the other things lose their shapes and end result is more messed up situation than before. Many have jumped into this swamp and tried their hands on it, but at the end this daladal swallowed them, without even leaving a mark of struggle those faced during their career.


POLICIES - LOL!! WHAT A JOKE..!!

Corruption is considered as the birth right of politics, but after reading the next few lines, you can say that politics has got a tough competition. 

FMCG is one of the most corrupted industries in the economy of any country. There are no major scams and money laundering like we have in politics and financial industry, but a chaotic system is being followed which acts as air to the fire of corruption and it is next to impossible to extinguish this fire.

• At Company's Production Center (Factory)

• When I think of problems being created by company's production center or factory, following lines by famous poet-heart saint 'Kabir Das' best describes my thought

बुरा जो देखन मैं चला, बुरा न मिलिया कोय,

जो दिल खोजा आपना, मुझसे बुरा न कोय।

I searched for the crooked, met not a single one.
When searched myself, “I” found the crooked one

• It is the common human tendency to find minutest problems and flaws in other people without even looking their blunder mistakes. Same is the condition with every FMCG company. Company officials point out problems in other channel partners, not bothered to look their own faults.

• Production center is the foundation of distribution channel of every company. What if the foundation of a building is weak? The building's life is not long and will not be able to withstand calamity. Similarly, if production center of a company is at the fault, the company can not withstand against fluctuating market, competitors, new entrants. The common faults at production center are: 

• Less number of products in cases: Suppose there are 100 units of a product in a case, packed in 10 boxes containing 10 units (10x10 = 100). Sometimes the case which is delivered at distributor contains 9 boxes instead of 10.
• No product inside the box: In some cases, there are 10 boxes in a case, but one box has 5 units.
• No product to supply: This is the major problem with factories when there is the demand of the product, but production lines are not able to meet the demand on time. This disturbs the whole channel and ultimately business is lost by the company.
• Overproduction: Many times goods which have less demand in the market are produced more at production lines. That stock has to be cleared off by giving extra schemes or as a free product with any other running product.

• At Carrying & Forwarding Agent (C&FA)

• Late delivery: The major problem which distribution channel faces is, when the distributor has ordered for stock replenishment and has cleared off all the formalities required for delivery, but due to C&FA logistics problem, stock can not be delivered.
• This leads to the stock out situation at the distributor and sales is lost

• Stock out at C&FA: It is a regular occurring phenomenon of C&FA replying, the product which you have asked for is out of stock. Again leading to loss of sales
• There is a possibility that those products might be stock out at company production center and therefore stock out at C&FA.
• But most of the times stock out condition at C&FA occurs due to incapability in forecasting and determining the stock quantity that will be required in the area for the next some days.
• Once the stock is delivered at C&FA from company's mother depot, the next lot will be delivered after some days and till next lot will be delivered the C&FA will remain in stock out condition.

• Wrong product delivered: This problem is a child of the previous problem. When the required product at the distributor is out of stock at C&FA, it delivers some other product as to math the billing amount as paid by distributor beforehand.
• This leads to stock out of one product, which was required to be replenished but not delivered by C&FA
• The other product which was not required at distributor but delivered by C&FA, leads to its excess stock

• At Distributor

• The distributor is the key element in the distribution channel of every company. A good distributor can increase the sale of your products and a bad distributor will not only bring down sale in his allotted area, will also damage adjacent areas. It is like "a rotten fish makes the whole pond dirty".
• A problematic distributor always keeps handy an 'excuse book' where he has already panned down a silly excuse for every issue which a company official raise in front of him
• After every negotiation and never ending dialogues between company representatives and distributor, if company tries to change the distributor, he will run to his mother (distributor's association) and cries like a baby in front of her.
• Nothing makes a mother angrier than someone hurting her children, and so distributor association becomes fierce in its action and 99.999% of time favors her sobbing child and sees company as the wicket man trying to harm him. The worst case being, barring the company to get any distributor in the specific area for a specific period of time.
• The unexpected and hidden set of thorns created by distributors in what seems a nice and fragrant bouquet of flowers are: 

• Scheme cut: Just like many politicians love to consider the funds allotted by the central government for the specific purpose as their own money, many stockists also consider the scheme allotted by the company for retailers as their right.
• The primary schemes (given directly by company in the invoice to stockist) and sometimes secondary schemes (stockist has to submit the claim after passing on scheme to retailer/wholesaler), are not passed on to retailer/wholesaler and stockist enjoys the extra profit from the scheme amount.

