A study of consumers feedback on various Outlook

magazines .
[An S.I.P project by mba (sf4) batch 2nd semester]
Rajendra Shahi
Dibakar Sengupta
Abhishek Jena
Rajdeep Boruah
Manas Singh
Tanmay Mondal
Somnath Halder
Subadhip Bera
Kaushik Kar
Sovik dey

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is not possible to prepare a project report without the assistance &
encouragement of other people. This one is certainly no exception.

On the very outset of this report, I would like to extend my sincere & heartfelt
obligation towards all the personages who have helped me in this endeavor.
Without their active guidance, help, cooperation & encouragement, I would not
have made headway in the project.
I am ineffably indebted to Mr.Sugata Mukherjee, the head of Kolkata branch of Outlook
Publishing (India) Pvt Ltd for conscientious guidance and encouragement to
accomplish this assignment.

I am extremely thankful and pay my gratitude to my faculty Mr.Tapas chakraborty and

Ms.Poulami Sengupta for valuable guidance and support on completion of this project
in its presently.

I extend my gratitude to college Eiilm and Vidyasagar University for giving me this
opportunity.

I also acknowledge with a deep sense of reverence, my gratitude towards my

parents and member of my family, who has always supported me morally as well
as economically.

At last but not least gratitude goes to all of my friends who directly or indirectly
helped me to complete this project report.

Any omission in this brief acknowledgement does not mean lack of gratitude.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.Executive summary
2.Introduction
3.Methodology
4.Data Analysis and Interpretation
5.Outlook Money
6.Outlook News
7.Outlook Traveller
8.Outlook Business
9.Conclusion

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Todays competitive world Management Interns have to put rigorous

hard work to survive in the business world. They should be well
groomed and well acquainted with functioning of the corporate world.

The 2 months Industrial Training is an integral part of Management

Program, aims to provide the management students with an adequate
exposure of the various operation that are taking place in an Industry.

We, as a Management intern was engaged with OUTLOOK Group,

Kolkata. I worked in a Subscription Division for 2 months. It was a very
educative and professional experience and thereby gaining a practical
overview of the corporate work culture.

INTRODUCTION
Mr. Rajan Biharilal Raheja was born in (1954) . He was identified as 30 th
richest person in India by Forbes magazine. Outlook Publishing India Pvt. Ltd
is owned by Raheja group. It was started in India in 1995 with Vinod Mehta
as the editor in chief.It has a readership of about 1.5 million and over 11.3
million copies are sold each year throughout India. It features contents from
politics, sports, cinema, and stories of broad interests.

It has its headquarters in New Delhi and branch offices in Mumbai, Chennai,
Kolkata and Bangalore.
Product details:
There are 6 brands of magazine available within outlook group, namely:
Outlook News, Outlook Money, Outlook Business, Outlook Traveller, Outlook
Hindi and Outlook Traveller Luxe, each catering to a different category of
people with their varied choices and unique mindsets.
OutlookNews the weekly news magazine consisting of news related to
political, social, movies, sports and other current affairs of the country
OutlookMoney termed as the personal finance magazine, this magazine
consists of topics on how to effectively increase income or invest safely and
ensures that any financial decision made by an individual in their life, is the
correct one.
OutlookTraveller caters to those people, who love to travel a lot and see
exotic places. Its contents range from a list of must see places in the world
to accurate travel planning tips and contacts of all related services.
OutlookBusiness consist of news related to various business houses and
inside stories on top business owners and their tips and strategies for
success.

