IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

A REPORT ON

360 DEGREE VIEWPOINT OF THE IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ON THE DECISION PROCESS OF THE CONSUMERS
By
(HARIHARAN CHOODAMANI 08BS0001160)

Approved By (Prof. V. RAJINI) Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of MBA

ICFAI BUSINESS SCHOOL MUMBAI 2009-10

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IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

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ICFAI BUSINESS SCHOOL

POWAI, MUMBAI

CERTIFICATE
Project Entitled : 360 DEGREE VIEWPOINT OF THE IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ON THE DECISION PROCESS OF THE CONSUMERS

Submitted By

: HARIHARAN CHOODAMANI ( 08BS0001160)

This is to certify that the above mentioned student have successfully completed the Management Research Project required in partial fulfillment of the requirement of MBA Program of ICFAI BUSINESS SCHOOL during the academic year 2009- 10.

Faculty Guide (Prof V. Rajini)

Date :

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Many people contributed in making my project a success. My Project is primarily the vision of my FACULTY GUIDE Prof V.RAJINI who initially defined the project, articulated its implementation as a resource, and determined its scale and scope. Her untiring and able guidance gave me the confidence and motivation to go forward with this daunting task. Thanks are also in line towards IBS MUMBAI DEAN Prof Y.K.BHUSHAN for the exhaustive support and excellent facilities provided by him and his staff. A project of this enormity and complexity requires the dedication of a number of individuals. My Seniors have always been present as a guiding light whenever dead ends were encountered.. I would also like to express my gratitude to our MRP Co-ordinator , Prof MINAKSHI DHARIWAL for providing me her valuable time and helping us in our study. Finally, appreciation is expressed to all my Colleagues of IBS MUMBAI for their continued support throughout.

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TABLE OF CONTENT
FRONTISPIECE CERTIFICATE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TABLE OF CONTENT LIST OF TABLES LIST OF PICTURES SUMMARY 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Historical Background 1.2 1.3 MiWorld Group of Companies Mistic Inc ` ii iii iv v vii vii viii 1. 1 1 2 3 3 3 4 5 5 6 8 9.
v

Introduction to the project Purpose , Scope and Limitations Purpose Scope and Limitation

1.4

Sources and Methods adopted Sources Methodology

1.5 2.

Report Organization

DISCUSSION OF THE PROJECT

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IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 3. 4. Understanding the product literatures The initial communication with the clients Actual client Meetings Quotations and proposals Follow up and the sales funnel 9 12 13 14 15 19 21 21 21 22 23 25 26. Product literature of Mirecords 26 27.

WEBSITE LAYOUT OTHER JOBS PERFORMED 4.1 4.2 4.3 Pull strategy using Emails Testing of the systems placing ads for fresh talents

5. 6.

LEARNINGS CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ANNEXURE

LIST OF REFERENCES

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1 : List of the IT Systems 11

LIST OF PICTURES
Figure 2.1: Snapshot of the main page of MiRecords System Figure 2.2: Price sheet Figure 2.3: Snapshot of the excel sheet of Hospital lists Figure 3.1: Home page of the website 10 15 17 20

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SUMMARY
The Summer Internship program (SIP) forms an important component of education at IBS. It is an attempt to bridge the gap in the students perception between the academic institution and the corporate world. Internship is a vehicle for introducing students to real- life situations, which cannot be simulated in the classroom. Therefore, Internship assignments must necessarily be those of direct interest to the host organization. Keeping these things in mind the project Sales of IT Products which is allotted to us at MiSTiC solutions pvt Ltd has all the ingredients of a great project. The core objective of the project is to generate leads for the company in a systematic manner by following the entire sales cycle. This project is of great importance to MiSTiC solutions Pvt Ltd because it would help their company to make contacts and gain network with a large no of clients from varied fields which would inturn help to boost their sales and increase the productivity, revenue and image of the company. This project introduced us to real life business situations such as understanding the companys product literatures and their strengths and weakness and then communicating with the clients in such a way that they get impressed by the companys products and profiles , which are hard to simulate in the classroom. It has exposed us to the practical dimensions of the theoretical concepts that we have learned so far and also to the art and craft of management which includes maintaining good rapport with the boss, colleagues , juniors as well as the clients.

