TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. ABSTRACT

2. SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

3. BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
4. UNDERSTANDING THE PRODUCT
5. IDENTIFYING COMPETITORS
6. MARKET LEADER ANALYSIS
7. PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY
8. BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AT DUBAI
9. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEY
10. SWOT ANALYSIS
11. LEARNING FROM PROJECT
12. CONCLUSION AND RECOMONDATION

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ABSTRACT
The project deals with learning of Business environment of education sector with prime focus on
Business development of the organization & its products. It is followed by understanding consumer
behavior & Competitor analysis which will benefit the organization by increasing its market share in
the future. Thorough analysis of marketing strategies used by different organizations in the sector
has been done.

Project implementation is in the following order:

1. Studying the education industries & understanding their trends.

2. Understanding the functions & operations of different departments of the organization &
identifying their products in the market.

3. Identifying the market leaders.

4. Sales & Marketing of the existing products by studying consumer buying behavior.

5. Understanding the promotional strategies used by market leaders & identifying the strategy best
suited for the organization.

6. Critical Competitor analysis to make peer comparisons of the companies strategies.

7. Managing activities of a fully-fledged operational center (Dubai)

8. Qualitative survey so as to understand consumer’s needs & expectations

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Scope of the project

The project has been undertaken by keeping business development of the organizations as the
prime focus. The project report will give the organization a view of the current market trends. The
fact and information provided in the report would give the company opportunities to expand their
business & counter the threats of its competitors. It will help the organization increase its efficiency
by learning effective promotional strategies implementing them & shelving old ones.

Product development at the organization meeting the changing requirements of the customers will
be taken into consideration during the course of the project. S.T.P analysis would be done to explore
new segments thereby providing the company with an opportunity of Business development and
hence increasing their market share. Surveys conducted towards the end would help us to know
customer satisfaction level, and effectiveness of current promotional tools used by the company.

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• Business development strategies

As a part of business development strategy various activities like Board center activity, public
relations, would be conducted throughout UAE in order to reach the target audience. Collection of
information from all possible sources to understand the organization products, competitor offerings
would be done. Promotional techniques used by them would be studied.

• Profiling

Collection of primary & secondary data, its analysis & profiling of the potential customers would be
done by telecalling.

• Ghost shopping

In order to gain insights of the strategies of competitors a study would be conducted to gain
knowledge about the business model of various competitors. On its basis competitive promotional
strategy for Smart Careers would be developed. Ghost calls would be made to understand the
products of competitors and their unique selling point.

• Relation building

Interacting with school and college students and their parents in order to get an idea of what all
they expect from an institute preparing for entrance exam and also to brief them about various
options one has after Graduation.

This will be done by:

a) Conducting counseling at all centers.
b) Counseling parents & students over phone by telecalling.
c) On the day of the university exams, interacting with the students, do short term counseling and
give them brief knowledge of our product and services we offer.
d) Distribution of pamphlet in the college campus or in front of the gate.

• Direct Sales:

Individual counseling of parents & students would be done to brief them about the product &
services offered by the company & ultimately make the enrollments by convincing them about the
products. This will benefit the company financially

Values added to the organization:

• Finding out new products & courses in the industry.

• Business development of company

• Finding products of the competitor & their promotional strategies

• Finding customer perception about the industry, products & factors affecting their selection.

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• Helping out the company in knowing the latest tools being used by market leader to survive in the
market.

IDENTIFYING COMPETITORS

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
Competitor analysis is a critical part of a firm's activities. It is an assessment of the strengths and
weaknesses of current and potential competitors, which may encompass firms not only in their own
sectors but also in other sectors. Directly or indirectly, competitor analysis is a driver of a firm's
strategy and impacts on how firms act or react in their sectors. Analysis is an essential component
of corporate strategy; most firms do not conduct competitor analysis. They operate on what is
called “informal impressions, conjectures, and intuition gained through the tidbits of information
about competitors every manager continually receives.” As a result, it places many firms at risk of
dangerous competitive blind spots due to a lack of a complete competitor analysis.