OutlookHindi the vernacular version of the weekly news magazine of

outlook
OutlookTravellerLuxe
This project deals with 4 of the 6 magazines excluding Traveller Luxe and
Outlook Hindi due to its insufficient reader base in Kolkata.
Objectives for this project:
The key objectives for this project were to identify the readers perception
about various branded magazines available within the Outlook group, and
to identify their preferences in terms of choosing magazine brands available
within the group.
A secondary objective was to determine the time period of association of
readers with Outlook group which in turn measured their brand loyalty.
Based on these objectives a detailed analysis was done on the customers
buying behaviors of the magazines available under Outlook Publishing (India)
Pvt Ltd

METHODOLOGY
Some key points:

Sampleframe Refers to the category of people within the sample

chosen and the distinct feature which separates them from others. For
this project, it refers to the readers of Outlook magazine available
within Kolkata.

Samplesize Refers to the total number of samples used. A sample

size of 200 was used for this project

Convenient sampling was done due to easy availability and quick

access to the samples.
For this project, a sample size of 200 people was chosen from among the
readers of outlook magazines within the regions of Kolkata and Howrah. The

sample frame consisted of people of varied age groups, income levels,

qualification and profession to ensure homogeneity of the data.
The total size of 200 people was broken down into smaller groups of 20
people per individual surveyor. This ultimately led to the following data
arrangement:
40 samples Outlook news
40 samples Outlook Traveller
60 samples Outlook Business
60 samples Outlook Money
A survey was then conducted on these people with the intention of
identifying their mindsets and perceptions about the company. A
questionnaire was used for this process and the questions were asked either
through telephone or direct visits.
Surveys were also conducted on the leads generated from BELOW THE LINE
activities namely Travel Agents Association of Bengal tourism fair hosted in
Khudiram anushilan Kendra, which gave a more in depth insight into the
buying patterns of customers.
Based on the answers received the data was arranged into several
categories ranging from the customer is highly satisfied to the customer is
highly dissatisfied.
These categories are then analyzed thoroughly to find out the major
shortcomings of the company as stated by the customers themselves.
Based on these shortcomings, certain measures are suggested which may
help to improve the state of business and decrease customer dissatisfaction
if present.

Given below is the questionnaire used for the survey:

Customer perception is measured in terms of 3 things:

The content of the magazine
The delivery mode of the magazine

 The subscription schemes and gifts offered to the customers by the

company
For all of these factors, a 5 point scale is used measuring satisfaction
ranging from excellent to very poor.

Brand loyalty is measured in terms of the duration of subscription of the

individual and the time period of association with Outlook in total.

A general mindset of the customer about the magazine can also be obtained
from whether they would recommend the magazine to any friends or
relatives of theirs.

1. Age

18-25 y

26-35 y

36-45 y

46 and above

2. Gender :
Male

Female

3. Qualification :
Under graduate

graduate

Post graduate

4. Occupation :
Student

service

business

Self-employed

Retired

5. Income level (yearly)

Rs.1,00,000 3,00,000

Rs.3,00,000 5,00,000

Rs.5,00,000 7,00,000

6. Which magazine of OUTLOOK group are you subscribed to?

Outlook news

Business

Traveller

Money

7. What is the duration of your subscription?

1 year

2 years

3 years

5 years

8. What is your opinion regarding the contents available within the magazine?
Excellent

Good

Average

Bad

very poor

9. What is your opinion regarding the delivery mode of the magazine?

Above

Excellent

Good

Average

Bad

very poor

10. What is your opinion regarding the subscription schemes available within the OUTLOOK brand?
Excellent

Good

Average

Bad

very poor

11. Which brand is of your preference within the OUTLOOK group?

Outlook news

Traveller

Money

Business

12. Since how long are you associated with OUTLOOK group as a reader?
Less than 1 year

1-3 years

3-5 years

Above 5 years

13. Would you recommend this magazine to other contact of yours?

Regularly
Sometimes
Never
14. Any suggestions? .
CONTACT ..
E.MAIL ....................

DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

The data obtained from the survey was firstly analyzed separately for all the
4 magazines and then compared together to find out the common
shortcomings that needs to be addressed.
Given below are some of the key points of analysis obtained from the
common survey of all the magazines:

Four different magazines which cover each and every segment of the market and fulfill the needs

of different age group belonging to different sectors.