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Through our interaction with the professionals in the industry, we have also learned the necessary social/ interpersonal skills and undergone the rigor of professional environment, both in form and substance. This report basically deals with how we have gone about implementing this project and the learnings that we have received. The report begins with a brief introduction of the company , followed by the details of the project allotted to us which includes the objectives and the goals, then we have described the methodology of implementation of this project and finally ending with the conclusions and recommendations from our side alogwith the learnings from this project and company.

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1. INTRODUCTION
Internships are a simulation of real work environment, which require the students to undergo the rigor of professional environment both in form and substance. It exposes us to the technical skills, and helps us to acquire social ones because we come in contact with the real professional world. Thus it is very important for us to take up time bound, multi disciplinary and goal-oriented assignment involving team work to get the true essence of our internship. We need to learn how to find solutions to various problems confronted in the assignment which may have either open minded or logical solutions, or involving an element of analytical thinking. We need to learn how to work and make decisions even in the face of insufficient data parameters and uncertain situations. Keeping these things in mind the project Sale of IT Products assigned to us by MISTIC Solutions Pvt Ltd is a very diverse project not limiting us to the knowledge of just one field. All though the main field to which it belongs is marketing, it also has a few characteristics of Information Technology and Human Resource.

1.1. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Before beginning with the details of the project, let us first take a look on the Companys background and its profile.

MiWORLD GROUP OF COMPANIES:

Founded as MiSTiC Inc in the year 1998, the firm was rechristened into the Private Limited concern in the year 2006. MiSTiC is a Java Solutions Provider offering the unique advantages of Open-Source and supporting them with a 24x7 support infrastructure. MiWorld Group of companies is the not so distinct future of MiSTiC & its associated concerns & divisions. Currently operating in the domain of Information Technology, the group has set out an
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IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Agenda for itself to be thoughtful & feasible technology solutions & services provider for all organizations Small, Medium & Large Enterprises. MiWorld is a group of MiSTiC Solutions, its divisions & its associated companies restructured to enhance the customer value-add by offering the best in class products in the domain of technologies, solutions and services. This group concerns itself with houses, and strives to increase the best of the talents from all the initiatives under its banner as a consolidated board of all group companies and talented industry associations.

MISTIC INC:
This concern is the brain behind all the initiatives. Not only in terms of the intellect behind designing the strategies for the company but also housing MiTechnologies division, the brain behind all the IT products Solutions and Services, offered by the group. MiSTiC is a solution provider that introduces a fresh gush of ideas and concepts to build enablers that help businesses take such leaps, leap after leap. Consultants at MiSTiC take up the role of Devils Advocate a concept very constructive to every business in todays scenario. Summarizing, MiSTiC designs solutions that are

far more integrated than the isolated designs of functions / departments not myopic in their view of businesses not an occasional maintenance work not seen as an expense Not incompatible with your organization-wide processes.

Ultimately, MiSTiC endeavors to be one-stop Information Technology resource and a trusted business

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1.2. INRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT

The project allotted to us by MiSTIC Solutions pvt Ltd is Sale of IT Products. From the name of the project many people get the feeling that it is a hardcore sales job where one has to do door to door selling. However this is not true. Sale of IT products means we have to follow the entire sales cycle and not just the actual selling part. It also includes understanding the products of our company, having a brief idea of the technology that the company uses to make these IT solutions and much more that will be discussed in detail in the later part of the report. Moreover, this project is of prime importance to our organization because this would help to provide them with new clients who would thereby increase their profitability as well improve their network among the corporate world. This in turn would result in improving the brand awareness of Mistic solutions Pvt Ltd as one of the top solutions provider in the area of ERPs .

1.3. PURPOSE, SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

PURPOSE
To generate active leads for the company. This means that we will have to provide new clients to the company who are interested in developing their ERP systems and solutions from Mistic Solutions Pvt Ltd.

The main purpose of the project is Sales which also includes the following:

To design the website layout for the new yet to be launched website in the United States, since Mistic Solutions Pvt Ltd is soon going to expand its operations outside India and its first overseas office is going to be at the US.

