Saswat's Report

8/3/2019 Saswat's Report

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A Study of the market Positioning, Sales and Distribution Methods of

the Financial Dailies in Kolkata: With a view to analyzing the

competitive advantage of The Business Line of The Hindu Group.

By

NameSASWAT RANJAN PATI

Enrollment no: - 09BS0000034


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A

PROJECT REPORT

ON

A Study of the market Positioning, Sales and Distribution

Methods of the Financial Dailies in Kolkata: With a view to

analyzing the competitive advantage of The Business Line of

The Hindu Group.

By

NameSaswat Ranjan Pati

Enrollment no: - 09BS0002089

THE HINDU GROUP OF PUBLICATIONS

A report submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements of

MBA Program of

the ICFAI University, Dehradun

Distribution List:

Faculty Guide: Prof. Arup chowdhuri

Company Guide: Manojit Kar

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 17th

May , 2010.


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AUTHORIZATION

A report submitted in the partial fulfillment

Of the requirement of MBA Program

Of

THE ICFAI UNIVERSITY, DEHRADUN


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I deeply acknowledge the guidance of my faculty guide Mr.Arup Chowdhuri (Associate

Dean,IBS-K) who has firmly inculcated the everlasting and invaluable teachings in me and made

me get the deeper insight of knowledge and inspiration to realize this unprecedented project

work.

Ineffable are my feelings desperately indebted to him, a vivacious and enviable personality

whose contribution is praiseworthy. I believe that anyone can take a leaf from his book.

I can not express my gratitude in words to Mr.Manojit Kar (senior sales officer, The HinduGroup, Kolkata) my company guide for the rigorous proofreading and sharing his precious time.

He is the person who has given me timely feedback, suggestion and motivated me to embark on

this strenuous project.

I am very grateful to my institution who has invariably been the beacon of my advancement

through their timely appreciation.

Special thanks to Mr.C.V.Suresh (Sales executive),The Hindu Group,kolkata for sharing his

expertize, his concerted efforts and generous co-operation.


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TABLE OF CONTENT41 TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE No.

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 8-10

2 INTRODUCTION 11

2.1 BUSINESS NEWSPAPER IN INDIA 12

3 ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE 13-14

4 SCOPE OF STUDY15

5 LIMITATION OF STUDY16

6 REVIEW OF LITERATURE

17-21

7

PHASE-1 OF THE WORK DONE

7.1 PROSPECTING AND EVALUATION

22-25


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7.2 PRE-APPROACH24

7.3 APPROACH24

7.4 HANDLING OBJECTION25

7.5 CLOSING25

8 PHASE- 2 OF THE WORK DONE 26-

8.1 ESTABLISHING THE STRATEGIC

PROBLEM

27-28

8.2 KNOWING MY OWN COMPANY29-31

8.3 COMPETITORS IN THE MARKET32-

8.3.1 THE ECONOMIC TIMES32-33

8.3.2 THE BUSINESS STANDARD34-35

8.3.3 THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS36

8.3.4 THE MINT37-38


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8.4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 39

8.4.1 RESEARCH DESIGN 40

8.4.2 ANALYSIS OF THE SURVEY 41-46

9 FINDINGS 47-49

10 RECOMMENDATIONS 50

10.1 STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR BUSINESS

LINE51

10.2 DEPLOYMENT OF IT IN VALUE CHAIN 52-53

10.3 IMPLEMENTATION OF VEHICLE

ROUTING ALGORITHM

54-58

11 CONCLUSION 58

12 ANNEXURE-1 59-60

13 REFERENCE 61-63


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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

TheNewspaper Industry is the one of the Industry, which is continuous source of Income for the

Industry, but now a days the Industry is not generating revenues.

Now days the market is not doing well because of financial crisis in the Market. Moreover,

advancement in technology created a big problem for the print media because now people dont

like to spend much time reading the newspaper. They like to surf the Internet and get the news as

much as possible with in short span of time.

The concerned report shows the effectiveness of sales promotion which is carried throughout

duration to find out the ways which will help the concerned company in increasing its revenue.

This report is based on some ground objectivesuch as to get the knowledge about Business Line

performance in the market and find out ways to increase the circulation and find out the strategy

which could give Business Line a competitive advantage over its competitors by analyzing its

competitors and sales and distribution methods.

The most important thing was to know the customer perception about the Newspaper, which

helps in understanding the customer decision making at the time of subscribing any newspaper.

The methodology is based on both the Primary as well as secondary data which is collected

through the help of questionnaire, websites and others sources. This involves converting raw datato gather and use full information about the topic at hand. It involves tabulation of data using

statistical measures from them for developing and calculating the average.

The differentstrategies adopted for achieving the concerned targets include:

Meeting the businessmen Meeting the corporate employees Meeting personal contacts Targeting educational institutions Random cold calling

Meeting bank employees

The above report gives viable ideas to the company which if executed well can lead them to be

the number one in Industry. To become the top player, it is essential to increase the awareness

activities and promotional activities.

During the course of my project work, I found that the customer of this industry are mainly brand

loyal and as the penetration of The Economic Times and Business Standard is 80% of the market


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approximately, it is difficult for any other newspaper industry to penetrate unless and until they

don provide better news content , proper service with a competitive price margin.

And with all these factors also it is the promotion of the newspaper which needs to be done in an

influential way i.e. the promotion should be informative to create very good brand awareness.

It has been found out that even the well established newspaper industry i.e. The Economic Times

and Business Standard also faces a lot of problem when it comes about managing the distribution

channel.

Hence, with good content, competitive price and proper promotion, if the service to the customer

can be improved then it will work as an competitive advantage for the company.

Findings of the project are:-

Awareness of Business Line is very low in the market. Editorial advocacy and Progressive outlook are the two major things in a newspapers

content which makes the newspaper brand loyal.

Guidelines to the investors and Career information are the two main contents whichshould always be there in the business newspaper.

Business Line is competitively placed in the market when it comes to pricing of themater.

Customers feels that it is a good newspaper content wise but needs to be improved. .Which ever company improves its service will achieve competitive advantage over its

competitors in the market.

Right now company is adopting a PUSH STRATEGY but the company should go fora PULL STRATEGY.


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It isrecommendedthat the company needs to focus on the followings.

Implementation of vehicle routing algorithm. Deployment of Information Technology in the value chain. Different strategic planning like:-

Discounts and premiums for agents and dealers in case of non-subscription sale. Organizing different annual events inviting political leaders of highest stature or

leading businessman for discussion and debate and making it a live show will

promote the product and the brand ina big way.


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INTRODUCTIONIndia is one of the few countries in the world to have many business newspapers, which not only

reflects the vitality and vibrancy of the media, but also the new vitality of our economy. The

large readership for these business newspapers transcends from the rapidly growing corporate

sector, it also illustrates the growing interest that the general public now evinces in economic

matters which reflect the growing importance of business and economy in our national discourse.

There was a huge growth in the sales of the business newspapers for the past few years.

According to the recent study by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry

(FICCI), this growth would outperform the general economy each year till 2011.

Business newspapers are re-inventing themselves to protect their turf in a fiercely competitive

multi-media environment. They are using different strategies to attract the customers of different

sectors. Business newspapers focused mainly on business news, insightful views on significant

issues and comprehensive coverage of the stock market.

They have managed to hold the attention and fidelity of more than 9, 00,000 readers (both

individual and corporate across the nation). All the business newspapers in India (Economic

Times, Business Line, Financial Times, Business Standard, Mint and Financial Chronicle) are

working strategically to increase their sales.