Exclusive photography and articles, OUTLOOK does not copy the content from internet and paste
in its magazines

The delivery services and subscription schemes needs improvement

Very few people are dissatisfied with the contents of the magazine
Very few young readers subscribe to the magazines
General duration of subscription is on the higher end of the margin
Slow Processing it takes four weeks in delivering first copy of the subscriber and two weeks in

case of address change

If gift is not delivered by the executive then OUTLOOK takes two months of time in delivering the

gift
Perception of readers, OUTLOOK favours Congress party and does not write anything against
the party.

A detailed analysis of each of the magazine is given below in order of:

Outlook Money
Outlook News
Outlook Traveller
Outlook Money
The data is analyzed in order of importance. The most important questions
are analyzed first followed by the demographic and less important
questions.

OUTLOOK MONEY

Outlook Money is a personal finance magazine released by Outlook

publishing (India) private ltd. Its a monthly magazine costing Rs 50 per
issue. It is circulated all over India; it has a good readership base. The topics
covered in this magazine is about how to manage savings, how to get
optimal returns from investments, it is aimed towards the new earners
mostly.
From the customer feedback survey conducted we have found out the
following:
1.

The majority of people (41%) purchase subscription of Outlook money for 3

years period and 25% purchase subscription for 2 years period. Less people
(17%) go for full 5 years subscription.

2. Most of the subscribers have reported that the content is excellent. Very few
people suggested that content is bad.

3.

The delivery of magazine to the subscriber is done by courier service and it

has been found that the delivery reaches them properly in most cases. But
there were some bad delivery reports too.

4. The

opinion regarding the subscription schemes offered by Outlook was found to b

appreciated
by the public as fifty eight percent people said that the scheme is good.

5.The subscribers reported that amongst the available Outlook magazine

brands, they preferred Outlook Money the most.

6. Forty

three percent subscribers were found to be associated with Outlook group fo

5 years.

7. Sixty

seven percent people said that they will sometimes suggest this magazine to
others.

8. Most

people said they have no suggestions for improvement, but some

people reported bad service.

9. It

was found that people of age 36-45 years like reading this magazine the
most.The youngergenerationfind it difficult to spend Rs.50 on magazines
every month

.
10. High number of male reader and very less female readers .

11.

Qualification of sixty seven percent subscribers was found to be graduate, not

many u

12.
Most subscribers were found to be service men. Twenty five percent subscrib
were
businessmen and only eight percent subscribers were students

13. People

of income group five to seven lakhs were the majority subscribers

of this magazine, followed by three to five lakhs income group.

Findings

Not many female subscribers of the magazine.

Not attractive to young generation.
Quite a number of people report bad delivery service.
The quality of schemes are reported to be not up to the mark by some
consumers
Because of the pricing, higher middle class subscribers are
predominant.
Less number of people is associated for above 5 years, it indicates that
there are more subscription terminations than renewals.
Very few people are likely to recommend it to others

Recommendations
The readership base amongst youngsters and females should be built
up. This can be done implementing Below the Line activities.
To make the subscription schemes more attractive, different
combinations of offers should be given and gift items should be
changed time to time.
Customer base has to be increased by creating more awareness about
the product.
The termination of subscription and lack of longer association are
issues which need to be addressed with attention on customer
satisfaction.
Recommendations and better loyalty of customers can gathered by
implementing better customer handling procedures like documenting
the problems.

OUTLOOK NEWS
Outlook News is a weekly English news magazine published in India. It
provides latest news on politics,sports,cinema and stories of broad interest.
It is also available in Hindi.

1. The people can subscribe for 1yr, 2yrs, 3yrs, and 5yr. Here we can see
that maximum duration of the subscription customers prefer is 3yrs

2. Regarding the content of outlook magazine,71% of the peoples say the

content is good

3. The magazine is delivered through the courier; here we can see that 49%
of the people say that delivery is good.

4. Outlook offers many subscriptions schemes with assured gifts and

discount.46% of the people say the scheme is good .