In utilizing competitor analysis as part of strategy formulation, firms are able to adapt or build their
own strategies and be able to compete effectively, improve performance and gain market share in
their businesses. In a large number of instances, firms are able to tap new markets or build new
niches. In any business the main motive is to offer something better than the competitor.
Competitor analysis framework focuses on four key aspects:

• Competitor's objectives,
• Competitor's assumptions,
• Competitor's strategy,
• Competitor’s resources and capabilities

List of competitor
Byju’s Learning APP
Career launcher
T.I.M.E.
Competitors Reach

BYJU’S INTERNATIONAL

CAREER LAUNCHER NATIONAL

TIME NATIONAL
I.M.S. NATIONAL

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COMPETITOR’S PRODUCTS

BYJU’S 5-12 STANDARDS

CAREER LAUNCHER CAT , LAW, H.M,BBA,MANAGEMENT,CIVIL

SERVICES,BANKING,ENGLISH LANGUAGE
TRAINING,GATE
TIME CAT,SNAP,IIFT,MANAGEMENT
I.M.S. CAT ,MANAGEMENT, LAW, MEDIA ,B.C.A ,etc.

ABOUT T.I.M.E.

According to T.I.M.E. It is the first institute to offer all-India Mock CATs on the lines of the new cat on
the line of new pattern, true to its reputation of being the fastest to adapt to the changing CAT. The
testing interface of T.I.M.E. AIMCATs and other practice tests is modeled on the same lines as CAT
pattern . T.I.M.E. is offering different formats of online tests like BITSAT, GRE test, GMAT Exam and
TOEFL, Ibt to its students.

T.I.M.E. OFFERINGS(Computer-based test package)

 19 AIMCATs(including 10 invigilated test)

 9 CAT replica Test
 13 Mock CATs
 150 sectional tests covering covering all topics

In addition, following paper pencil tests are also offered:

 1 AIMCAT
 1 CAT Replica Test
 2 Mock CATs

Triumphant Institute of Management Education Pvt. Ltd. (T.I.M.E.) is India's leading test-prep
institute with a pan-India presence and is headquartered at Hyderabad. Established in
1992, T.I.M.E. today operates out of 216 offices located in 110 towns and cities across the country.
Over 40 IIT/IIM graduates form part of the core team at T.I.M.E..

Started in a small room of 120 square feet on 26th May,1992 in Hyderabad with one
centre, T.I.M.E. has just completed 20 years of service to the student community – helping to build a
few hundred thousand careers along the way. From one office to 200 offices has been a long and
satisfying journey for T.I.M.E.'s promoters who had chucked their high flying corporate jobs to
pursue their dream and passion.

T.I.M.E. has achieved an important milestone of training more than 11.5 lakh students since
inception and over 1.75 lakh students in the last year alone for the various entrance examinations.
More than 75,000 students trusted T.I.M.E. for their preparation for the CAT 2011

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ABOUT CAREER LAUNCHER

According to board of Directors Company’s good growth record of the past years, the revenue of the
Company grew by 22% over the year and the Profits before Taxes grew by 13% during the same
period.

Over the last 15 years, CL has established itself as a national player in the field of test prep. Today, it
functions across a broad spectrum of educational services including K-12 school, higher
education and vocational training Currently, CL is present in 175+ cities/towns of India with
educational infrastructure in the form of learning centers in excess of 225 in number. The total
inclusive manpower of CL is in the region of about 3000 with 65% of this being only
teachers/trainers/academicians. CL also has international presence in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and
offers various educational services to its students in these countries.