There is a huge scope of growth for Business newspapers in coming years as only a paltry 0.1%of the population is reading business newspapers at present. Newspapers reach only 35 per cent

of our adult population even though the adult literacy is about 65 per cent. To build this gap

between readership and literacy and also to remain competitive the publications have kept their

prices low and depended entirely on advertisers to subsidize the reader and to increase the sales.


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BUSINESS NEWSPAPER IN INDIA

Publication of Business newspapers started in India by the launch of Economic Times on 5thmarch 1961. It has traditionally been the essential reference document on Indian business, polity,

economy and finance. Its focus on the managerial component and evolving business in India and

abroad makes it the favorite amongst intellectuals, managers as well as students and researchers,

having recorded a staggering growth of 150% over the past few years. The Economic Times has

emerged as the most widely circulated economic and business daily in the country and among

the top three English financial dailies in the world.

Business Line or The Hindu Business Line is an Indian business newspaper published by Kasturi

and Sons, publishers of the The Hindu newspaper.Business Line started publishing in 1994. It is

India's youngest business newspaper and also the country's second largest selling, with a

circulation of one lakh copies, next to the Economic Times.

Business Standard was started in 1975 by the Ananda Bazaar group in what was then Calcutta,

the paper was hived off as a separate company in 1996, and then bought by Mumbai-based

financial investors, after which it began a phase of rapid expansion with the launch of new

editions. The Financial Times of London took an equity stake in BSL in 2004.

Financial Times entered into the market after Business Line, so did the Hindustan Times, Mint

and Financial Chronicle which is the youngest of the lot.


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ORGANIZATIONALPROFILE

The Hindu Business Line is published by Kasturi & Sons. It is the only white business newspaper published in the market. It started publishing from the year 1994 and it entered the Kolkata market in the year

2006 and started publishing from here. Presently it is publishing from 14 locations in

India.

It is the highest selling newspaper among all the business newspaper in India after TheEconomic Times owned by Bennett, coleman and co. ltd with a per day circulation figure

of 0.163 millions. And it is in 29

th

position as compared to all the newspaper all overIndia as per the number of circulation.

The Economic Times is the market leader with a per day circulation of .651 among thebusiness newspaper and is in 21

stposition among all the newspaper in India.

Its editor-in-chief is Mr. N.Ram and the joint Editor is Mr. K.Venugopal. MohanPadmanabhan writes many of the articles.

It staffs consist of reporters and researchers. It is the only newspaper having a researchbureau.

The content of Business Line newspaper is as follows :-MAIN SECTION OF BUSINESS LINE :

On Mondays, Business Line's main section has 16 pages. Page headings includeMarket Mood, economy, Information technology, AgriBusiness, Transport,

Commodities Investment The New Manager-Keep your date with leaders from

the world of business, Mentor-A comprehensive resource on taxation, financial

systems and books, Money & Banking, Editorial & Opinion, states and Variety.

On Sundays, Business Line's main section has 18 pages. Page headings includeEconomy, Commodities, Corporate, International, Variety, Young Investor and

Investment World-from page 8 to page 17, Incisive advice on stocks, mutual

funds and deposits.


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From Tuesday to Saturday, Business Line's main section has 20 to 24 pages. Pageheadings include Corporate, Information Technology, Marketing, Editorial &

Opinion (2 pages), Commodities & Agribusiness, Economy, International

Business, Stock Market news, Stocks and Mutual Fund quotes (5 pages), States

Variety, Logistics and Market Watch.

SUPPLEMENTS OF BUSINESS LINE

MONDAY :- The New Manager, Mentor, eWorld.WEDNESDAY :- Smartbuy.THURSDAY :- BrandLine.FRIDAY :- Life.SUNDAY :- Investment World.

PRICING OF BUSINESS LINE :For non-subscription part

On week days it is Rs. 4 (i.e. from Monday to Friday). On weekends it is Rs.3 (i.e. on Saturday and Sunday).

For subscription part

Half-yearly subscription ------ Rs.300/- Annual subscription ------------ Rs.600/-


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SCOPE OF STUDYI. OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT:

1. The first goal is to try and increase the circulation of THE BUSINESS LINEin Kolkata market.

2. The second goal is to analyze the complete distribution channel in the wholeKolkata region and find out whether the distribution channel is efficient in its

functioning or not and suggest measures what can be done to improve the

distribution channel if the performance is inefficient.

3. The third goal is to amass enough data to make meaningful comparisonsbetween the company and its competitors and to make better informed

strategic decisions as a result.

II. METHODOLGY:

1. WORD-OF-MOUTH session with potential customer to convince them forsubscribing THE BUSINESS LINE.

2. Visiting the drop-points (i.e. the distribution channel) and conducting aninformal interview with the agents.

3. Filling up a set of questionnaire from the potential as well as the prospectivecustomer and also by conducting live interview when required.

4. Compiling relevant information about the company to provide an objectivebasis for comparisons with others.

5. Using publicly available data to compile a detailed picture of the competitorsin the market.

6. Compiling all the data to do the analysis to create useful picture ofcompetitors activities.

7. Lastly using competitive data to define strategy.III. SCHEDULE:

1. Sales target 14 weeks.2. Analyzing drop points 3 weeks.3. Filling up questionnaire and conducting live interview 3 weeks.4. Compiling information about the company 1 week.5. Compiling information about the competitors 2 weeks.6. Analyzing all the compiled data 3 weeks.7. Defining strategy and analyzing competitive advantage 2 weeks.


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LIMITATION OF MY STUDY

1. Time period to complete the project successfully might not be sufficient.2. To fill up the questionnaire a minimum sample size of 100 customers has been

decided which might not be enough to get an accurate analysis.

3. Compiling internal information like company's financial data, marketingplans, R&D roadmaps, product plans, distribution processes, supplier

relationships, and so on regarding the company and its competitors might not

be possible to the required extend.


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REVIEW OF LITERATURE

PHASE-1 OF THE WORK TO BE DONE

SALES MANAGEMENT

1. SALES PLANNING

It is the first step in the sales management process Sales planning guides the organization

in achieving its objectives in a systematic manner leading to profitability and success.

In case of newspaper industry plans are formulated keeping in view the overall sales

strategy and objectives of individual organizations. Since circulation is the main thing inthe newspaper industry, all the planning is intended to increase the circulation base of

newspaper .The main source of revenue for a newspaper company is the advertisements

and they can charge more for advertisements only if their circulation base is higher. This

circulation base is increased by eating into the competitor's circulation. The head office

decides the targets for all branches in the country and this is communicated to marketing

manager of branches across the country. The marketing manager of the branch then

allocates targets for every sales executive in the branch. The marketing manager asks

each sales executive to target a particular segment. Segment can be hotels, educational

institutes, corporate offices, IT companies, MBA students as well as students preparing

for competitive examination like CAT, XAT, etc.

2. ORGANIZING AND DIRECTING SALES EFFORTS

Most of the newspaper companies hire graduates who are well versed in local languages

as selling newspaper require interacting with vendors and intermediate agencies. They

generally do not hire MBAs or Post Graduates as they are more prone to attrition. The

attrition rate is very high in this industry especially in the second rung companies.

Time Management: Time management is very important as the executives have to visit

morning centers at around 5 to 5.30 a.m. in the morning to meet the vendors to ensure the


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timely delivery of newspapers. Morning centers are places where all the newspapers are

dropped and vendors come here to collect newspapers for their locality. Most of the

activities happen between 3.30 a.m to 5.30 a.m. Within this short span they have to meet

the vendors and ensure that they are regularly supplying the newspapers.