To follow the entire sales cycle than just concentrating on the actual sales part. This means that we have to first do research to get information of the clients such as the contact details, address etc, then we have to make cold calls to them, after which we will have to segregate and prioritize the clients based on their replies, and then make client visits and providing them details about our system and finally following them until the lead is closed.

To generate leads for the company for the companys SaaS (Software as Services) which will be explained in detail later on.

To understand the product literature of the company as well as understand the strengths and weakness of the products so that we can be more assertive as well as confident while communicating to the clients.

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To revamp the product literature such that it becomes more customer friendly and the actual message gets conveyed to the client more easily.

To devise the product pricing strategy for the SaaS services as well as for our systems and solutions for the US market, keeping in mind the pricing policies of in the United States.

To prepare the proposals including the quotations, for the interested clients. After preparing the proposal we also need to make sure to send it to them so that they also agree to it.

To understand the systems that are currently being implemented at our clients place such as Lilavati Hospital, Span Pak company, Agio pharmaceuticals, Calyon bank etc so that we can explain the overall working of the system to them and also report the issues if any, to the project leader at the Mistic Solutions Pvt Ltd.

To find new channel partners for our company who can help in the sales of our Products and systems and finalize the deal with them.

To test the systems that have been successfully implemented at our clients place and reporting the issues to the project leader.

SCOPE AND LIMITATION -

The scope of our project is not only limited to the area of marketing but also extends to the Information Technology, Human Resource and Finance. This is because although our project is sales of IT products , which purely belongs to marketing field ,but, in order to sell those products we must have thorough knowledge of that particular management information system (MIS) , as well we must know the different technical aspects of that system which belong to the information technology field. Also since we are dealing with the clients as well, handling their queries and complaints is also our responsibility. Over here our HR skills comes into picture. Finally since we have to make quotations which include the cost sheet for our product, such that our quotation is the least among all our competitors, we have to also take care of certain finance part . The scope of our project is not only limited to just selling the IT products and devising strategies for it , but also to design the website for our company which needs to be launched in the US.

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IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Also our project is limited only to the clients in Mumbai. Because of this constraint we are not able to gain knowledge on how is the behavior of the clients from various parts of the country. Moreover our project is only limited to the IT products, so we are not able to gain knowledge on how the marketing policies for other kind of products is.

1.4. SOURCES AND METHODS ADOPTED

SOURCES

The main source of information for our project has primarily been the internet. We used to find the details of the clients such as the contact details from the internet. Also we used to find the information of the prices of the products by either visiting their website or by asking any of their clients so that we can devise a pricing policy for our products in the United States. We used to find prospective clients for our systems as well as the channel partners from the Maharashtra Industries Directory CD , Gujarat industries Directory CD and the IT industries CD of Maharashtra We also used to get the data on how the layout of the website should be after visiting the websites of some prominent IT companies and solutions providers. We tried to gain fairly good knowledge about the information systems by studying them thoroughly and asking our queries from our colleagues or project leaders. We also used to gain information after going through the product literature of our company , MOU ( Memorandum of Understanding) and other documents belonging to the company. Finally even Mr. Shirish Chitte , himself was one of the important source of information since he used to provide us details and information regarding any new clients as well as used to help us in understanding the systems and their strengths, features and the technology involved.

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METHODOLOGY

The methodology used by us for the implementation of the project is as follows:

First we used to research for the information on the internet, Directories CD, Yellow pages etc to get details of the clients belonging to different fields like hospitals, pharmaceutical companies , banks , Channel partners etc and make a list in the excel sheet.

Then we used to prioritize them on the basis of their annual turnover, brand image etc and identify prospective leads out of them.

After that, we used to make cold calls to the clients and try to get the name of the contact person who is in charge of handling the IT systems.

Then we used to take appointment with that person so that we can go there and convey the details of the system to him in person.

After that we used to visit the clients and give them a demonstration of our system as well as explain the strengths of our systems .This was our actual field work .

We then used to provide the interested clients with a formal proposal i.e. quotations in case of clients and MOUs in case of Channel partners so that their management can take a decision.

Finally, we used to follow up the prospective clients until the order is closed.