Market share of major players in the market for 2018

T.I.M.E. 1300

CAREER LAUNCHER 1450

IMS 3900

Source: author compilation of various secondary sources

MARKET LEADER ANALYSIS

From the facts & information collected from various primary & secondary sources, it is
quite clear that I.M.S, Career Launcher & T.I.M.E are the top competitors. Profiles of the
following institutes have been given below.
IMS-
1. An institute with over 34 years of experience in shaping success stories.
2. Leader in Management Entrance training. The institute has been ranked 4th in the education
sector and 44th amongst the Top 50 Most Trusted Service Brands across India
3. IMS has spread its wings across India with more than 140 centers and over 50,000 students,
successfully making it to some of the most prestigious institutes in India and abroad.
4. People get into the best colleges after completing their classes in IMS. It is an institute with
maximum no. of enrollments in consecutive years

5. For a normal management package there are total of 46 sessions:

1 Preliminary Test, 1 Goal Setting Session, 12 sessions for Quantitative Aptitude, 8 of English, 12of
Reasoning, 8 sessions for General Awareness & 8 sessions Business Awareness and 4 sessions for
Assessment
Their marketing mix:
• PRODUCT – It has product for both for both undergraduate level and post graduate level.

• PRICING – The pricing of I.M.S products are slightly high as compared to other players in the
market. Major factors influencing I.M.S pricing is its brand value & quality service. Its pricing
strategy is mainly dependent on

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Demographic factors (mainly income).
Price of their basic product is around 11,500.30

• PROMOTION – IMS unique selling point is its brand image all over the country. During their
promotions they make sure that masses get to know about the fact that they are the market leader.
Their previous year results reflect the quality service offered by them. Being a major player of the
industry it enjoys Brand Reorganization, high financial resource back up. Capital intensive
promotion is employed by them.

They use the following above the line promotional strategies:

I. Media promotions such as Radio Ads - Their belief is that a radio add reaches the houses in cities
as well as towns.
II. Newspapers – One of the most effective promotion tools of all the time .Vastly used for
promotions in education industry.
III. Telemarketing – Both in form of calls and SMS’s
IV. Internet Ads – Social networking sites, blogs, paid ads, etc.
V. Banners – Putting logos & banners outside schools, colleges, metro stations

Below the line marketing strategies used are:

I. Sales promotion – Which boasts up the morals of employees and fosters a competition among
them to perform better.
II. Outdoor publicity
On the whole I.M.S uses more of capital intensive strategies. With a good financial backup the
company focuses well on above the line promotions and not on below the line promotions.
• PLACE – The scale of operation is nationally. With a good reach in all the major cities of the
country I.M.S has its network in all the four zones of Delhi & NCR.

PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY MAHALEARNING

INTRODUCTION

The major work assigned was to understand the company objectives, its customers, company
limitation and then to decide a marketing strategy for the organization which would increase its
brand awareness and ultimately lead to its business development.

There are basically two categories of sales promotion:

Above the line sales promotion

Above the line is a type of advertising through media such as TV, cinema, radio, print, banners and
search engines to promote brands. Major uses include television and radio advertising, web and
Internet banner ads. This type of communication is conventional in nature and is considered
impersonal to customers. It differs from Below the line advertising, which believes in
unconventional brand-building strategies, such as direct mail and printed media (and usually
involve no motion graphics).These strategies require huge amount of investments and are majorly
Capital intensive.

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Below the line sales promotions

These are short-term incentives, largely aimed at consumers. With the increasing pressure on the
marketing team to achieve communication objectives more efficiently in a limited budget, there has
been a need to find out more effective and cost efficient ways to communicate with the target
markets. This has led to a shift from the regular media based advertising. These strategies involve
high level of ground work involving manpower and hence are more of Labor intensive

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Before starting promotions, sales forecast is done to decide the amount to be spent on the
promotions based on the revenue expected from the product. Successful advertising depends on
knowing the preferred methods and styles of communications of the target markets that has to be
reached with the ads.