5. Through the customer feedback, we came know that the duration of 3yr
subscription of outlook magazineis higher as compare to the other duration
period.Here also we can see the readers associated with outlook for 1-3yrs
are more that is 48%.

6.80% of the customers say that they will sometimes recommend the
outlook magazines to others.

7. The customers suggestion s is as follows:

29% of the customers suggested improving the delivery mode
10% of them say the magazine is good
7% of them complained for the bad services
6% of them suggested improving the schemes and offers
48% gave no suggestion.

8. Maximum subscribers are in the 36-45 years age bracket followed by 46

and above age bracket. No readers in 18-25 years age bracket.

9. Maximum subscribers are male (86%) compared to that of females (14%)

10. Graduates subscribe the most to this magazine, the least being under
graduates

11. Maximum subscribers are servicemen due to the need of updating

themselves on current affairs

People in the income bracket of 3 lakhs -5 lakhs (servicemen) subscribe the

most
12.

Findings
Customers subscribing to Outlook news are quite loyal and prefer an
average subscription of 3 years
Content of this magazine is good and the customers are satisfied with
it
Delivery mode of the magazine is average and needs improvement.
Customers are dis satisfied with the magazines delayed delivery.
Subscription schemes offered to the customers are also average.
Customers are bored as they are being offered the same schemes and
they want something different.
No readers in the age bracket of 18-25 years

Recommendation

 Delivery mode of this magazine needs to be improved. More couriers

should be hired to deliver the magazines timely. Backup couriers
should be kept in case of emergencies
Subscription schemes offered to the customers should be changed up
from time to time. New offers and gifts should be included in the
schemes replacing the old ones.
Focus should be given on the young readers as to the content they
require. Digital edition of the magazine can be introduced to make it
more attractive to younger generations

OUTLOOK TRAVELLER
A monthly travel magazine focusing on sharing information about exotic
places to see, planning tours around the world and making it easy and fun
for the people to plan and enjoy their vacations.

1)

Duration of subscription:

The people can subscribe for 1 year, 2 years, 3 years & 5 years. Here we can
see that the people want to subscribe for 5 years more .

2)

Opinion regarding the contents:

Regarding the content of Outlook Traveller, people are saying that it is good.

3) Opinion regarding delivery mode:

The magazines are delivered through courier service. Though some
customers are not receiving the magazines at proper time but their opinion
is good about the delivery mode.

4)

Opinion regarding subscription schemes:

There are many subscription schemes through which the customers are
more attracted towardsit. There are many gifts which are given to the
customers with the subscription. As 56% of the customers are saying that
the schemesare good.

5)

Preferred brand:

85% of the customers preferred the Outlook Traveller & 15% of the customers
preferred
Outlook News. So the people preferring the Outlook Traveller brand more
than the others.

6)

Duration of association with Outlook:

As we have already seen that the Duration of Traveller magazine readers are
higher for the 5 years subscription, so here we can also say that the
association with Outlook above 5years is higher. As 41% of the customers
areassociated above 5 years.

7)

Recommendation to others:

63% of the customers will recommend to others for sometimes .

8)

Suggestions:
32% of them are saying that the delivery need to be improve more, 19% of
them are saying that the gift related problem need to be checked,12% are
saying about the improvement of content, 5% are saying regarding the
better offers.

9)
Age
The magazine can be subscribed by all the age groups.The most of the people
in the surveyed population group belonged to the age group of 46 and above .

10)
Gender
The magazine is not gender biased. Both male and female can subscribe for
the magazines. 78% of the people surveyed were found to be male.

11)
Qualification
Most of the people subscribing for the magazines were found to possess a
qualification degree of graduate. 54% of the people were graduates .