Along with the above job, we have also designed the website for which the following method was adopted:

The first stage was same as the one used for the sales cycle i.e. researching and collecting the data from the internet and other sources that have been mentioned above.

The next step is to discuss with Mr. Shirish Sir as to what his requirements from the website are and what all modules is he expecting in the website.

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Then we used to prepare a rough layout of the website on power point and discussed the same with Mr. Marla - the person in charge of this websites at our company and used to take his feedback and perform modifications on it if required.

This cycle was followed until the entire website was created. Once the website layout is prepared, we need to co-ordinate with the website design engineer and suggest modification if any in his finally implementation of the layout.

The methodology used to test the systems is as follows:

First we need to completely understand the system and its workflow that has been implemented at our clients place. For e.g. The Span Pak system, Calyon system with the help of the project leader as well as Mr. Shirish Chitte.

Then we need to test the system completely by entering values in the fields and to

check whether all the modules are working according to the workflow.

Then we need to report the errors and issues in the system to the project leader and

again follow the same cycle.

We also need to prepare the Help Manual for the system so that it will help us in

understanding the system more clearly and precisely.

We then used to visit the clients place and explain the entire workflow of each

module of the system to them i.e. purchase, sales etc and handle all their queries regarding the system.

We also used to take down their issues and requirements in the system and used to

convey it to the project leader at Mistic Solution Pvt Ltd .

Then after the project leader makes the required changes, the entire cycle repeats

itself.

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1.5. REPORT ORGANIZATION

The report is organized in such a way that the reader is able to understand each and every minute detail of the project as follows; The first chapter is the Introduction which contains the purpose and scope of the report, limitation and scope of the study, method of collecting data and their sources. In short it provides an outline of the work performed in the project. The second part is divided into 3 chapters i.e., Discussion of the project, Website design layout and the other works undertaken. This section discusses or describes the main business of the report. It contains the data collection, description of activities, results obtained, illustrations , the discussions and the interpretations, etc. The next chapter is the Learning or the findings part where the results of the research, project etc are provided Then finally we have the conclusions and the recommendations part which offer the reader to base their decisions related to various issues involved in the project We also have the attachments part which has been provided to support or elaborate the matter in the main text. Finally we have the references and Bibliographies which gives us the list of all the websites that we have visited and a list of all the books that we have used for making this project report.

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2.

DISCUSSION OF THE PROJECT

As described earlier, our project was divided into 4 phase for understanding the Entire working of the PMT Division. Our Job was to undertake a throw learning of each phase, so that we would have a better understanding of the next phase as the phases we interlinked. The work was divided in the following manner. a) Undertaking the Updation part of PIS, PCD, Quali Work Load, FVR and the KPI

Report. b) Budgeting of Projects for the DA Team. c) Handling of a live Project for FMCG Sector. d) Undertaking an research for the Internal Audit of DA Team

Undertaking the Updation of PIS, PCD, Quali Work Load, FVR and the KPI Report.
The very first task that was appointed to us was to go through the existing product literatures of the company , understanding the strengths and limitations of our products and designing the product literatures of certain other products based on the already available product literatures. Till now we have designed the product literatures of MiRecords, MiStationery etc. Please refer to annexure 1 to see the product literature for MiRecords. Once we have got a brief idea of the systems , we were then given access to the actual ERP system so that we can actually go through all the modules and understand the work flow of the system . This helped us in gaining practical knowledge regarding that particular system since after going through the product literatures , we gained only a theoretical aspect of that product. Given below is the snapshot of the main page of the MiRecords system that our company has developed and successfully implemented at Lilavati.

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Figure 2.1: Snapshot of the main page of MiRecords System

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IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Finally after finishing with understanding the system thoroughly , we used to make the help manuals for the system since it helped us to understand the workflow between 2 or more users. Also it made us well averse with the system and made us comfortable enough to communicate confidently with the clients. We also prepared the flowchart for the systems so that even the clients understand the working of the system more clearly. The table given below gives the list of the systems that we have actually worked on, along with a brief description of the system and the name of the client using that system.

Sr.No.

Name of the system

Brief Description

Clients

1.

MiRecords

Medical Digitization archival

Records Lilavati Hospital , and

retrieval solution

2.