STEPS FOR DEVELOPING PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY

1: Understanding company objective

2: STP of the organization
3: Analyzing competitor promotional strategy
4: Analyzing organization limitation
5: Selecting effective methods

UNDERSTANDING COMPANY OBJECTIVE

Understanding consumer buying behavior & their needs

Hit the target audience in cost effective manner
Create Brand Awareness for the company nationally
Create competitive advantage
Increase in the customer base
Positioning for company in the mind of target audience
Generating sales

SEGMENTING TARGETING POSITIONING OF THE ORGANIZATION

SEGMENTATION

A segment is a group sharing one or more characteristics that cause them to have similar product
and/or service needs.

A true market segment meets all of the following criteria:

• It is distinct from other segments (different segments have different needs)

• It is homogeneous within the segment (exhibits common needs)
• It responds similarly to a market stimulus
• It can be reached by a market intervention

BASIS OF SEGMENTATION

Segmentation of an organization can be done depending on many variables:

Demographic
• Age, gender, family life cycle, education, income, occupation
• Socioeconomic, religion, nationality, language
Geographic

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• Region, Country, Climate
Psychographic
• Attitude, personality, life style
Behavioral
• Product usage rate, brand loyalty, product end use
• Readiness-to-buy, profitability, income status

SEGMENTATION

We define its segment on the basis of Demographic Variables, i.e. age, education and income. The
management coaching is provided at graduate level, so students are required to be segmented on
their age i.e.; 21-22 age group, their educational specialization i.e. Science, Commerce, and Arts etc.
Income of family helps to segment the students and thus facilitates think and learn to plan its target
audience more accurately.
TARGETTING

For any organization serving all the segments is not possible , so specific segments have to be
targeted which can be most beneficial for the organization .We have to decide its target audience to
be students of graduation or passed out. Apart from this, students with specific interest in civil
services, engineering and medical etc. are also targeted .The parents of these students act as the
Opinion leaders and Decision makers & at a later stage in the season as target audience too.
POSITIONING
It is the process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target
market for its product, brand, or organization. Most of the competitors serve more than one
segment, with no clear positioning of a specialist management coaching institute. Many players
have positioning in terms of Quality-Prices model, others on basis of faculty and so on. And if we
talk about CSAT I think there is no comparison than others.
ANALYZING COMPETITOR PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES

After conducting S.T.P of the organization it is required to analyze the strategies used by
competitors, considering both old and new players in the competition.

Strategies adopted by competitors are:

Most of the players are national level player enjoying high brand awareness in Delhi and NCR
region. One or two players like Edumentor, Pratham and MBAGuru operate at local level & are
growing at an alarming rate. They can be threat for the organization in the future. Being a major
player of the industry it enjoys high financial resource back up and the study of their promotional
strategies portray that they conduct Capital intensive promotions. Few of above the line marketing
strategies used by the competitors are:

1. Newspaper (used throughout the season, with varying intensity and updated offerings with
respect to change in market conditions)

2. Mobile ads (bulk SMS, to create buzz among the masses)

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3. Telemarketing (most common tool used by any organization)

4. Internet (requires high investments, mainly used by old players)

5. Banner ads (used by both old & new players)

6. Television (used by I.M.S, tying up with local cable operators)

7. Radio ads (during start of the season)

The local players in the market are restricted to use Labor intensive strategies but its drawbacks
are that it gives relatively a cheap image of the organization.

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Few of the labor intensive strategies are:

1. Direct sales
2. Sales promotion
3. Endorsements
4. Public relations
5. Trade show
6. Person selling

ANALYZING COMPANY LIMITATIONS

Company’s limitation has been:

• Time Constraint: The first challenge which was there before devising the business development
strategy was the time constraint. The target market i.e. the pursuing graduate student is busy with
their examination in the month of May. This the time when the promotional activity is at a full
swing because after the completion of the examination, students opt for different institute for their
entrance exam preparation. So the effective time of promotion is around two months in which we
have to build the brand name and adopt different strategies to make a strong brand recall.

• H.R.: The next major constraint for the promotional campaign was the insufficient Human
Resource availability as the majority of the people was inexperienced and had to be trained in the
limited span of time.