• Delivery problem: The strong delivery is the backbone of the success of any product in the market and this heroic task is the responsibility of distributors, which most of them fails to perform.
• Major cause of problem in delivery is infrastructure of distributor for delivery, which includes delivery man and delivery vehicle
• Most of the distributors hold distribution of more than one company and 90% of them appoints one delivery man to handle delivery of 2-3 companies
• When a retailer/ wholesaler receives stock of more than 2 companies on the same day, he is not able to pay for each one off them. In many cases, the stock is given on cash bases and thus retailer/wholesaler returns the stock.
• When goods are returned by a retailer, distributor stops delivering to those retailers without considering the reason for the return.
• Not delivering to the new outlets added by company salesman. The reason for this is stated from the 2nd paragraph, page 32 of excuse book, if delivered to new outlets then existing outlets will be left uncovered as market closes by that time.

• Stock management: For effective delivery in area, distributor has to hold some days stock (number of days varies company to company) for that he has to replenish his stock time to time, which requires making payment to Company's C&FA (which supplies stock to distributor).
• The payment made by a distributor to C&FA is primary billing and the number of bills a distributor issues in retail/wholesale is secondary billing.
• This is a major area of concern for a territory sales manager as his target comprises of primary billing.
• A distributor tries to limit his primary billing by hook or cook and thus sometimes he does not deliver the actual order from the market. This reflects more stock at his stock point and thus need for less primary billing.

• Infiltration (Undercutting): This is the most serious and root cause of many other problems. These is
• Some distributors dump goods in another market than their allotted markets at a cheaper rates than the distributor of that area is giving, by passing on some fraction of their own margin.
• This leads to sale loss of the authorized distributor of the particular area and still the retailer and wholesaler are stuffed with stock.

• Creating Broker: Brokers are third party individual business holders, who buys fast moving goods from company's authorized distributors at a very cheap rates and sells them in the market by keeping their profit. Distributors provide goods by passing on some fraction of their own margin to clear off the extra stock and complete the target to get incentives.
• These brokers sell goods in the adjacent markets which are not the officially allotted to the distributor from which broker had purchased goods.
• The price at which broker sells in the market is lesser than what distributor of that area is giving in the market and thus the sale of that distributor is lost.
• Sometimes this triggers chain reaction and one distributor damages market of other distributor and vice-versa while both earning lesser profits.

MANIPULATION

"Aadha Sach poore jhut se bhi jyada khatarnak hta hai" (Partial truth is even more dangerous than a complete lie) this statement is not believed by people in FMCG. We say that we don't lie, well that's true because we don't lie, we just always speak the incomplete truth.

This habit we have adopted from politicians, who always speak the incomplete truth for getting votes before the election and later the complete truth comes in front of voters. Similarly, we manipulate the truth at every possible level to get more benefits for ourselves.

• Selling more to the retailer: We manipulate the primary and secondary schemes given by the company to sell more units of goods at outlets.

• For example, suppose on a certain product of MRP Rs. 35, the primary scheme given by the company is 25% above the normal retailer's margin. Then the actual landing for retailer should be Rs. 23.86 [35/ (retailer's margin) - 25%].
• But on giving full scheme to the retailer if he purchases one or two units is not profitable for the salesman as he has to push hard to complete his target.
• Thus, the scheme given by the company is converted to buy 6 units and get two unit free for the retailer. [6*(scheme amount of one unit) = 2* landing rate of retailer(23.86)]
• The message conveyed to the retailer is the scheme is only applicable when he will purchase 6 units and not less than that, but actually scheme is given by company at single unit also.

• Selling more to wholesaler: Companies give QPS (quantity purchase schemes)(for example Rs.100 off on bill amount on purchase of 5 cases of a product) to sell more at wholesalers.
• The salesman manipulates the timing of QPS schemes at the end of the month, rather than reveling when he got the communication by the company.
• Throughout the month, the wholesalers do his normal purchase of stock, 2-3 cases on every order (suppose the monthly purchase is of 10 cases). before the last visit of a salesman to wholesale counter, the total cases purchased by wholesaler were 8 cases.
• Now at the last visit, salesman announces the QPS and shows that this is valid for only this week and wholesaler gives the order of 5 cases to get QPS.
• Thus a total number of cases sold to wholesaler 8+5=13 when the monthly purchase was 10.