MiStationery

Stationery management system For Banks

HDFC Ltd

3.

MiDistribution

Distribution management system for channel partners

Relcon Pvt ltd

4.

MiInventory

Inventory

Agio

Management system pharmaceuticals, for Manufacturing Span manufacturing company Pak

companies

Table 2.1: List of the IT systems

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IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Even in the remaining days of our internship we will first understand the systems in the same manner as discussed above so that before actually going to the next stage of communicating with the clients, we are well aware of the strengths and weakness of the systems as well as the technicalities and the workflow of the systems.

2.1. THE INITIAL COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE CLIENTS

Once the entire product Literatures and strengths of the products was clear, our next stage of our project and the most important one is to generate leads. The very first system on which we had worked upon was MiRecords followed by MiStationery, MiInventory and now finally MiDistribution. So after we understood the entire working of these systems from the first stage we used to find out the details of the respective clients. For Example: incase of MiRecords we used to find contact details and address of the various private hospitals in Mumbai, in case of MiStationery we used to deal with banks and so on as shown in the table given above. In order to find the details about the clients we used to use all the sources that we had mentioned in the first chapter. We used to maintain separate excel sheet for each vertical. In each of these excel sheets , we used to categorize the clients as A, B and C grade clients depending upon the annual turnover, size of the organizations and Brand image. We then used to start calling them up and took details of the concerned person who is in charge of that particular system in that organization. i.e. in case of MiRecords for hospitals we used to contact medical record office (MRO) or the system administrator , for MiStationery and MiInventory we used to contact the IT dept of the banks and Pharmaceutical companies respectively. For MiDistribution we used to look for the marketing person who handles the sales business partner work for that organization or the IT head . However please note that in case of all the above systems we used to concentrate only on the clients in Mumbai. Once we have called the concerned person , then depending upon his/her interest we used to take appointments from them so that we can actually go there and show them a demonstration of the system and also explain to them the technicalities of the system. But before going to the client place we made sure to take the email ids of the concerned person so that we could mail them our company profile and the brochure ( Product literatures) of the system and also the flowcharts and the client list. All these documents were prepared by us only with the help of Mr. Shirish Chitte thereby increasing our
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IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING confidence and getting us more involved in the project. The company profile was a 4 page pdf file which contains the details about the company in such a manner that would impress the reader i.e. client because this is the very first document that he will be going through from our side. If he is not impressed by the company profile then in order to still retain his interest on us we used to provide the client list also so that he could see all the big names that have been the clients of Mistic Solutions pvt ltd over the years and at least get impressed after seeing this. We used to mention the names and logos of only the prominent ones in this one page client list which proved to be very useful for us. Then the product literatures for that particular system were also provided to them so that they get to know the different features of our system . However there are some people who directly ask us to send the workflow of our systems. In such cases we used to send the flowchart to them so that they can go through the flowchart and get a feel of how the system works. Thus as you can see we used to take very aggressive marketing strategies in order to gain the interest of the clients even before we actually go and meet them.

2.2. ACTUAL CLIENT MEETINGS

Once we have done all the things necessary to attract the interest of the client, we then take a formal appointment from the concerned person of that particular organization so that we can show him the demonstration of our systems as well as explain to him the strengths of our systems. After going to the client place, our main job is to listen to the client patiently and then catch the need of the client and grab the opportunity such that they get the feeling that they are actually in need of such a solution only to solve their problems. However there were some clients who were interested in seeing the actual working of the live systems at our clients place. For example. Many clients whom we had contacted for MiRecords had actually asked us for a visit to the Lilavati Hospital where they can see the working of the system which has been already implemented over there. This provided them sufficient knowledge on how the system actually works in a real professional environment and at the same time an opportunity to ask questions to those people regarding how user friendly the system is and is it worth it.