• TRADITIONAL METHODS: In the age of internet media and TV ads, company still follows the old
traditional methods; this is one major drawback in the organization.

Methods suggested

Analyzing all the above factors , right mix of both above and below the line marketing strategies has
to be used to generate positive leads .Few of the methods which can be introduced or continued
further are :

Direct mail:

Mails were sent directly to the customers(students giving university examinations)highly

customized, giving them tips regarding exams and information about form details of entrance
exams with an immediate calling helpline to generate response.

Educational newspaper (booklet distribution)

Newspaper distribution in form of sample papers and informational booklets formed the basic and
the most important promotional activity for the company. The distribution was done in the main
promotional activities of the company:

Board Centre activity:-

The board center activity is one of the major business developments and promotional activity .The
activity was designed in such a way that maximum number of target audience can be covered in the

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limited span of time. We are supposed to cover maximum number of colleges in assigned which is
the hub of students. The work schedule of the activity includes:

• Information newspaper & Booklet distribution to students and parents

• Database collection

The same activity is conducted by Edumentor too. But they are more focused on counseling of
students during this phase but we have to focus on inviting customers to an educational seminar,
where the can later counsel parents. This activity reflects good image of the organization to the
masses.
Telemarketing: The use of telemarketing is on the rise as the response rate in comparison to other
promotional tools is very high. This activity can carry throughout the operation phase. The
dedicated quality managers managed to ensure that the data is real and not fake. The telecallers
were planned to convert this data into the final sales enrolment.

Bank Centre Activity: Started by Edumentor, one of the most effective strategies of hitting the right
customers at the right time. In this the organization tie – ups with major banks where forms of
entrance exams are available. Customers are counseled on the spot.

Internet: One of the most effective tools used in the modern world. Blogs, paid ads, social
networking sites are big hit and generates good no. of positive response from the customers.

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Sales Flowchart :

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 BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AT DUBAI
The main activities at the center can be
• Responsibility for exclusive product.

• Promotion of the center

• Database checking

• Meeting target of enrollments for center

• Handling customer grievances

• Generating revenues by counseling & selling

• Account maintenance, inventory check

• Conducting classes & tests

• Communicating with other center heads

• Finance handling for the center

Measuring effectiveness of promotion tools

A rough estimate of effectiveness of promotional tools can be measures by considering the

enrollments forms filled by the students during their enrollments. This enrollment form has a
section which can give us the information as to how the customer got to know about the company.

Results can be measure after collecting all the forms.

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 CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEY
Customer satisfaction surveys provide the tools to improve organizational performance &
profitability. Customer loyalty & satisfaction levels can be determined by analyzing the data
gathered from our survey questions. It can help the organization with the following:

• Discover new product & service development ideas

• Determine what makes your customers loyal

• Understand customer issues & relationship to your employees

• Achieve a competitive edge with satisfied customers

For the research, a survey of 15 questions was formed and 40 respondents (Smart Careers’ students
& parents) were surveyed. The analysis below shows the findings of the questions that were asked
in the questionnaire.
There are few questions-
Q1. Which course did you enroll for?
Ans- (a) CAT (b)CSAT (c)Test series (d)CRT
Q2. What do you like most about smart Careers?
Ans-(a) Faculty (b) Test series (c) Study materials (d) others
Q3.Did you get proper motivation from teachers?
Ans-(a) Yes (b) No
Q4. Did the center manager communicate important information timely?
Ans-(a) Always (b) Only when asked (c) Never
Q5. Was syllabus of all the subjects finished on time?
Ans-(a) Yes (b) No
Q6. Did the faculties helped in solving the doubts?
Ans-(a) Yes (b) No
Q7. Do you think that sufficient numbers of classes were allotted for all the subjects?
Ans-(a) Yes (b) No
Q8. Were classes held on time?
Ans-(a) Yes (b) No
Q9. How do you rate overall faculty?
Ans-(a) Very good (b) Good (c) Average (d) Poor
Q10. How do you rate study material?