TOP TO BOTTOM APPROACH

Countries are developing with a 'snail pace', not because of lack of funds or resources, but because of poor utilization of them. The authority to allocate the resources is with politicians who do this on the bases of vote bank. They analyze those areas and loopholes, which on working could fetch maximum votes for them and allocate maximum funds there, without even contemplating need of resources in those areas. 
In this game of vote bank, the areas which actually requires resources suffers.

In FMCG also, something similar is happening. The sales targets are decided by the top management on the bases of required growth by the company, without even analyzing the potential of markets and feasibility of such unrealistic targets. The salesman who actually knows the area and market is not even allowed to say anything about his target and the whole communication process is limited to orders.



CHAMELEON DISORDER

Well, this is the particular characteristics of politicians, "Ek neta apne baap ka bhi saga nhi hota" (A politician is not even loyal to his father). In FMCG industry, this statement holds true for almost every second person you meet, whether company managers, salesman, distributor, retailer, wholesaler whoever it may be.

• Allies at the month start and rivals at end
• Every distributor in FMCG industry suffer from chameleon disorder. When a company official visits distributor, he gets a brotherly treatment with a hot cup of 'chai' complemented by all sorts of snacks. But towards the month end, if company official has a lucky day and distributor agrees to meet him, gets a welcome drink of exquisite problems freshly picked on that day itself, served with hot and spicy allegations on company.

• Taking credits on achievement and blaming others on failures
• When any politician wins election, he takes whole credit for himself and points out several problems which he faced due to his political party, but if he loses the black ink of blames is rubbed on the party face while he stands out clear as an innocent child unaware of what went wrong.
• Tracing the footsteps of politics, FMCG also adopted this behavior perfectly, where at each level people are throwing grenades of allegations on each other on failure and taking the individual medal of honor on completion of targets.

SELFISHNESS IN BLOOD

Politics is all about maintaining your position, your administration in the government irrespective of what damage is done to the country, its citizen and to other countries as well. You must not lose your seat. In FMCG, it is all about sales. Whatsoever happen to the channel partners, salesman, customers, and economy, company should get its required growth on sales.

• For this companies uses certain tactics which show the selfishness:
• Increasing case size
• To achieve high growth over last year in sales, companies increase case sizes of products up-to two folds. Suppose case size of certain product was 72, which is increased to 144 and other things are left same.
• Now if a number of cases sold by a salesman remain same as that of the previous year, the actual products sold is two times as compared to last year. 
• Increasing MRP
• Same is the case with increasing Maximum Retail Price of products. Suppose the MRP last year was Rs.55, which is increased to Rs.60 and other things remains same.
• Now if a number of cases which a salesman sells is same as that of last year, the company earns Rs.5 more on per unit of product.

THE END..!!

Most of the movies in any 'wood' whether Bollywood or Hollywood have a happy ending where the good guy or Hero gets his girl and the bad guy or villain is dead. But the end of this picture is opposite. Here the bad guys or politicians and FMCG industry gets money while the good guys or common people lose their money.

When a company runs out of stock, it is end consumer of that product who is going to feel the real loss.
When a company increases MRP of daily needed products, it is again consumer who suffers.

In the end the one who is lying at the bottom of the pyramid suffers and certainly it is not any politician or any channel partner of FMCG industry, it is a common man who is crushed under the weight of whole system.

The only Mathematical Success Formula

There are hundreds to thousands of success mantras, tips and techniques but there is no mathematical formula to aceive success. Let's try to derive a formula where depend variable is Success (S) and it is dependent on various independent variables. But before that, we should be clear with what are we trying to find out.

The first answer to get is what is success?

Earth is approaching the heat furnace of milky way galaxy 'the Sun' , giving rise to mercury level as if the count of population of country. Summer vacation is coming soon and you may be planning to go to a beautiful hill station to spend some time with family or friends.

For this, you will prepare an itinerary, will finish up your work, will postpone all your meetings, will pack your bags, will take the pilot position in your SUV and will be ready to take off. At that moment the success for you will be to reach the pre-reserved hotel at hill station safely and on time. Thus, success is nothing but acheiving what you want, reaching where you want to be.

To achieve success there are some independent variables which determine weather success will be achieved or not and if achieved, what will be the level of success.

The variables on which success (S) is dependent are:

• Believe in yourself (A): In the words of great warrior and leader Sun Tzu, "Every battle is won before it is fought". Believe in yourself and you have done half the work. The path to your goal is half covered. In our example of summer vacation on hill station, you decide to go to hill station and believe you can go there by road and trust yourself that you can drive to the destination. By doing so, the half of the work is done.

