Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Markathon October 2012 Edition




Dear Readers,

Recently media has created a buzz around government announcement of allowing FDI in multi brand in India. The 1991 liberalization saw the entry of many foreign players in India. That served Indian economy well for all we know while the apprehensions from various political parties were enormous at that time. The situation is not very different even today since it seems that the nation is divided in its opinion on the repercussions of such policy. Only time will unveil the motives of the policy, be it for the improvement of the Indian economy or the play of politics.

With so much said on the foreign companies entering India, there was a man who created an Indian brand to give every Indian the taste of India. Yes you have guessed it right. The man is none other than the most admired Dr. Verghese Kurien (1921- 2012), founding chairman of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF). He was responsible for the creation and success of the famous Amul brand of dairy products under his extraordinary and dynamic leadership.

Markathon pays its tribute to Dr. Kurien, rightly called the father of the white revolution in India. This edition’s cover story talks about the Indian dairy industry. It examines the growth prospects and the challenges of this industry. The cover story looks into three key players namely GCMMF, KCMMF (Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing) and TNCMPF (Tamil Nadu Cooperative Milk Producers) and narrows down to analyze the success story of GCMMF uncovering its marketing mix and distribution channels. 

The launch of “corporate speaks” in our previous edition of September 2012 has been well received by both students and corporates. This month we have Ms. Milana Jagadeesh, Team Leader for France Certification at Cerner Corporation, PGSEM (Batch 2010) Student, IIM B and Dr. Preeti Krishnan Lyndem, Visiting Faculty, Marketing Area, IIM B speaking on the effectiveness of the creativity in advertisements. They explain where to a draw line between creativity and advertisement since these as much as they complement each other, they may repel too. 

Moving on, this month’s vartalaap features a prominent business personality, Mr. Robert Holdheim from the world of Public Relations. Mr. Holdheim, the CEO and Managing Director, India at Edelman is a veteran of Edelman’s Frankfurt, London and NY offices. Having handled important accounts like UPS, Samsung, Tenneco and Corning, he has worked on corporate positioning, Business-to-Business product marketing and crisis management, to name a few. Mr. Holdheim has vast experience in Public Relations and Media Communications and shares interesting insights about this industry and its contribution to business. 

With each new edition, markathon has always strived to move one step forward. From this month, markathon is proud to go green. Henceforth, the winning participants for perspective, E2E and silent voice would be receiving e-certificates thus saving paper. 

As always, we will try to improvise and ascertain that together we will learn and together we will grow. Do send in your feedback/suggestions to markathon.iims@gmail.com 

Happy Reading
Team Markathon