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2.3. QUOTATIONS AND PROPOSALS

Once the client meetings are finished, then depending upon the feedback we receive from the clients we take the next step. If the feedback is positive then we take the requirements from the clients and prepare the formal proposals for them as well as the price quotations depending upon their requirements. For example in case of MiReceords we used to take details like the no of documents to be scanned, no of patients , no of files etc based on which the quotation varied from client to client. The basic layout of the proposal for that particular IT system was already given to us by Mr. Shirish Chitte. We used to make the changes in the price quotations depending upon the requirements from the clients as told earlier as well as in certain other parts like the validity, details of the requirements etc. The other thing that was included in the proposal apart from the quotation was the terms and conditions, Mistics responsibility, Clients responsibility, Validity etc. The advantage of sending formal proposal to the client was that it made them believe that we are actually interested in getting their order closed. However in order to create the price quotation we were asked to prepare an excel sheet which contained the cost sheet and the data table where, just by putting the different requirements by different clients we get the exact price that needs to be charged. Once we get the exact price for that particular requirement we used to mention add some profit to that price and then finally on the quotation used to mention a price that is little more than the actual price. For Example in case of MiRecords let us suppose that we got a requirement for 6,00,000 documents to be scanned from one f the hospitals . Then we used to first calculate the price for scanning each page keeping in mind all the resources used i.e. the human personnel involved, the maintenance work etc using this excel sheet. If the price comes out to be Rs 40 paise per image then we would be mentioning in the quotation part of the proposal a price which provides us at least 15% profit i.e. a price of 46 paise . However this 15% profit margin used to change depending upon the pricing policies of the competitors. If the competitors are charging exorbitantly higher prices than ours then we can afford to increase our profit margin and still manage to maintain the least price quotation . However if the competitors prices are also low then we need to cut down on our profit margins.

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IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Given below is the snapshot of the excel sheet that we used to calculate prices.

Figure 2.2: Price sheet

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2.4.

FOLLOW UP AND THE SALES FUNNEL

Once we have sent the proposals to the clients then we just need to make sure that we get the order by constantly reminding them to go through the proposal and the quotation and also being in constant touch with them. However while doing so care must be taken that we do not irritate them by calling over and over again. This is where the importance of the follow up comes. Follow up means to constantly keep in touch with the clients but at the same time make sure that we dont call them everyday thereby losing our clients interest. Follow up plays a very important role in sales. In order to achieve it we started marking the excel sheet in which we had the list of the clients. In that excel sheet we had divided the entire list into 3 parts Green , yellow and red. The significance of each of this color is as follows. Green : This color is used to mark all the clients who are interested in our system and whose follow up needs to be done regularly on a priority basis. Yellow: This color is used to mark all the clients with whom the communication process is still going on . Red: This is used to mark all the clients who are no longer interested in our systems. This excel sheet had different fields like the client name, contact person, contact no, Status, action to be taken , email id etc. Apart from the 3 colors that have been mentioned above , we also used the blue color to mark all those clients that needs to be followed up on that particular day. For Example : if Blue Star Technologies who are our in channel partners list has asked us to call back on 17th April then on 17th April morning we used to check the excel sheet to find which all companies need to be followed up today and used to mark them in blue. This helped to save our time since we need not go though the entire list every now and then and just concentrate on the blue ones for a particular day. This excel sheet proved to be very useful for our follow ups since we needed to just to refer it to find any particular clients contact no or follow up dat. However we found that there were many clients who were going into red as compared to the ones in yellow and green. This excel sheet was working fine for follow ups but was not helpful in getting to know the reason as to which field are we lagging. It is for this reason that we used the companys Sales Funnel Monitoring System to keep track of all the clients and the follow up dates.

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IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Given below is the snapshot of the excel sheet prepared by us for the Hospital list

Figure 2.3: Snapshot of the excel sheet of Hospital lists Sales funnel is a method by which we are able to identify the errors our sales cycle. There have been many sales funnel defined by different people. However we will be dealing with the sales funnel that covers all the fields i.e. marketing, finance, identification etc as follows. The different stages in the sales funnel for sales cycle that we observed are as follows:

Identification of leads; here we find that there is a large no of clients that we have identified.

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Method of approaching them i.e. cold calls , emails, contact person etc: In this stage from all the clients that were identified few gets closed here only, due to lack of interest in the systems or due to some other reasons.

Client Meetings: Finally after the first 2 stages the clients whom we actually visit are even lesser than the 2 nd stage. This is because not all the clients whom we contacted actually give the appointment. Many just tell to send the details via e mail.