• Setting up your goal (B): This variable demands to set your ultimate goal. The things you want to achieve which will lead to your success. In our case, hill station is the ultimate goal.

• Setting up intermediate objectives (C): Division of ultimate goal into number of objectives which altogether will lead to achievement of goal. While preparing the itinerary, there would be things planned which you will do before going to hill station, that cold be stopping at the old friend's house, stopping at gas station, stopping for refreshments.

While stopping at all the pre-decided stoppages, you will reach your final place.

• Choosing the path to achieve objectives (D): There are number of paths leading to your goal and objectives and every path has its own pros and cons. One path my be the fastest but it requires a toll to be paid, or a path may be the shortest and have good restaurants on roadside but is bad for your SUV's shockers and tyre.

Whichever road you choose, you will enjoy certain advantages and face certain disadvantages of that, but the thing which matters the most is you reach the hill station on time and safely.

• Strength to stay on the path (E): When people have to cover a long distance, there are times when motivation level of an individual is pulled down by unpredictable obstacles. When you were just about to move out of the main city and enter the highway, you got a massive jam, which happened because of a truck rolled on the highway. 

You spent hours to get out of that jam and got very tired and decided to take an unplanned stop at a restaurant side road. The moment you get out the car. your problem which you thought are over, truck you back in the face of a flat tyre. Still you kept your cool and thanks to the tubeless tyre, it survived till you found a mechanic.

After all this you thought now everything is going to all right and got extra pumped up. You drove fast continuously to cover the loss of time in past events, and ignored the engine heat up warning signals considering yourself an expert in automobile. But alas! you realized soon you were an amateur when your SUV became reluctant to move even a meter and showed her anger by emitting fumes out of engine. Then you thought it must be just engine overheat, put some cold water over it waited it to cool, but after waiting an hour, you were thunderstruck to find that engine didn't start and engine temperature was normal. You lost your patience and thought this is a dead end. At that time the person's success deciding factor is his level of submissiveness to obstacles and his level of hope and faith. To achieve success. it is necessary that you beat all odds, move out of your comfortable zone and stand against every obstacle.

• Be change adaptive (F): Don't be stubborn in your approach. Failure in achieving one objective doesn't always lead to failure in achieving goal. If you were not able to visit your old friend which you planned as an objective contributing in final goal achievement, give yourself a break and don't be too rigid on completing the objective or dropping the journey there only. 

You must be thinking why on earth will I drop the plan of going to hill station if I was not able to visit my friend, but believe me in the race towards success, we tend to loose our control and we don't use our common sense. Common sense is most uncommon.

• Luck factor (G): Don't be overconfident and always have a backup plan. Don't go by the senseless statement which is quoted often to make people follow their path will full believe and faith. "backup plan is for those who are not confident enough on their 1st plan". In case the road which you choose to take is under construction or there is a massive accident due to which road will be blocked for 24 hrs, you'll be left with wither of two options, wait for 24 hrs or turn back to home and drop the plan of going hill station. 

While considering all the factors, the success of an individual or an organization can be calculated by formula:

S = ^abcdef√{(A)^a(B)^b(C)^c(D)^d(E)^e(F)^f } + G

Where,

S = Success
A = Believe Factor
B = Goal Factor
C = Objectives Factor
D = Path Factor
E = Strength Factor
F = Change Factor
G = Luck Factor

0 < S,A,B,C,D,E,F < infinite
infinite < G < infinite

and
a = Degree of Belief
b = Degree of Setting
c = Degree of objectives
d = Degree of choice
e = Degree of stay
f = Degree of adaption

0 <  a,b,c,d,e,f < infinite

How to apply the fromula?


This equation works in totally opposite fromat than the normal equations. In any normal equation, we put values of variables on R.H.S (right hand side) of the equation to get the value of dependenf L.H.S. (left hand side). But here, in the bigining of journey you fix the value of Success, which you want to achieve which may vary from 0 to infinity and on the bases of that, you decide which factor you have put how much to acheive the desired success.

The degree of each variable varies from 0 to infinite. You start your journey with every degree = 1, but in course of jouurney, something unexpected occured and the degree of stay and the degree of adaptation both falls to 0.5, but you managed to take degree of beleif to 2.


Thus the level of success which you decided earlier to acheive will change but you will acheive some extent of that definitely.

If we want to acheive the same level of success which you decided, then you have to compensate some other degrees till you get the perfect combination.