3. ON THE JOB TRAINING:

The sales force is briefed about the newspaper and supplements and then they are sent to

the field for training. In this industry the training is mostly on the job where executives

have to go and sell the subscription to the customers.

4. COMPENSATION PLAN:

Generally combination salary plans are followed in newspaper industry. This type of plan

includes a combination of salary, commission and other type of incentive plans. As sales

people get regular income in the form of monetary incentives, they are continuously

motivated and it also provides sales person with the advantage of both a fixed salary and

variable income. Every executive is given a minimum target to achieve and on exceeding

this target they are given an incentive.

5. EVALUATING SALES FORCE PERFORMANCE:

The performance of sales force is measured in terms of the number of subscriptions

generated by each sales person. At the end of the month they collate how many

subscriptions have been generated by executives and on the basis of subscriptions

generated salary is computed.


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PHASE-2 OF THE WORK TO BE DONE

The company seeking for an effective strategy to improve morning newspaper by pertaining its

internal resource with external resource (the market), the competitive advantage can be achieved

by concentrating all the available resource on one basic strategy which is short delivery time.

The shot delivery time if administered efficiently and effectively could also result in less

distribution cost.

A. Vehicle Routing Problem in General

The most general version of the VRP is the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) which

is a problem in which all customers must be satisfied, all demands are known, and all vehicles

have identical, limited capacity and are based at a central depot. The objective is to minimize the

vehicle fleet and the sum of travel time and the total demand of commodities for each route may

not exceed the capacity of the vehicle which serves that route.

Figure1: Vehicle Routing Problem

One of the most important extensions of the CVRP is the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time

Window ( VRPTW) which is each customer must be served within a specific time window. The

objective is to minimize the vehicle fleet and the sum of travel time and waiting time needed to

supply all customers in their required hour. Multiple Depot Vehicle Routing Problem (MDVRP)

is a problem that customer can be served from several depots. If the customers are clustered

around depots, then the distribution problem should be modeled as a set of independent VRP.

The Objective is to minimize the vehicle fleet and the sum of travel time and the total demand of


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commodities must be served from several depots. Vehicle Routing Problem with Pick-Up and

Delivery (VRPPD) is a VRP in which the possibility that customers return some commodities is

contemplated. The objective is to minimize the vehicle fleet and the sum of travel time, with the

restriction that the vehicle must have enough capacity for transporting the commodities to be

delivered and those ones picked-up at customers for returning them to the depot. Vehicle

Routing Problem with Backhauls (VRPB) is a VRP in which customers can demand or return

some commodities. The objective is to find such a set of routes that minimized the total distance

traveled. Since then there have been many VRP studies reported in the literature. References [6],

[7] apply VRP to school bus routing. Other applications include inventory and vehicle routing in

the dairy food [8], transportation service at university [9], public library system [10], post service

[11], and grocery delivery [12].

B. Vehicle Routing Problem in Newspaper Industries

Many researches on this area indicated that VRP was and is still a great tool for minimizing the

total cost of delivery in the newspaper industry. Some example include the works [13] work on

the open VRP, their solution to the open vehicle routing problem and zoning constraints

(OVRPTWZC) showed significant improvement in both the number of vehicles employed and

the total distance traveled over the existing operations of a U.S. metropolitan newspaper. A

genetic algorithm (GA) was used to approach to the pre-print advertising scheduling problem

and computational results using data from a mid-size newspaper show that the GA approach to

developing schedules reduces the processing time associated with creating the preprint packages

[14]. Regret Distance Calculation algorithm was selected for agent allocation, a Modified Urgent

Route First algorithm for vehicle scheduling, and a Weighted Savings algorithm for routing in

addressing the optimal agent allocation, vehicle scheduling and routing for a major newspaper in

Korea, the experiment showed that the formulation could significantly reduce delivery costs and

delays [15]. A newspaper distribution problem for a metropolitan daily Korean newspaper was

also studies and developed a delivery plan using a branch-and-bound heuristic with simulated

annealing (SA) [16]. Before that [17] develop a deterministic approach to a medium sized

newspaper production/distribution problem in which they employ a greedy heuristic followed by


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an Or-Opt route improvement heuristic. The problem is smaller and involved only one printing

press and more importantly considered only a single product delivery to each zone. Thus, each

zone contained its own routing problem. A Dutch regional newspapers distribution process was

also studied [18] and the process was modeled by constructing the travel time matrix using [19]

algorithm and use [20] savings technique as the vehicle routing heuristic. In [21], a newspaper

delivery problem for the city of San Francisco is considered as an application of a formulation

developed for predicting the distance traveled by fleets of vehicles in distribution problems. The

formulation is a variant of the cluster-first, route-second approach to solving vehicle routing

problems. In a follow up to In [21] work, [22] extend the solution method to include

metaheuristics including simulated annealing and tabu search. Their approach is deterministic

and one of the main findings is that recycling trucks to create more routes while using fewer

vehicles can lead to significant cost reductions.


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PHASE-1 OF

THE

WORK DONE


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The 1st goal deals with direct selling of the product (i.e. Business Line). The company is providing a subscription offer of the newspaper which has to be

penetrated into the market.

The company has given a target i.e. 20 subscriber has to be achieved per month. The next step, I segmented the Kolkata market on the basis of demographic and came to

the conclusion that CHANDNI CHOWK, CENTRAL, SHAKESPHEARE SARANI,

BALLYGUNGE, PARK STREET, ESPLANADE, GARIA are the areas where the

product has already been penetrated and 70-80% of the target customer has been covered.

Areas like SALT LAKE, MANIKTALLA, ULTA DANGA,HOWRAH, DUM DUM are still to be covered as the product awareness in these areas are very minimum.

The approach as undertaken by me tosell Business line is being described in five step:

1. Prospecting and Evaluation:

In this stage I tried to find and evaluate potential customers. This would involve first

generating sales leads.

As per my identification my potential customers are :- BUSINESS MAN. STOCK BROKING FIRMS AND STOCK BROKERS. STUDENTS PURSUING MANAGEMENT COURSES. SMALL CAP AND MEDIUM CAP COMPANIES. FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND BANKS. COLLEGES AND LIBRARIES. CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS.

Evaluating potential customer was very necessary before making a call. I always tried tofind out whether the customer whom I am approaching have the ability and authority to

buy the product or not.


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2. Pre-approach:

This is the 2nd stage and here I decided the process of approaching the client. Thisinvolved, deciding on the approach establishing objectives of the sales call and preparing

for a presentation. I tried to analyze what are the product features in which the customer

will be interested and focus on those during the presentation.

This stage involved deciding whether it will be enough to do a simple cold call or to setup an appointment which is needed in case we want to set up a stall. Like in the case of

setting up stalls in IT companies where a larger section of our targeted population can be

met.

Problem faced in this stage: To set up a stall it becomes essential that we first fix up an appointment with the

facilities manager asking his permission to set up the stall. Hence, in my part it was

not possible as I was doing my internship with the organization and being not an

full-time employee of the organization.

Most of the times when a company or offices are approached with subscriptionoffer the gatekeepers are encountered who are actually the receptionists and

security guards and they don't have the authority to buy the paper but pose a

challenge to the final sale from happening.

3. Approach:

In this stage I get in initial contact with the customer by meeting him and generatinginterest in the product. Once I get in with the customer I make a presentation making him

aware of the characteristics of the paper, the discount and the special segments and

supplements that are on offer.