Proposals: After the client meeting , very few are actually interested in getting the quotation for the system from us.

Follow- ups.: After sending the proposals very few actually agrees to continue the talk since these ERP systems are very costly .

Closure of leads: Finally after contacting 50 people we are able to convert rarely 3-4 among them.

The funnel monitoring solution of Mistic solutions pvt Ltd helps us identify in which of the above stages are we losing more clients and thereby provides us an alert stating that we need to concentrate more on the following stage. We are not allowed to show the snapshot of the funnel monitoring system since it is a copyright of Mistic solutions pvt ltd. Thus this is the way we went about implementation of the project. Regardless of which system we are dealing with , we used to follow the same sales cycle for each of them.

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3. WEBSITE LAYOUT
One of our project work included designing the website layout for our company. MiSTiC solutions Pvt Ltd were opening a new office in the United States of America. So, before actually opening the new office , they wanted a website to be launched in the United States which would be different from the existing one for India. We were asked to prepare the design layout for that website. Designing the layout means , we had to decide on what all things need to be included in the website, their positiong, the color combinations etc. We used to gather information from all the sources mentioned in the first chapter. After researching for the information , we used to discuss it with Mr. Murli over the internet. Mr. Murli is the one who is in charge for the website in the United Stated. Since he is residing in US , the only way we could contact him was through the internet using Video conferencing, chats etc. We used to prepare the layout on a PowerPoint slide and then used to mail it to him. He then used to go through the layout and suggests us the modifications that need to be done if any. Now we have completed with the entire layout of the website including the pricing policies for our products in the United States, the payment cycle etc. The website layout has been approved by our Company guides and has been sent for coding and designing purpose to our Design Engineer Mr. Kiran who has started implementing the Website. While the design department in implementing the website layout gives to him us, we need to constantly follow them up to see that the website is getting designed in exactly the same manner as we had Mr. Murli had discussed. After each page is implemented by the design department, the sample copy is sent to Mr. Murli also so that he can verify whether all the things are placed properly as planned by us. Throughout the implementation of this website layout we used to be constantly keeping in touch with Mr. Shirish Chitte and used to get feedback from him also so that he can verify whether the website layout is getting prepared as per his expectations. Given below is the home page of the website layout designed by us. For obvious reasons it is not possible to provide all the pages of the website layout since there are 30 pages in it .

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Figure 3.1: Home page of the website

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4.

OTHER JOBS PERFORMED

In addition to the above two projects we were also involved in certain other projects also such as sending emails to the pharma companies all over the Maharashtra and Gujarat, testing the systems that have been currently implemented at our clients place, placing ads o behalf MiStic Solutions Pvt Ltd for targeting new recruits etc. The details of such projects are given below

4.1. PULL STRATEGY USING EMAILS

Currently we have been involved in sending mails to the Pharma companies which have their offices registered in Gujarat and Maharashtra. The details of such companies were retrieved using the sources already mentioned in the first chapter but the majority of details were retrieved from the Maharashtra and Gujarat industries directory CD. The mail that was sent to these companies was a one page profile of the company that we had prepared. It contains the list of all of our products along with the brief introduction of the company. This was considered to be the pull strategy . Thus in addition to the push strategy that we were using in sales cycle of contacting the clients personally and going and meeting them on our own, we were also using this pull strategy where the clients started contacting on their own after going through the one page profile. This led us to generate even more leads. These leads were then followed up using the same method told in Chapter 2.

4.2. TESTING OF THE SYSTEMS

We have also been allotted the project of testing the systems that are currently implemented at our clients place and also of those systems that are yet to go live at our clients place. Here we first understand the system using the same way as told before in the 1st chapter. Then we used to go through the actual systems to see if there are any flaws or errors in the system and used to report these errors to the project leader. Then after making the changes they used to again ask us to go through the systems until we are familiar with the system as well as all the errors are removed from it. Once we are familiar with the systems, we need to go to the clients place and install the system at their server and need to explain the entire workflow to them until they fully understand it. We also have to make sure that they start using the systems by feeding in live data of their company. However if they found out any errors in the systems then they
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IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING used to tell us and we used to report the same to Mr. Shirish Chitte as well as the project leader. The systems that we are currently testing are as Span pak system of MiInventory, Agio pharmaceuticals companys MiInventory and Calyon banks travel module. This has provided us with enough knowledge about each of these systems as well as the workflow of such verticals which would be very helpful for us in future