We can acheive any level of success, just we have to push limits of our efforts and increase our degree of efforts at every point in the journey towards success.

Three Shades of Modern India

India is a country of many cultures, each having its own language, dressing style, taste of tongue, music sense, Gods and worshipping styles. With over 1.25 billion people in over 29 states & 7 union territories, speaking over 1652 mother tongues, having 37 types of regional cuisines and several fusion cuisines, practicing 6 major classical dances and over hundred folk & tribal dances on rhythm of over hundreds of musical styles, worshipping over 330 million Hindu Gods & Goddesses, 99 names of Allah and the Quran, 11 Sikh Gurus, 24 Jain Tirthankaras and number of holy books, Gautam Buddha, Jesus Christ and the Bible, India is a unique country with unity in diversity.

Each culture has its own colour of dress, food and God, which makes India 'a land of hundred colours'. Despite having hundreds of shades of colours, there are three shades which are close to heart of every Indian and by which the land of tigers is known in the world, saffron, white and green. These three shades are known as "tiranga", having saffron colour on top, green colour at bottom and white colour sandwiched between the two. A chakra proudly rotating in the middle of flag in white colour.

This tiranga has its unique history where each colour signify some important things of this largest and most populated democracy of the world.
The tricolour flag origin dates back to year 1921, where first tricolour flag was designed and adopted by the congress. The major communities of India hold a significant role in the flag design.

At the top of the flag was white colour (for minority communities), green was in centre (for the Muslim community) and at the bottom was red colour (for the Hindu & Sikh communities). The 'Charkha' was drawn across all the bands symbolising the unification of these communities.

The next milestone for Tricoloured flag was in 1931, where it was declared that colours do not anymore represent communities of the country and Mahatma Gandhi's khadi chakra was in centre of the flag. In the same year, a resolution was passed adopting a tricolor flag as our national flag.

The khadi chakra was replaced by the Ashoka chakra and the tricolour flag of the Congress Party eventually became the tricolour flag of Independent India. Although tiranga did not hold any community representation, but the foundation of tiranga was based on communities.

The tricoloured flag of independent India has three colours representing some important attributes for country

Saffron: Symbol of courage and selflessness
White: Represents honesty, peace and purity. It highlights the importance of maintaining peace in the country
Green: Represents faith and chivalry. It is a symbolism of prosperity, vibrancy and life
Ashoka Chakra: The Ashoka Chakra or the Dharma Chakra (Wheel of Law) intends to show that there is life in movement and death in stagnation. It has 24 spokes and appears on the number of edicts of Ashoka.

But the modern India has its own meaning of 'Tiranga' which is nowhere near to the picture which flag of India wanted to showcase. Indian Flag was designed to unite india and to gain independence from colonial Rule. But in independent india, each color of its flag represents one class.


Saffron signifies all the common people of its towns and cities. Saffron is the colour of sunlight representing ray of hope and common people of India lives in the hope of getting a better life. They work day and night in order to fulfill their daily needs and hope to meet their aspirations.

White signifies white collared corporate houses, investors and NRIs. This section of society has the money power, which they got from their inhuman treatment of saffron and green. It is the white which reaps all the benefits of the hard work of saffron and green and extracts maximum profits from country.


Chakra signifies political parties which forms government of the country and states. Government is the center of every country and needs monetary support of white and thus revolves around it. Chakra rotates to make policies to govern the county, in the direction and speed influenced by the white colour.


Green is for poverty stricken farmers of rural india. This section of Indian population works hardest and earns minimum. Green bears the weight of saffron and white. The worst effect of chakra's rotation is faced by the green.
The Green works at the prime level, the saffron process it and white earns from the output.

The future of this tiranga is in dark. It will depend on whether white fades or overlaps green & saffron or it is white & chakra which will leave their alliance and all three colours will live in harmony? If former will be the case, India will have a white flag with chakra in middle with thin strip of saffron on the top and if latter is the case India will continue to be known by its tiranga.

It is a high time for country to wake up from the sleep before the three shades of India just converges to one shade of white with chakra in centre.

A Newborn 'Brand'

A loud vexatious tone hammering the eardrums in the sound sleep, leaving no other option but to pick up the Apple iphone and snooze the bloody alarm off. This nettlesome task lasts for another 10 minutes when one finally gets up from his comfy Serta and slips his lazy feet into pair of Nike and put up pair of Tommy Hilfiger to enlighten his journey towards bathroom, precluding any chance of stumbling over anything.

