BONAFIDE DECLARATION

TO WHOMSOEVER IT MAY CONCERN

This is to certify that Mr. Kumar Lav studying in the third semester of Master of Marketing Management (MMM) programme of University of Pune is a Bonafide student of Sinhgad Business School, Erandwane, Pune.

Office Seal

Director

Sinhgad Business School Pune Date:

STUDENT DECLARATION

I, hereby declare that the Project Report entitled Readership

Survey and Market

Development
OF BUSINESS STANDARD Completed in Bangalore and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of degree of Master of Marketing Management To University of Pune, India, is my original work.

Place: Date:

Signature of the student

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GUIDES CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the Project Report entitled

Readership Survey and Market

Development
OF BUSINESS STANDARD
submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of degree of Master Of Marketing Management Of University of Pune By Mr. Kumar Lav has worked under my supervision and guidance and that the project report is the original work of the student.

CERTIFIED

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Guides name & signature

APPROVAL CERTIFICATE

The project report of

Mr. Kumar Lav

Readership Survey and Market Development of BUSINESS STANDARD.

Is approved and is acceptable in quality and form.

Internal Examiner Signature: _____________ Name: _____________

External Examiner Signature: ______________ Name: ______________

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartiest gratitude to all the people who have contributed to the project and helped me during my training, to make it a thoroughly memorable learning experience. To start with, I would like to express my appreciation first to Mr. Pawan Sharma, Manager-Market Development, Business Standard, Karnataka, for giving me the opportunity to work on this project and guidance; Mr. Gangaraju, Senior officer, Business Standard, for his continuous guidance; Pune and the dedicated guidance of our Project-In-Charge, Mrs. Harshali Bhalerao. I have got this opportunity to work with Business Standard. In this regards, I would like to express my gratitude for the other senior staffs in the company who have taken enormous efforts to help me groom at my best. They have given me every opportunity to work on my weaknesses enabling me to gain confidence and explore myself in the business world. In the course of working, I have developed a lot of skills that will help me in the long run in a very positive way. I have learnt how to distribute work, how a particular job is done and over and above this, I have learnt the value of time management, which is a very important virtue needed for aspiring managers in todays competitive business environment.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Number

Chapter Name EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Page Number

vii xi 1 3 6 10 15 17 23 27 30 32 46 48 49 51 52 53

INTRODUCTION INDUSTRY PROFILE 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 FIRMS PROFILE PRODUCT ANALYSIS COMPETITORS ANALYSIS SUPPLY CHAIN PROCESS SALES AND PROMOTION

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

OBJECTIVES & SCOPE OF STUDY RESEARCH METHODOLOGY DATA COLLECTION DATA ANALYSIS CONCLUSION OBSERVATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS LIMITATIONS BIBLIOGRAPHY ANNEXURE

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LIST OF TABLES
Serial No. 1 2 3 4 Table Number Business Standard Product Content Weekly Supplements Competitor Newspapers Analysis- Page Wise Data Collection Tables Page Number 10 13 14 15 16 32 45

LIST OF FIGURES / GRAPHS / CHARTS

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The duration of the project was 2 months under the guidance of Mr. Gangaraju (Team Leader, Marketing Executive) and Mr. Pawan Sharma( Marketing Manager, Bangalore). This project was accomplished to know the awareness, acceptance and position of Business Standard among the readers of Financial newspaper, which is done through questionnaire and presenting the same to the readers. It is also prepared to know how Business standard can acquire more market share, which is done through market development by corporate sales and promotional activities in various corporate. The project includes understanding the newspapers (i.e. its USPs, subscription module, distribution network and payment flow), know the competitors in the market and the customer segment that it targets. The objective of the project is to find out how popular Business Standard is in the market, the reputation it holds in the minds of the readers, the reasons why non readers of Business Standard do not prefer reading it and collect feedbacks and opinions about the same. The latter half of the project includes how to increase the market share through corporate sales, promotional activities in different corporate and making business deals. Business Standard is a well established financial newspaper and is a reputed paper among the readers but due to the absence of parent brand and glamour and other spices provided by the competitors, the rate of increase in customers is not satisfactory for Business Standard. Keeping this in mind I would like to prepare this report on the basis of research and come out with important findings which can be helpful for the company in the near future.

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The finding of the project shows that although Business Standard is a good brand, it has not been successful to make a mark in Bangalore. Thus on the basis of the findings we can infer that BS is a product high in quality and content yet has somehow faltered as far as promotion and distribution is concerned. BS is a financial newspaper which has kept its tradition alive by focusing on its core values. But with the change in times the focus has shifted from product to marketing concept where one can no longer rely on a superior product to capture the market, now the company must try to delight the customers i.e. understand and cater to specific customer needs. Moreover it should communicate the same to its customers so that they appreciate the benefit acquired from the newspaper. Thus BS being superior in content may now focus on developing its other aspects like layout, promotional campaigns, sampling activities, sponsorships and distribution networks so that people are not only attracted to BS but also realize its prime quality and consider it good value for money. The project also includes thorough analysis of the questionnaire with necessary charts to make the task easy for further study of the project. During interview with the readers, some readers were not keen to respond properly due which some questions were remained unanswered by them. There were 15 questions in questionnaire. The project also includes thorough analysis of the questionnaire with necessary charts to make the task easy for further study of the project. During interview with the readers, some readers were not keen to respond properly due which some questions were remained unanswered by them. The project has also taught me how various corporate deals are done to increase the customer base by presenting the business proposals. The whole process has taught me lots of important things which will be helpful in the future like convincing customers to share their feelings, convincing corporate to accept the business proposals and also how to carry out promotional activities in the most effective way. I have also faced many problems and have also learnt how to effectively deal with it.

PROJECT TITLE: -

Readership Survey and Market Development of Business Standard. Project location was in Bangalore, for 2 months from the month of May to July, 2010. OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT WERE AS FOLLOWS To increase the sales of Business Standard newspaper. To find out the attributes which are considered important by the customers while purchasing a business newspaper? To study the growth of Business newspapers To find the awareness level of business newspapers among the respondents To find out the perception of customers towards various Business newspapers they are reading To find out the attributes which they like in Business standard newspaper. Individual profile assigned to us Marketing & Sales Promotion Customer Feedback (Satisfaction) Generate new subscription leads Branding and table space activity RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: Source of Data :Primary data & Secondary data Research Instrument:- Questionnaire, Observation, Feedback Type of sampling :Convenience method Area of Research :Bangalore Sample Size: 100 Sample Unit: Banks & Insurance Companies, Management Student & Professors, Corporate professionals, Chartered Accountant, Investors (Stock brokers).

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FINDINGS IN THE RESEARCH: The distribution system is not satisfactory as 24% of the non readers have complained about it. As the paper doesnt go into glamour and weakly attracts the youngsters of the age group of 20-30. 65% of the readers are aware of BS but have hardly followed it. LIMITATIONS IN THE RESEARCH
The survey and research has been done only in Bangalore therefore, the results shows the market position of Bangalore only result cannot be consider as representative of Bihar or India. Information given by some customer might be wrong. Because of limited time available for collecting information it will not give the clear picture. I have targeted selected (Financial Sector like Share broking agency, banking sector, Business Institution etc) so, it doesnt include perception of common masses.

SUGGESTIONS BS should increase the no. of promotional activities so as to spread the awareness. They should target more middle level managers as chart 6 shows that readers of BS of the age group of 30-40 are the least. As quality of news is the mostly chosen attribute, BS should try and promote the same so that the readers understand the value of BS. The subscription module period should be minimized so that the customer does not have to wait long to get his copy after he has paid for the same.

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