While selling to Financial Institutions I mainly focused on presenting the varioussupplements that the customer will get if he subscribes and also ask whether he is

interested in our other products especially our other paper i.e. The Hindu and the

magazine i.e. FRONTLINE.


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While pitching to younger customer I usually focused on the educational benefit that theycan generate from this paper that too in a discount price.

While making presentations to corporates the focus is on the operational efficiency andconvince the Facilities Manager that the implementation will be starting in 2 weeks time

from when the employees start signing up for the subscription.

4. Handling objection:

The most common objection which is encountered during the selling is the fact that mostcustomers who are regular readers of others newspapers are very loyal and are unwilling

to change. This is the time when I discuss about the distinguishing features of the

products for example Business Line highlights the fact that it has various sections like

logistics and agribusiness which are uncommon to other financial newspaper in the

market and also provides supplements like SMARTBUY, BRANDLINE, ETC in almost

everyday in a week and also it is supported by The Hindu which is famous for its

editorial section and all these comes in a reasonable price too.

Some of the customers are worried about the implementation time this is where I told thecustomers about how we will be ensuring that they get a regular supply of their Business

Line by interacting with their vendors and start the delivery of their newspaper to their

home in 2 weeks.

5. Closing:

At this stage the customer is more or less aware of the product and has made up his mindto either go ahead with the sale or not. If the customer feels that the subscription are

attractively priced they prefer to go for the plan offered and want to first get a look at the

service being provided. Many people either backs out at the middle of the presentation, or

stick around to try and see what they are getting for their money. By the time I pops thefinal question whether the customer wants to pay by cash, cheque or credit card the

customer usually has made up his mind.


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PHASE-2 OFTHE WORK

DONE


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Establishing the strategic problem: To find out the problem a pilot survey was conducted among 30 respondents.

The sample was selected on the basis of random sampling. An unstructured questionnaire covering both close-ended and open-ended

questions were filled up by the respondents.

Analysis of the Pilot survey:

1st question--- Which financial newspaper do you read?

Answer--- Out of 30 respondents, 24 read Economic Times, 12 read

Business Standard, 7 read Business Line, 3 read Mint and 4 read

financial express.

Analysis: It was found out that the persons who are reading Business line and

Mint are also the user of other newspaper especially Economic Times and

Business Standard.

They are the persons who follow more than one newspaper and has a strong habit

of reading.

0

5

10

15

20

25

Economic

Times

Business

Line

Business

standard

The Mint Financial

Express

Financial Newspaper

NO. of users


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2nd question--- Name the financial dailies which you are aware of?

Answer ---- All the respondents are aware of Economic Times and Business

Standard whereas only 16 respondents were aware of Business Line

and 21 respondents were aware of Financial Express and only 8

respondents are aware of The Mint newspaper.

Analysis: After conducting this exploratory research, I came to the conclusion

that all customers are not aware of Business Line newspaper and hence circulation

of Business Line is quite lower as compared to the other two big players i.e.

Economic Times and Business Standard

Hence, the strategic problem established was:-

HOW TO IMPROVE SALES OF BUSINESS LINE?

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Economic

Times

Business Line Business

standard

The Mint Financial

express

Awareness


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Knowing my own company: Before planning to improve the sales of the product it is very necessary to know

about the company. Hence, the companys details regarding the departments,human resource, sales procedure and distribution channel and procedure are

analyzed.

The Hindu Group office in Kolkata is the regional head office which looks afterthe West Bengal region and Rourkela city in Orissa and some parts of

Jharkhand.

There are 50 employees within the organization including the attendants whowork in these departments and 40 development canvassers in Kolkata only who

act as sales representative by meeting the end customer and helping in promoting

the product. These development canvassers are the temporary sales force of the

organization.

KOLKATA REGIONAL OFFICE STRUCTUREThe regional office has mainly 4 departments:

ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENTlooks after all the financial requirementof the organization for example it deals with the salary, wages , incentives of

the employees and development canvassers.

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENTcompletely deals with the content of thenewspaper i.e. both The Hindu as well as Business Line.

ADVERTISEMENT DEPARTMENTdeals with the advertisement to be placedin the newspaper and revenue to be collected from the party palcing the

advertisement.

CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT deals with the sales of the newspaper. Itcomprises of regional sales head, sales executive and many other sales officer.

All the development canvassers work under these sales officer. This

department also looks after the distribution channels (i.e. the drop points).


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DISTRIBUTION PROCESS OF THE HINDU GROUP INKOLKATA

The newspaper sales involve distributing highly perishable products undersevere time constraints.

The printed newspapers have to be dispatched to various distributors acrossthe region. Transportation is done through private contract carriers within

local area, public transport in case of longer distances and through couriers in

other cases.

Printing of The Hindu and Business Line newspaper is done in SATYAYUGPRESS CENTRE which is a hired press centre and not the companys own

press centre.

Printing of The Hindu gets done by 12-12:30 AM at night and that of BusinessLine is done by 11-11:45 PM at night.

The organization uses 6 VEHICLES to dispatch the paper from the presscentre to the drop points. Each vehicle has been allotted a specific number of

papers and specified route to cover within the specified drop points.

Sometimes, extra vehicles are also used as per the requirement mainly on the

days when the weekly magazine i.e. THE SPORTSTAR and the once in a

fortnight magazine i.e. FRONTLINE is published.

There are total number of 23 drop points in Kolkata itself. Those locationsare:-

HOWRAH STATION, SEALDAH STATION, ESPLANADE,

HAZRA, GARIAHAT, GOLD PARK,

JADAVPUR, GARIA, RANI KHUTI,

BORISHA, MAJARHAT, NAGERBAZAR,

LAKE TOWN, BADA BAZAR, AIRPORT,


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ULTADANGA, KARUNAMOYEE, LALKHUTI,

DUMDUM, SHOBHA BAZAR MANIKTALLA,

CHIRIA MOR,

There are one or more than one agent in each drop points who collects thepaper from the printing press and allocates it to the requirement of the

different hawkers of different area which the particular drop point covers. At

the end of the day if there is excess of inventory i.e. anything more than 1200

copies remaining then the company bears the loss and anything below it isbear by the agent.

Hawkers, vendors and book stall owners are the last link of the supply chainbefore newspaper reaches readers. The hawkers' remuneration is also normally

based on the commission system and is generally the highest in the entire

supply chain.

Cost allocation of distribution channel: Agent gets 40% of the price at which the newspaper is sold i.e. 1Rupee

60 paisa Per paper.

Hawker or the vendor gets 25% out of those 40% i.e. 40 paisa per paper. Distribution cost which includes transportation cost and labor cost

accumulates upto 25% approximately of total cost.

Responsiveness and efficiency play an important role in newspaperdistribution channel. Responsiveness includes supply chain's ability to

respond to wide range of quantity demanded (due to demand fluctuations)

and meet short lead times. On the other hand efficiency is the cost of making

and delivering the newspaper to the readers.


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COMPETITORS IN THE MARKET:THE ECONOMIC TIMES

The Economic Times is published by the Bennett, coleman & Co. Ltd.

The Economic Times, started in 1961, is India's largest and among the world's top

3 English Business dailies with a daily circulation of over 620,000 copies.

The Economic Times is published simultaneously from 10 Metropoliton Cities-

Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Ahmadabad,

Chandigarh & Pune.