12)

Occupation

64% of the people are into service. Even the students, the business persons
can subscribe the magazines

13)
Income level
The people subscribing for the magazines fall within the income range of Rs. 3,
00,000 to Rs. 5, 00,000.

Findings:
It was found that there were gift oriented problems faced by the
subscribers. The subscribers do not receive the gifts on time. Even
there are complains the gifts they receive are at times in damaged
condition.
It was also found that the delivery of the magazines is often delayed.
Since the magazines are delayed by courier mode so there occurs a
problem in delivery.

Recommendations:
The gift items should be changed from time to time. As the same gifts
are given the people often refuse to subscribe because they do not
want to get the same gifts.
Since the delivery of the magazines are a major problem so special
emphasis should be given by outlook group on this problem.

OUTLOOK BUSINESS
Business magazine is one of the magazines which are offered by the outlook
publishing group which is based on leadership, grounded views, rare
insights and fresh perspectives, coupled with an approach that is holistic
and global.
This magazine is helpful for businessmen and young entrepreneurs for
guidance and decision making.

1) Duration of subscription
Most of the readers subscribe for 3-5 years with few for 1-2 years.

2) Opinion regarding content

Most of the readers said that the content is good and helpful for them while few said it to be
average.

3) Opinion regarding delivery mode

For most of the readers, delivery is a major issue which needs to be improved.

4) Opinion regarding schemes and offers

Most of the readers found the schemes to be average and few found it to be good enough.

5) Preferred brand
All the readers preferred business magazine over other magazines

6) Association with Outlook group

Most of the readers are associated with outlook for 1-5 years (35%) and 24% above 5 yrs. and
6% less than a year.

7) Recommendation
Most of the readers suggested the magazine to others at some point of time.

8) Suggestion
Most of the readers said delivery is an issue followed by stereotyped gifts and offers and
content.

9) Qualification
It is found that 59% of the readers hold post graduate degree and 41% of them holds graduate
degree

10) Occupation
Most of the readers are in service job (53%) followed by 23% self-employed and 12% for
students & 12% retired

11) Income level

Most of the readers are in the income bracket of Rs 3-5 lakhs followed by 23% Rs5-7 lakhs and
18% above Rs7 lakhs

12) Age
It is found that most of the readers are in the age group of 26-45 years and there are no readers
in the age group of 8-25 years.

13) Gender
Majority of the subscribers are found to be males (82%) and few female subscribers (18%).

Findings
No readers in the age bracket of 18-25 years.
Most of the readers are in the income bracket of Rs 3-5 Lakhs/annum and no readers found in
the income bracket of above Rs 7 lakhs.
Poor delivery of the magazines and stereotyped gifts are issues for readers.
Most of the readers do not find the subscription schemes to be attractive

Recommendation

Improvement on delivery of the magazine, timely delivery.

Variation on gifts other than stereotyped gifts which are currently offered.
Variations on offers and schemes.
Customer service/Complain register for better customer grievance addressing.

CONCLUSION
This project brought to light the various aspects of consumer buying behaviors in terms of
buying different types of magazines issued by Outlook Publishing India Pvt Ltd.The various
findings reflected both the pros and cons in the way of functioning of the company and its way
of dealing with customers.
The cons if handled well can lead to a huge decrease in the number of customers changing to a
competitor brand and will increase customer loyalty by a huge percentage. Even if the
complaint handling section is focused upon it will lead to a huge number of satisfied customers
who would want to do business again with Outlook.
Customer perception and preference is an integral part of any business. It is based on it that the
future of the business is decided. Hence a company should spend adequate amounts of time
surveying and researching these aspects for better functioning of business.

Last but not the least, this project has taught us many key elements about how a business
functions .Sales presentations, closing sales, time management are only a few of the many
skills that we have learnt through this project. We hope that we get several further opportunities
like these to be inducted in a corporate environment and in turn learn to be professionals.