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Ans-(a) Very good (b) Good (c) Average (d) Poor
Q11. How do you rate test series?
Ans-(a) Very good (b) Good (c) Average (d) Poor
Q12. How do you rate infrastructure?
Ans-(a) Very good (b) Good (c) Average (d) Poor
Q13. Were your problems/ issues taken seriously?
Ans-(a) Yes (b) No
Q14. Did you like the management at Mahalearning?
Ans-(a) Yes (b) No
Q15. Will you refer Mahalearning to your friends/relatives in future?
Ans-(a) Yes (b) No

SWOT ANALYSIS

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STRENGTHS- E Learning is our biggest strengths and we have got lot of awards. E Learning is
familiar among students in South India. Mahalearning leading provider of satellite and tablet based
educational training and test preparation solution.
WEAKNESS- Non availability of kits.
Our brochure should be more attractive including our faculty members and toppers. We need a guy
at main center so that he can entertain the people in front of the center.
OPPORTUNITY- We can open up few more branches after a marketing activity and where people
gathering is more. If someone like Byju will start taking classes, our number of student could be
increase. Starting up medical and engineering courses would be profitable. Starting up a new batch
for two months (crash course) would be useful for us as no company is providing this course in
these days.
THREATS- Few competitor s are already there in the market that offers engineering and medical
coaching and have good number of students so if we start medical and engineering as our new
product we need to have a proper and structural plan otherwise it can be change in failures
LEARNING FROM THE PROJECT
By far the project has given me immense exposure of the marketing environment & the education
sector. There has been learning at each stage of the project. Lot of responsibilities during the project
has helped me to explore the industry completely.

Few of my learning at the organization have been listed below:

From BUSINESS:

I. Understanding education industry and their trends.

II. Competition in Education industry
III. Understanding organizational structure & their responsibilities.
IV. Employer & Employee relationship
V. Business development activities
VI. Flexibility for learning different skills

From INDUSTRY:

I. A little variation in the pricing strategy of the competitors may divert lot of customers. So, a
continuous check over competitor’s products & prices should be kept.
II. In an education industry which has a seasonal operation, promotional strategies are needed to be
updated almost every other day to have an edge over the competitors.
III. Advertising in the form of educational newspapers is the best marketing tool in the education
industry.
IV. A good mix of capital intensive & labor intensive techniques should be used in the promotional
activity & it should be influenced by the demographic factors.

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V. Quality of service should be the last resort of any organization.
VI. While deciding on promotional strategies or distribution material, nothing should be left on the
customer to comprehend; a simple language creates a greater amount of response rather than using
bombarded words.

VII. In outdoor publicity activity is always mentally and physically tiring, hence rotation of
workforce to different centers is important to reduce monotony in work.
VIII. Promotional activities are all about response generation. During this, the masses should get a
strong reason to respond.

From CUSTOMERS:

I. Customer relationship management with new, existing & also with those customers who reject the
product.
II. Understanding customer needs & dealing with them differently.
III. Profiling of potential customers.

Other Learning:

I. Grooming personality
II. Time management
III. Team management skills
IV. Team player & leadership skills
V. Communication & interpersonal skills
CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS
The research work is still incomplete but at this stage following conclusions & recommendations
can be drawn from the findings.
The company is operational on seasonal basis. All the selling, marketing & distribution activities are
conducted only for five months (January - June). This intern has restricted the revenue growth of
the company for limited period.

Hence, the company can bring educational packages that provide the coaching for a year or two
year comprehensive test preparation, by which the company will be operational throughout the
year resulting in increase of its market share.

Majority (say, 80 %) of the workforce in the organization is part time or full time interns.
Recruitment of the workforce is done on a random basis as the company doesn’t have a responsible
H.R division. With permanent employees in the organization cost of training the new employees can
be saved.

Incentive based sales will ensure quality work & hard work from the workforce.

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