EDITORS

1960s and 1970s: PS Hariharan (1961-1964),

1964-1979: DK Rangnekar, 1980s: Hannan Ezekiel, Manu Shroff (1985-1990) 1990s: T.N. Ninan, Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar 2004: Rajrishi Singhal and Rahul Joshi As of 24 April 2004 till now: Rahul JoshiNEWSPAPER CONTENT ANALYSIS

Its main content is based on the Indian economy, share prices, prices of

commodities as well as other matters related to finance.

SUPPLEMENTS:

The Economic TimesBrand Equity (Weekly) - this is a weekly coloursupplement that appears every Wednesday, which covers marketing,

advertising, media and market research.

Corporate Dossier is a supplement that appears every Friday, along with TheEconomic Times aimed at the CEOs of corporate India, with a special focus

on management and strategy.

ET Travel is a weekly all-colour supplement which covers travel and tourismaimed at the burgeoning band of Indians who want to see and know about

their country and the rest of the world -- through Indian eyes. ZigWheels is a weekly all-colour supplement covering all aspects from theauto industry from new launches and trends to ancillaries and personalities.

"ET Realty"


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EVENTS:

The Brand equity Quiz, is an advertising and marketing quiz which attractscorporate entities all over the Indian subcontinent.

ET in the Classroom Quiz, is a business quiz of UG and PG students all overIndia.


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BUSINESS STANDARD

Business Standardis a financial daily from Business Standard Ltd (BSL).

It is published in two languages (English and Hindi) from 14 centres in India.

The main English edition comes out from 12 centres - Mumbai,New

Delhi,Kolkata,Banglore,Chennai,Ahmedabad,Hyderabad,Chandigarh,Pune,Luckn

ow, Bhubaneswar, and Kochi - and reaches readers in over 1,000 towns and cities

across the country.

Started in 1975 by the Ananda Bazar group.

It was bought by Mumbai-based financial investors led by the Kotak Mahindra

Bank, after which it began a phase of rapid expansion with the launch of new

editions.

Business Standard sells 144,000 copies daily in English. Its Hindi edition sells

53,000 copies.

NEWSPAPER CONTENT ANALYSIS

SUPPLEMENTS

Smart Investor (Monday)- serves as an investment guide

Strategist (Tuesday) covers issues around management & marketing

Weekend (Saturday) feature on lifestyle, personalities and also has a page

devoted to Motoring.

Business Standard is the only Business newspaper which gives 2 magazines free

every month

Motoring - A complete Car & Bike magazine.

Open Sky - magazine that gives 360 perspectives on aviation.

ANNUAL PULICATION

The Fund Manager - Covers the high points and performances of Mutual Funds.

The Billionaire Club Listing of Indias richest businessmen and executives.

Banking Annual - Performance of the banking sector.

BS 1000 - A guide to Indias top 1000 companies.

SpendA bi-annual which showcases the latest fashion trends and accessories.


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The newspaper believes in free, fair and independent journalism and strives to inculcate

these values in its editorial staff. The journalism practised by Business Standard lays

equal stress on quality, credibility and accuracy. The Financial Times of London has

taken an equity stake in BSL.

Business Standard has the country's best economic journalists and columnists working for

it. It is edited by T.N. Ninan, perhaps Indias best -known business journalist, who had

earlier undertaken a complete and highly successful revamp of The Economic Times and

was responsible for its phenomenal growth.

Among the other senior journalists in the team are A. K.Bhattacharya, former editor of

The Pioneer and associate editor of The Economic Times, and Shyamal Majumdar,

former resident editor of The Financial Express.

Business Standards stable of specialist contributors includes some of the sharpest minds

in economics and business. Among them: Shankar Acharya, former chief economic

advisor, government of India, Subir Gokarn, chief economist, Crisil, Deepak Lal,

professor of economics, UCLA, Bibek Debroy, director, Rajiv Gandhi Institute for

Contemporary Studies, Suman Bery, director-general, National Council of Applied

Economic Research, Alexander Nicoll, assistant director, International Institute for

Strategic Studies, and Arvind Singhal, chairman, KSA Technopak. The newspapers

columnists include Surjit Bhalla, TCA Srinivasa-Raghavan, Sunil Jain and AV Rajwade.

The company sees content creation, content processing and content management

as its core competence. It offers complete outsourcing solutions for organizations

which want to bring out in-house or private publications but lack the people

and/or resources to do it cost-effectively.


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FINANCIAL EXPRESS

The Financial Express is a daily newspaper published by the Indian Express

group since 1961.

The newspaper publishes eleven editions in English from leading cities --

Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata,

Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune.

It also has an edition in Gujarati, published from Ahmedabad. The newspaper has

offices across the country and is headquartered in Delhi.

NEWSPAPER CONTENT

Latest News Corporate and Mark Front Page

Stocks Politics Edits & ColumnsInternational Economist Fe special

Fe 360 Fe centers Fe web specials

Sme world

SUPPLEMENTS

EFe Brand wagon

India inc Fe investor

ANNUAL PUBLICATION

FE 500 - lists top 500 companies of India.

FE Best Banks - has emerged as the blue riband of banking excellence in the

country that culminates with an awards night for 13 categories.

EVENTS

The Financial Express has instituted two annual awards.

The FE Women Leadership Awards recognise women achievers in business,management and knowledge economy.

The FE Best Bank Awards are based on the Best Bank Survey.

FE Round Table Conferences (RTC) that bring together policymakers and major

players to discuss key issues pertaining to different sectors.


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THE MINT

The mint brand and logo were unveiled in Delhi by HT Media Vice Chairperson,

Shobhana Bhartia, and Christine Brendle, Asian Managing Director of The Wall Street

Journal on January 30. Also on stage was the papers designer Mario Garcia, the world-

renowned newspaper designer. The Wall Street Journal is mints exclusive partner.

The business daily will be available six days a week, though the possibility of coming out

with an edition on Sunday isnt ruled out depending on the reader response. The paper

has been priced at Rs 2. mint is being launched in a unique Berliner size that will bring,

for the first time to discerning readers in India, a globally proven, convenient format.

HT Media has entered into a content sharing agreement with The Wall Street Journal,

whereby 20 per cent of the content will be sourced from WSJ.

Garcia, who has designed over 500 newspapers worldwide, including WSJ, said, With

the introduction of mint we not only celebrate the birth of a newspaper, but also the

concept of newspapers as a viable and necessary medium. At a time when some

prematurely announce the impending demise of the print medium, citing the

importance and fast rise of the electronic media, the birth of mint reminds us of the

value of the printed word. Readers continue to read, but they are, indeed, moreselective about what they read.

It is a clear recognition that our readers are busy and mobile, said Raju Narisetti,

Managing Editor of the paper. The format is part of our promise to help readers deal

with the torrents of unevaluated words coming their way each day. Our approach

extends to careful selection of stories and providing clear writing, presentation and

analysis. Behind all of this is the idea that a print newspaper should provide readers with

an early morning briefing that includes not only the most vital news, but also analysis,commentary and opinion that only a newspaper edited for a special business audience

can provide, he added.

We are excited about the unique concept were launching, and the added benefits it

will bring to our readers and advertisers, The differentiated design of mint will also


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offer advertisers new content adjacencies, innovative placement opportunities and

impactfull advertising units. With mint, we aim to infuse Refreshing Clarity in Business

News.

Every weekday, mint will come with four pages of international news and analysis from

the 1,900 global journalists at The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones & Co. These will be

articles selected by mint editors with the Indian reader in mind.

On Saturdays, Lounge, the magazine-style weekend edition of mint, will be a

standalone offering aimed at reinvigorating the readers with its strong emphasis on

living healthier, wealthier and happier lives. There will be weekly supplement called

Campaign on advertising, marketing, strategy and management.