After using some Charmin, one picks up his Colgate brush and applies morsel of Sensodyne over it and starts cogitating whether to wear black Van Heusen or navy blue Louis Philippe. After getting ready and having a bowl of Kellogg's and some orange Tropicana, one takes off in his blue BMW for office.

This is how most of us spends our every morning. We come across around 50 odd brands since coming out of our dreams to driving off to our office only. If we count the number of brand exposures a single person experiences on a single day, it pile up to 600-625 exposures.


Despite being surrounded by hundreds of brands daily, have you ever taken a break and contemplated about how these brands came into existence and reached this level?

Well..!! no worries, let me explain it to you in the simplest possible way.
A brand can be seen as a human being who is brought in this world as a baby after deep evaluation of their needs by a couple. A company is just like a couple, which decides to launch a new brand to satisfy their goals.

A new born baby refreshes the life of its parents and give them a new goal in their life, and a new brand revamps the company and gives it a new direction to work on. Parents shape the future of their child by giving their love, time, resources and company invests its resources time and money on its brand to make it successful. Giving a birth to a baby is no child's play and requires meticulous attention and care and so is the case with launching a new brand.

Just like both parents have to be involved in giving birth and take its responsibility, every department of the company has to work for the new brand be prepared for it. There are 5 stages in a brand life,

Stage 1- Embryo Stage: The most critical stage both in human life and in life of brand building.
In humans, at this stage, male sperm fuses in the female egg, union of both results in fertilization of egg and inception of baby life, after which the small egg develops to an embryo till end of 8 weeks.

In a company, every department has to unite and fuse with each other to understand each others' requirements and complications. Most brand birth fails at this stage due to inter departmental clashes within the company. This stage involves plantation of idea of new brand to every department and examination of company financial condition, the condition of its plants, the market reputation and the distribution channel strength. This requires an extensive and rigorous study about company, market and its needs.

Stage 2- Fetal stage: This stage is safe for both human and brand baby.

In humans, the embryo which was developed in last stage grows to a mature baby till the end of 38 weeks, as the organs and body parts grow.

In company, once the initial phase of complicated negotiations and retaliations get over, the idea of new brand is welcomed by every department and they start working on the idea. Finance department to give the funds to each department, the operations department to start manufacturing the new product under new brand, marketing department to plan its branding and advertising, sales department to plan its distribution network to make product available to the customers.

Stage 3 - Delivery Stage: In humans, the full grown baby is delivered and the first time when baby breathe in fresh air. In a company, it is the first time when world will know of their brand and will experience it.

Giving it a Name: In humans, most people give their babies new names but many people name their child on their name, like Martin Luther King Jr., Chanakya (son of Chanak), King George II and many more. In a company, while launching a new brand, and giving it a name, it also has following options:

• Naming it as a completely new brand, like Coca Cola, Pepsi, Cadbury
• Naming it as a sub brand of pre-existing or launching as a brand extension, like Diet Coke, Coke zero, Cadbury Oreo

Giving for Adoption: sometimes situations do not favor human and company to keep baby with them.
Many human babies are born out of mistakes and so is the case with brands. Some brands are born haphazardly due to faulty decisions of managers which conduce unmanageable situations in the company and they have to get rid off the brand by selling it off to another company which is more capable of handling the brand. When a baby is born and couple is not ready for it, they have to give it to other couple who are better equipped to give that baby a good life ahead.

Stage 4 - Growth Stage: At this stage, parents take care of the needs of their children and support them by every possible way to make them independent, A company supports its brand to become super brand and does not require any further diligence of company.

Stage 5- New Family: When the children are grown up adults, they are ready to take responsibilities of themselves and others also. At this stage they are ready to start their own family. Similarly, when a brand is matured and has turned to a super brand, it can support other brands launched under its umbrella. Many brands have turned to umbrella brands and resulting in the family of brands.

For example maggi was launched as a noodles brand of nestle and now there are number of products lines including ketchup, pasta, soups & spices launched as babies of maggi brand which together has taken a shape of maggi family and not anymore requires support of nestle.

So next time you see any baby, see it as a newborn brand and when you see any brand try to find out a baby in it, because every brand is or was a baby. Then you will realize the importance of that baby with which you are chatting with your girl friend or which is under your feet and giving you comfortable walk or which you are wearing and giving you your style or which is protecting your eyes from sunlight or the one which is inside your mouth giving you a good taste.