The Indian Firm CMYK Health Boutiques - Research Paper Example

ENTREPRENEURSHIP INTRODUCTION An entrepreneur is a person who has possession over a new enterprise or venture and assumes full accountability for theinherent risks and the outcome. Entrepreneurship is the practice of starting new organizations or revitalizing mature organizations, particularly new businesses generally in response to identified opportunities. Entrepreneurial activities are substantially different depending on the type of organization that is being started. In this paper, a case vignette of the young Indian entrepreneur Anurag Kedia one of the co-founders of CMYK Health Boutique Private Limited, running The Four Fountains Spa is provided. Also, the nature of marketing in the entrepreneurial firms in general is analyzed using a literature survey. This is then compared with the identified entrepreneur's marketing strategies and the findings are presented. THE FOUR FOUNTAINS SPA The Four Fountains Spa is a unique concept in the wellness industry and aims at offering a quality spa experience at affordable prices. It is currently located only at the city of Pune, India, with two centers there and is aiming to set up day spas in the top 20 towns of the country. The spa has body polishes, body wraps, facials and many other packages for men and women. In world therapies they have the Swedish Therapy which is a deep tissue massage that uses firm but gentle pressure and is known to relax, improve circulation, ease muscle aches and tension.They even have the Harmonizing aroma therapy which is essentially done with natural oils from flowers, herbs, leaves and fruits. From the Far East there is the Thai Meridian Therapy which is not an oil massage but takes into consideration Marma (energy) points. They also have thirty minute massages like comforting foot reflexology and back therapy to eliminate pain in those areas. In Indian therapies, they have the Abhyangam, which involves application of herbal oils using soft and gentle strokes in the downward direction. Also there is Shirodhara, where warm herbal oil is gently poured on the forehead. This is said to help in curing fatigue, mental exhaustion, anxiety, insomnia, headache and nervousness. They also have various facials, body polishes and body wraps (body polish plus body mask). Their special package for men is interestingly called Gentleman's Retreat. Similarly the one for the women is called Ladies Day Out . ANURAG KEDIA - A YOUNG ENTREPRENEUR The founding team of the organization consists of three management graduates who have extensive experience in the consumer markets space. One among them is Anurag Kedia, a Chemical Engineer from IIT Bombay, who also got a PGDM (Marketing) from IIM Ahmedabad. The entrepreneur I have chosen after extensive surfing is educationally qualified in the marketing field and also has work experiences as manager in a couple of firms previously. He is young and is doing well as an entrepreneur. Considering these reasons and the fact that I do not personally know any entrepreneur, I believe that the chosen entrepreneur is appropriate for our discussion. NATURE OF MARKETING IN ENTREPRENEURIAL FIRMS Entrepreneurial marketing may be defined as marketing as practiced by entrepreneurial firms. Entrepreneurial marketing can be regarded as an interface between marketing and entrepreneurship. On entrepreneurial approach to marketing, Casson (2006; p. 127) quotes as, "Two characteristics of new entrepreneurial firms have implications for its approach to marketing. One is the novelty and innovative character of its activities, whereby expertise is usually concentrated in a small group or on a single individual. The other is its relatively small size and limited availability of resources". Tyebjee et al. (1983) proposed that marketing in such firms passes through four definable stages from birth to maturity. The "entrepreneurial marketing stage" is the least structured and the most informal of the four. Entrepreneurial marketing is identified with the person of the founding entrepreneur. Market contacts depend on the entrepreneur's personal network, customers rely on attention of top management and low volumes preclude expenditure on promotion and sales staff. Only as the firm progresses through the subsequent stages, comprising 'gradual delegation', 'specialization' and finally 'professionalization', does the marketing function conform to the managerial model. The core of the marketing concept is the notion that a marketing-oriented firm proactively interacts with its information system to focus its efforts in producing and delivering customer relevant goods and services to the market. It follows that the firm proactively interacts with the customer to modify its products, services and their delivery in a manner that maximizes customer relevance and thus value. The market orientation characterized by Narver and Slater (1990) consists of a customer orientation, competitor orientation, inter functional coordination, long-term horizon and profit emphasis. However, it cannot be assumed that the market orientation as described by Narver and Slater (1990) is applicable to small entrepreneurial, large entrepreneurial and large firms in the same format. It is the case that cash flows in the small and in the entrepreneurial firm is more unstable and difficult to predict than in large, non-entrepreneurial firms because they are derived from a small and volatile product or service bases (Balantine, Cleveland & Koeller 1993). The generation of the most valuable revenues is driven by a pro-active and constant interaction between the customer and the entrepreneurial leader whose active presence ensures all aspects of the firm are driven to satisfy customer needs. Such small and entrepreneurial firms should select a market orientation that facilitates agility and speedy direct generative learning and unlearning to maintain cash flow from operations. Therefore it can be argued that entrepreneurs function through close, direct and personal contact with their customers; treat product offerings as dynamic; use customers as reference points to drive all aspects of organizational structures and dynamics; and avoid spending effort on activities not directly related to net cash flow generation. There are emerging marketing concepts that have been suggested by various authors. The Guerrilla marketing (Levinson, 1998) is characterized by doing more with low cost innovative promotion, networking, and using time rather than money. The Radical marketing (Hill & Rifkin, 1999) is concerned with having visceral ties with customers, passion driven, CEO owned marketing. These are some of the marketing philosophies associated with entrepreneurships. ANURAG KEDIA'S MARKETING STRATEGY In the various interviews with Anurag Kedia, along with the co-founders of his firm available online, we can have a glimpse of the nature of marketing in his firm. In the first place, the firm has faced several challenges including shortage of skilled manpower in the industry because of the lack of good training institutes. Instead of waiting for readymade talent, they have ventured into creating their own talent pool, by training and upgrading people who can work for them. About how they did marketing and promotion, Anurag has said, "We have put ads in TOI Pune and also tied up with Lifestyle store, restaurants, multiplexes, gym. We access their database by providing discount offers to their members and users". So, basically the firm has put up advertisements in the local area to attract people and it has also resorted to tie-ups so that they can pull in customers of service industries in their sector. On building personal relationship with clients, the spa regards customer's requests and provides therapists as they wish. The four who founded the firm, chose this business because all of them had been in consumer oriented businesses where they got tremendous exposure to consumer trends and insights and this would be a business where all that knowledge and experience would count. While Five-Star spas charge 1,500-8,000 Rupees per session which could last for 1.5-3 hours, these standalone spas charge 800-2,500 Rupees. Their marketing strategy has been supported by their affordable costs. COMPARISON OF THE PRACTICE WITH THEORY In comparison with the literature works on entrepreneurial marketing, we can see that Kedia's firm has adopted a kind of mix between the guerrilla marketing and conventional marketing. The networking strategy that they work out is really something that can pay good returns for this type of an industry. CONCLUSION In this paper, we have discussed about the Indian firm CMYK Health Boutique's, The Four Fountains Spa and the entrepreneurial skills of one of its co-founders, Anurag Kedia. This module has given a good exposure to the nature of marketing in entrepreneurial firms. Writing this paper has helped to learn a lot of issues that generally arise when starting up a new business venture. It cannot be always possible to carry out theoretical concepts related with management decisions, though that may help improve the efficiency of the organization. Also, the assessment tests provided at www.VentureNavigator.co.uk, has showed where, as an entrepreneur I would stand. It has also inspired to learn further to hone my own entrepreneurial skills. Any student who aspires to become a businessman in the future must take up this assignment, so as to explore, to his own delight and learning, the various challenges in becoming an entrepreneur and the various skills one has to develop. It is also observed that, with this particular firm, every activity is customer driven and hence high level of economic results can be achieved by focusing on the customer interests. REFERENCES Casson, M., Yeung, B., Basu, A., &Wadeson, N., 2006. The Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship.London: Oxford University Press Tyebjee, T., Bruno, A., & McIntyre, S., 1983. Growing Ventures Can Anticipate Marketing Stages. Georgia: Marketing Science Institute Levinson, J., 1998. Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business. Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company Hill, S., & Rifkin, G., 1999. Radical Marketing: From Harvard to Harley, Lessons from Ten that Broke the Rules and Made It Big. New York: HarperBusiness Narver, J., & Slater, S., 1990. The Effect of a Market Orientation on Business Profitability Journal of Marketing, 54(4), 20-35. Balantine, J. W., Cleveland, F. W., and Koeller, C. T. 1993. "Profitability, Uncertainty, and Firm Size", Small Business Economics, 5, 87-100. Bansal, R., 2008. Young Entrepreneur Series IV. 19 March 2008. Youth Curry - Insight on Indian Youth. [online] Viewed 5th May 2008 from WorldWideWeb http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/2008/03/young-entrepreneur-series-iv.html Menu of Services 2007. The Four Fountains Spa Viewed 5th May 2008 from http://thefourfountainsspa.in/index.asp Read More