With its foray into the business print media space, HT Media will join the league of

already entrenched papers like The Economic Times, Business Standard, Financial

Express and Hindu Business Line.

Commenting on the estimated circulation, Verma sa id, We dont plan to push it

aggressively, but our intention is to be the clear number two in the market within the

first two months of entering the space. We have already crossed a circulation base of

Rs.75,000. Most of it is subscription based. We will have 12 monthly supplements.


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RESEARCH METHODOLOGYOur Research Objective:-

Research objectives is to find means to improve sales.

Finding competitive advantage.

Target population is youth and businessmen reading newspaper:-

Samples to be taken:

Upper-class- 1] Male: students, working class & senior citizen

2] Female: students, working class & senior citizen

Middle class- 1] Male: students, working class & senior citizen

2] Female: students, working class & senior citizen

The contents of our newspaper.

Through survey finding out the interest of our target audience for our newspaper:-

Data Collection:-

Questioning & observing are the two basic methods used to collect primary data.

Questionnaire studies are more relevant than observation studies.

Sampling Plan:-

A sample size of 150 has been screened through the questionnaire. Random selection of the sample has been done.


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RESEARCH DESIGN PROCESS

Planning system Information system

Research purpose

Improve circulation

figure

Research objective

Product innovation, Hypothesis development

Estimate value of research information

Research Approach

Exploratory approach - surveys

Research tactics

Develop measures of interest

Constructing questionnaire

Compare cost & timing estimates with

anticipated value

Yes No

Data collection & Analysis

Field work, data processing, data analysis,

statistical analysis & interpretation

Conclusions & Recommendations

rli

i

ry

l

i

st

s

rc

si

I

ple

entation


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ANALYSIS OF THE SURVEY

The research finding through the questionnaire is as follows:

Q.1] Which business newspaper do you buy?

The Economic Times enjoy the lions share in the business newspaper market.

Economic

times

Business line Business

Standard

Financial

Express

Mint

81

18

33

145

No. of readers

No. of readers

54%

12%

22%

9%

3%

MARKET SHARE IN KOLKATA REGION

Economic times Business line Business Standard Financial Express Mint


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Economic Times is the number 1 name when business news is taken into consideration.

Economic times has captured the market & is a brand name in the mind of the people, as it gives

all the information about the business, shares, investment etc. and is present in the market for last

50 years. Other newspaper like Business Line, Mint & Business Standard are also brand names

but their market share is low as compared to Economic Times.

Business standard is second best selling newspaper in Kolkata as it is also there in the market

since last 35 years.

Business Line as entered into Kolkata market in the year 2006 and is growing rapidly.

Financial express and Mint are having a very low market share.

Growth rate of Mint is quite good as it is a new entrant in market as compared to any other

business newspaper.

Q.2] What are your criteria for choosing a business newspaper?

A criterion was prepared so as to find what the bases on which people buy newspaper are. From

the research we came to know that progressive outlook has much more importance. Then comes

editorial advocacy followed by price.

26%

34%

40%

CRITERIA OF CHOOSING A BUSINESS

NEWSPAPER

PRICE EDITORIAL ADVOCACY PROGRESSIVE OUTLOOK


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According to the research , it was found out that Business Line has a good perception in the mind

of customer for being a very good newspaper on the basis of editorial advocacy. The only reason

is that it is backed by The Hindu which is a brand and is famous for its editorial section.

Mint could be a big threat to any other newspaper as it has placed itself in the market with

quality in term of progressive outlook and pricing itself very low. It has also started free

sampling of the newspaper in Kolkata market.

Q.3] In your opinion what makes an ideal newspaper?

Aftermath of the above table

Rank Outlook

I Taking stand on issues

II Independent & transparent

III Local business news

IV Active interaction with readers

V Judicious mix of local, national & international business news

Outlook RankI II III IV V

Local business news/issues 29 31 49 21 20

Taking a stand on issues 44 45 30 17 14

Independent & transparent 41 48 40 11 10

Active interaction with readers 19 13 46 42 30

Judicious mix 17 16 17 39 61


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On the bases of rank we came to know that ideal newspaper will be the one which gives

importance to the following points starting with taking a stand on issues, independent &

transparent, local business news, active interaction with readers, judicious mix.

Q.4] What are the aspects vital to an ideal business newspaper?

Outlook Rank

I II III IV V VI

Better balance of business

news & political news8 2 16 3 2 15

Career information 24 42 21 22 24 17

Guidelines for investors 62 33 25 18 12 0

Renowned writers 2 3 7 14 5 25

More sections on subject of

interest3 7 4 4 11 41

International business news 5 6 3 2 9 52

Aftermath of the above table

Rank Outlook

I Guidelines for investors

II Career information

III Better balance of business news & political news

IV Renowned writers

V More sections on subject of interest

VI International business news


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The aspects vital to an ideal business newspaper ranked by people are as follows starting with

guidelines for investors, career information, better balance of business news & political news,

renowned writers, more sections on subject of interest, international business news.

Economic Times leads in the outlook i.e. Guidelines for investors which is most rated

content to be present in the newspaper as per the requirement of the customer.

The second rank holder is Career information and it was quite surprising to find this here.

Hence, it is clear that young employees and students preparing for MBA and students pursuing

post- graduate courses going for business newspaper always wants to see a content on career

information.

Q.5] What should be the price of an ideal business newspaper according to you?

From the survey we came to know that the price range preferred by the target audience was between Rs.2

Rs.4 .

Q.6] How do you rate the content of the business newspaper you are using?

The above survey shows that apart from Financial Express all other papers operating in the

market are rated to be GOOD on the basis of the content of the newspaper.

Especially, Mint has been rated very highly being a new entrant in the market.


The Economic Times 12 27 37 5 -

The Business Line - 9 9 - -

Business Standard 5 18 9 1 -

Financial Express - 6 5 3 -

The Mint 3 2 - - -


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Economic Times being the market leader, is now being thought by the customer as a paper with

degrading standard of news items.

Business standard with T.N. Ninan being its chief-editor is maintaining its standard on the

content of the newspaper.

Business Line is rated highly by the customer when it comes to the coverage of the news item

but it lacks in providing catchy headlines and colourful pictures and advertisement.

Frontpage needs to be re-designed as suggested by some of the customer.

Q.7] How do you rate the service provided by the newspaper you are using?

The above survey shows that it is the complete industry and not only 1 or 2 players in the market

who lacks in providing proper service to the customer. Hence, any company who will give good

service and will keep very good customer relation with the customer will find a competitive edge

over its competitors in the market.


The Economic Times - 17 52 12 -

The Business Line - 9 7 2 -

Business Standard - 15 16 2 -

Financial Express - 3 11 - -

The Mint - 1 4 - -


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FINDINGS

From the pilot survey and the 1st question of the survey it is clear that the awareness ofBusiness Line is very low in the market.

From the analysis of the 2 nd question of the survey it is quite clear that Editorial advocacyand Progressive outlook are the two major things in a newspapers content which makes

the newspaper brand loyal.

From the analysis of the 3rd question it is quite obvious that Business Line has placed itselfvery competitively in the market when it comes to the content of the newspaper.

From the analysis of the 4th question it is quite clear that guidelines to the investors andCareer information are the two main contents which should always be there in thebusiness newspaper.

From the analysis of the 5 th question it is quite obvious that the Business Line iscompetitively placed in the market when it comes to pricing of the mater .