4.3. PLACING ADS FOR FRESH TALENTS

Off late we have also been doing the job of placing ads and searching for new recruits for our companies. For this we have placed an ad at the www.searchmycampus.com website for accountants, Engineers and marketing posts and following up the various requests that are coming in. We have also been segregating the replies that come to us based on their qualifications and background. Also we have been collecting resumes of those candidates and placing them in a separate folder and also maintaining an excel sheer for the same which contains the list of all the candidates whose replies had come using the same color code that we had used for the IT systems mentioned in chapter 2. Since we have just started off with this work , we would be in a better position to understand the workflow of this job by the end of May.

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5.

LEARNINGS

There are a lot of things that we learned from this project . Well to begin with dealing with the ERP systems of 4 different verticals , i.e. banks, hospitals, Manufacturing companies and pharma companies gave us knowledge regarding the workflow of such organizations and the modules that are necessary in such organizations which will be very useful for us in future when we go to any such company. By polishing and going through the product literatures we got an idea as to how the product literatures for any product and not only IT related products needs to be designed which is very essential since this is the first thing that client comes across. After designing the website layout we got an in depth knowledge as to what are the essential things that needs to be included in the website for any company and also their positioning. This has helped us tremendously since websites are an integral part of each and every company. Working on the pricing related details has given us an in-depth knowledge as to what are the ongoing trends in pricing of the IT Systems market as well as it has made us independent and confident enough to at least work out a pricing strategy for any product. The practice that we followed to get details of clients gave us an idea as to how to go about identifying prospective customers , categorizing them and contacting them. Giving live demonstrations to the clients helped us tremendously since we got experience in how to handle the Client Meetings. This also helped us boost our communication skills as well as thought process which would be very useful in future. Creating and sending proposals was a very important task given to us since based on these quotations and proposals , the clients used to provide the appointments in future. Through this practice we realized as to how the quotations and proposals need to be made which must be flexible enough depending upon the clients. Also by using the sales funnel system we got more organized and systematic with our follow-ups so that we dont miss any important dates as well as we find as to which stage are we lagging.

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IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING We understood that company profiles are again one of the most important documents and it is necessary that it must be limited to 1 page or at the most 2 pages so that we take less time of the client and at the same time convey him all the important details of our company, so that after going through it he gets a positive feeling and gets impressed by the company. Also the practice of using pull strategy along with the push strategy has helped us learn the skills of Multi tasking and at the same time how to make use the theory things that we have learned to actual practical applications. Moreover by testing the systems and reporting the issues to the project leader has made us realize that an IT system is considered to be working rightly only after it performs the tasks not in the right way but in the desired way of the clients. Also since we are now looking after the hiring process also, we have got at least some basic knowledge as to how to go about recruiting people in a company and what is the method that must be followed for the same.

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6.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

As you can see after each and every work that we have done, we have learnt one thing or the other as shown above.

This company had made us realize to put the company benefits first in front of us rather than personal benefits.

It has also made us realize the importance of working in team as well as how to behave with your colleagues.

Being a fresher ,this company gave me an exposure to the all new world of corporate world; the fun associated with it, the feeling of satisfaction on completing a work, the feeling of disappointment on non completion of a work etc.

Also it has made us realize that knowledge should not be restricted to just one field like marketing or IT but also of the supporting fields such as HR , Finance etc

We strongly recommend to Mistic Solutions Pvt Ltd that instead of just focusing on clients in Mumbai , the company should also focus on the clients from other cities which would help to increase their revenue as well as increase the brand awareness. Also it must try to retain the employees for a longer duration since the employees in this company leave the job within 6-8 months.

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ANNEXURE
1. PRODUCT LITERATURE OF MIRECORDS

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LIST OF REFERENCES

www.google.com www.level3.com www.miworld.in www.sapindia.com www.salesfunnel.com

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