From the analysis of the 6th question, we come to know that out of a sample of 18 customer9 are satisfied with the newspaper and the rest 9 customers feels that it is a good

newspaper content wise but needs to be improved.

From the analysis of the 7 th question it is clear that the complete industry lack in providingproper service to the customer. Hence, which ever company improves its service will

achieve competitive advantage over its competitors in the market.

Right now company is adopting a PUSH STRATEGY but the company should go for aPULL STRATEGY.

One of the major finding is the characteristic of newspaper distribution problem which is asfollows:-


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CHARACTERISTICS OF NEWSPAPER DISTRIBUTION PROBLEM

Based on demand, newspaper can be categorized into two parts, subscribing newspaper and non

subscribing newspaper. Demand of subscribing newspaper is deterministic; it does not need to be

estimated for distribution while demand of non subscribing newspaper is probabilistic so it needsan estimation to determine the amount of newspaper to be printed and distributed. Loss of unsold

newspaper would happen if the amount of distributing newspaper was bigger than sold

newspaper that may cause the problem of reverse logistic. The Newspaper Distribution Problem

(NDP) involves the downstream movement of newspaper from the printing process to the hand

of readers. The NDP can be viewed as a hierarchical distribution problem. That means the

newspaper delivery involves at least two distinct stages. The first stage is from the production

facility to the transfer points and the second stage is from the transfer points to customers .

Figure1: A rough model of newspaper distribution system

Model of the physical newspaper distribution is presented in Figure 1. The physical newspaper

distribution process involves carrier, truck routes and loading. How early the distribution process

could start depending on when the printing starts and how efficient the mail room activities are.

The printing and mail room processes (or production process) will not be deliberate in this paper.


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However, all process has to be planned to meet the delivery deadline. As seen in Figure 1, for

both subscribing newspaper and non subscribing newspaper are distributed at starting point of

Printing House or Distribution Center nearby. The delivery operation generally involved two

legs: from the presses to transfer points (which can be drop points, the location of news agents,

or newspaper racks), and from the transfer points to the ultimate customer.

Figure2: Processes and lead time to be considered for physical newspaper distribution

Figure 2 shows current processes and lead time of physical newspaper distribution. When the

delivery deadline is set, 6.30 am, an analysis of the process time for each process will generate

the required starting times for each process. The carriers have to be finished by the delivery

deadline. The transports have to depart from the loading dock at planned departure times in order

to arrive at the drop-offs before the carriers start to delivery their first customer or reader.

Definitely, when the transports depart from the loading dock, the correct load such as edition,

edition version, quantity of each route have to be loaded consequently.


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RECOMMENDATION

Strategic planning for Business Line.

Deployment of IT in the value chain.

Implementation of vehicle routing algorithm.

These 3 things will lead the company to achieve its competitive advantage.


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STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR BUSINESS LINE

Followings are the main strategies for the company so employee and management have to pay

much attention to the strategies to receive customer satisfaction.

Product:Experienced auditors should review and develop the content of newspaper every year

in order to response the need of customers.

Presently, company should focus more on the analysis of stocks and share market and guidelines

for investors which should be a regular content in Business Line and should plan to either have a

special segment or supplement in Business Line for career information.

Price:For subscription sales, discount and premium should be offered in order to increase their

sale volumes. For non subscription sales, discount should be offered to agents or bookshops, not

direct to the reader. The price movement in the domestic market should also be monitored

closely and a competitive price should always be set to compete with the competitors.

Distribution Channel:The Company should sell their newspaper directly to their customers by

attending or organizing Book Fair or can also think of any other innovative method so that they

can come be in direct contact with the customers.

It has been seen that every year in book fair in Kolkata The Hindu group puts a stall but it is

hardly seen that any customer visiting their stall. Hence, company should rather organize

seminars and discussions by the renounced politicians and businessman and make it a live show

and can go for an annual award presentation ceremony.These things will help the company in

creating a brand awareness and making them grow within the organization.

Bookshop is the main distribution channel for newspaper. Internet is another mean for the

company to present their products via the company web site. Customer can purchase the

newspaper in bookshops or place their order by using mail order or they can order directly at

company Home Center.

Delivery Time:For subscribers, they would like to have their copy before leaving home to work.For Bookshops, the newspapers must be arrived before shops opening.

Handle Process of Customer Complaints: Responding to customer complaints is the major

concern of the company. Customers should receive the answer back atleast within 1 hour after

the placed complains. This thing can be achieved by implementing CRM within the organization.


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DEPLOYMENT OF IT IN THE VALUE CHAIN

VALUE CHAIN AND VALUE SYSTEM

INBOUND LOGISTICS:

Long term contract with service providers transporters and agents. Personnel at regional offices for over seeing the smooth transit of goods. Transparency and monitoring through deployment of ITall transactions through

SAP.

Efficient storage facilitieseasy storage and retrieval.

INBOUNDLOGISTIC

OPERATIONSOUTBOUNDLOGISTICS

MARKETING SERVICES

SAP, VCM

SAP, CRM-DMS

Suppliers ,

Contractors

Strategic

Alliance

Transporters,Convoy

DriversAssociation

DealerNetwork,MarketingResearchFirms,VehicleFinancing

RegionalWarehouses,DealerWorkshops,

Distributors,


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OPERATIONS:

Apprentice Trainee Courseensuring stable source of skilled manpower.

TQM (Total Quality Management) teamcontinuous drive to improve efficiencies.

Maintenancetechnical competence.OUTBOUND LOGISTICS:

Proper channelization of drop points. Long term contracts with transporters higher volume of business to transporters

ensures competitive price.

Regional Sales Office and Vehicle Dispatch Section linked through SAP. Efficient security system for prevention of any kind of pilferage. Implementation of RFID(i.e. Radio frequency identification) with the product so

that identification of product during delivery at drop point becomes easier.

MARKETING & SALES:

Structured approach to understanding the requirements of individual customers. Clear identification of product requirements, leading to development of innovative

products.

Quick assessment of the changing market dynamics.SERVICES:

Continuous customer relationship and getting customer feedback. Efficient collection of data from field and communication to the respective

departments, so that they can work on the improvement of the newspaper.

Agent and hawker relationship management. Implementation of CRM within the organization so that customer problems should be

solved within the stipulated time.


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IMPLEMENTATION OF VEHICLE ROUTING ALGORITHM

AN ASSUMPTION TO NEWSPAPER DELIVERY PROBLEM

Below are the assumption lists that shaped our formulation of the VRP model for the company.

1. Each route will start from and end at the Depot.

2. The cost of a route is proportional to the time traveled.

3. Travel times between each stop are known and accurate.

4. Demands (i.e., number of copies) at each of the stops are known.

5. Unloading time per stop is constant for every stop.

6. The demand at each stop cannot split.

Constraints in this problem are:

1. Total of 7 vehicles are available.

2. Hour of operations: there are time window of t =180 minutes for delivering

newspapers to thelast stops/customer and t=60 minutes forreturning to depot.

However, there are other constraints that did not define in this paper due to intangible factor

which cannot be part of the model i.e. Vehicle capacity which all copies shall be stored behind

the truck with door closing at all time of running. The paper shall not be stored in the front seat

or the roof of the truck.

A VRP MODEL FOR OPTIMIZING NEWSPAPER DELIVERY PROBLEM

A mathematical explanation of VRP for newspaper delivery problem in this case may be defined

as follows. Let G = (V, A) be a network where V= {0, 1, , n} is the vertex set andA VVis

the arc set. Vertex 0 is the depot and V\{0} is the set of locations on the road network. Associated

with vertex i V\{0} is a non-negative demand di. The parameter cij represents a non-negative

cost (traveling time in this case) between vertices i andj. The parameters Kand Ukare the


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number of vehicles and the capacity of vehicle k, respectively. A three-index integer

programming formulation will be presented here where binary variablesxijkcount the number of

times arc (i,j) A is traversed by vehicle k(k= 1,,K) in the optimal solution. In addition, there

are binary variablesyik(i V; k= 1,,K) that take a value of 1 if vertex i is visited by vehicle k

in the optimal solution and take a value of 0, otherwise. The formulation is as follows:


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Equation (1) represents the objective function of this problem to minimize total travel time of the

operations. Constraints (2) - (5) ensure that each customer is visited exactly once, that K vehicles

leave the depot, and that the same vehicle enters and leaves a given customer vertex,respectively.

Constraints (6) are the capacity restrictions for each vehicle k, whereas constraint (7) is a time

window constraint. The unloading time also presented here in (7). The sub-tour elimination

constraint for each vehicle is shown in constraint (8).

A MODIFIED SWEEP ALGORITHM APPROACH

The sweep algorithm is 2-phase algorithm [1]. The problem is decomposed into its two natural

components: Clustering of vertices into feasible routes, then actual route construction, in other

word cluster first and route second algorithm. The sweep algorithm applies to planar instances of

the VRP. It consists of two parts:

1. Split: Feasible clusters are initialed formed rotating a ray centered at the depot.

2. TSP: A vehicle routing is then obtained for each cluster by solving a TSP.

The generic sweep algorithm uses the following steps [8].

1. Locate the depot as the center of the twodimensional plane.

2. Determine all the polar coordinate of each stop with respect to the depot.

3. Start sweeping all customers by increasing polar angle.

4. Assign each customer encompassed by the sweep to the current cluster.

5. Stop the sweep when adding the next stop would violate the maximum vehicle

capacity.

6. Create a new cluster by resuming the sweep where the last one left off.

7. Repeat steps 4-6, until all customers have been Included in a cluster.

The original sweep method, as mentioned above, has the vehicle capacity and the travel time to

next stop as the route termination rules. In this research, the vehicle capacity constraint is still

hold. However, it allows the sweep to skip a stop when the travel time to that stop would exceed

the time limit. The next stop after the skipped stop will be tested by the same termination rules.


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CONCLUSION

The Newspaper industry revolves around 2 aspects i.e. CONTENT and SERVICE. If the

company is good in content and poor in service or vice versa than it is very difficult to survive inthe market and hence company needs to improve in both the fronts.

Company needs to re-think in the promotional aspect of the organization and help Business Line

to successfully achieving more circulation with that of The Hindu.

The company seeking for an effective strategy to improve morning newspaper by pertaining its

internal resource with external resource (the market), the competitive advantage can be achieved

by concentrating all the available resource on one basic strategy which is short delivery time.

The shot delivery time if administered efficiently and effectively could also result in less

distribution cost.

Hence, it has been clear that company needs to promote its newspaper more as the awareness

among the potential customer is low and should also improve his service and be innovative and

customer oriented while putting up the content in the newspaper.

We conducted the survey with the objective of penetrating Business Line which is a Business

Newspaper and we focused on finding out, what can be the competitive Advantage for the

company. We found out how innovation takes place in Newspapers as per the customers

expectations. According to the research conducted by us it is estimated that The Economic Times

is the giant leader among all the business newspapers available in India. Then it comes Business

standard, Business Line, Financial express and Mint respectively.

While selecting the paper customer gives more preference for it's progressive outlook ant not on

the price factor because customer believes in quality rather than price. The research also suggests

that customers expect independent and transparent news and a newspaper should take a stand on

issues. Other than this a newspaper should also provide guidelines for investors.

This survey reveals that there is an open market available for Business Line, only thing it

needs to do is focus on the service and content of the newspaper and with the competitive price

margin it has and with the backing of the brand like The Hindu will definitely improve its

circulation figure.


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ANNEXURE-11. Which business newspaper do you buy? _________

2. What are your criteria for choosing a business newspaper?

a] Price

b] Progressive outlook

c] Editorial advocacy

3. In your opinion what makes an ideal newspaper? Please rank the following in the order ofimportance. [1 being the most important & 5 being the least]

a] Local business news/issues

b] Taking a stand on issues

c] Independent & transparent

d] Active interaction with readers

c] Judicious mix of local, national & international

business news

4. What are the aspects vital to an ideal business newspaper? Rank the following

a] Better balance of business news & political news

b] Career information

c] Guidelines for investors

d] Renowned writers

e] More sections on subject of interest

f] International business news


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5. What should be the price of an ideal business newspaper according to you?

6. If an ideal newspaper is offered as defined by you? Would you subscribe to it?

7. How do rate the contents of the paper you read?

Good:- ------, ------, ------, -------, ------, Bad


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REFERENCES

References for vehicle routing algorithm and vehicle routing problems

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[4] P. Mochado, et all, Vehicle Routing Problem: Doing the Evolutionary

Way

[5] G.B. Dantizig, J.H. Ramser, The truck Dispatching Problem

Management Science, 1995, Vol. 6, pp 81-91

[6] C. Kelnhofer-Feeley, Q. Hu, S. Chien, L. Spasovic, & Y. Wong, A

Methodology for Evaluating of School Bus Routing: A Case Study of Riverdales, New Jersey,

Transportation Research Board 80th AnnualMeeting, Woshingtone DC Jauary 2001.

[7] S. Thangiah, B. Wilson, A. Pitluga, & W. Mennell, School Bus

Routing in Rural School Districts. Working Paper, Artificial

Intellegence and Robotics Lab. Computer Science Department ,

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[8] B.Adenso-Diaz, M. Gonzalez, and E. Garcia. A Hierarchical

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[9] N. Suthikarnnarunai, E. Olinick, Improving Transportation Services

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solving the mixed-Fleet Vehicle Problem with split Deliveries IAENG

transaction on Engineering Technologies , Volume 1, 2008, pp

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[10] L. Foulds, S. Wallace, J. Wilson, & L. Sogvolden, Bookmobile

Routing and Scheduling in Buskerrud Country Norway, Proceeding

of the 36th Annual Conference of the Operational Research Society of

New Zealand, Christchurch, New Zealand, December 2001, pp.67-77

[11] A. Rodrigues, J. Ferreira, Solving the Rural Postmand Problem by

Memeric Algorithms Processing of MIC 2001 -4th Metaheuristics

International Conference, Porto, Potugal, July 2001.

[12] D. Burchett, E. Campion, Mix Fleet Vehicle Routing Problem- An

Appplication of Tabu Search on The Grocery Delivery Industry.

Research Problem, University of Canterburry, New Zealand, 2002.
http://neo.lcc.uma.es/redi-aeb/WebVRP/Problem_Descriptions/VRPPhttp://neo.lcc.uma.es/redi-aeb/WebVRP/Problem_Descriptions/VRPPhttp://neo.lcc.uma.es/redi-aeb/WebVRP/Problem_Descriptions/VRPPhttp://neo.lcc.uma.es/redi-aeb/WebVRP/Problem_Descriptions/VRPP


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BOOKS FOLOWED:-

MAARKETING MANAGEMENT BY PHILIP KOTLER MARKETING MANAGEMENT BY ICMR


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Saswat's Report

Documents

Transcript of Saswat's Report