STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT

NAME REGISTRATION NO. PROGRAM FACULTY

Manishankar Ray 19BSPDD01C086 MBA IIND YEAR Dr. Neeraj Aswal

TOPIC: Generic Strategy of The Times of India, Benetton and Coleman

The Logo of the newspaper itself signifies power and strength with two elephants
facing each other with a crown in between them that signifies royalty. The slogan of
the Company is straight and simple, “Let truth Prevail”.

The Times Group is India’s largest media conglomerate with its flagship Bennett,
Coleman and Company Limited (BCCL) being the largest publishing company in
India and South-Asia.
BCCL has history of 175 years founded from the year 1838.
BCCL and its subsidiaries are present in every existing media platform -Newspapers,
Magazines, Books, TV, Radio, Internet, Event Management, Outdoor Display, Music,
Movies and more.
With a turnover exceeding a billion dollars, the group has the support of over 25,000
advertisers, 11,000 employees and an audience spanning across all continents.
The Times of India was launched 175 years back with its head office at Mumbai
India. Mrs. Indu Jain is current chairman and Mr. Vineet Jain is Managing Director of
the Times Group (BCCL)
 STRATEGIC PLAN AND FOCUS
 Mission Statement Of TOI (Times Of India) :
“Create & build brands with differentiated content to capture
relevant audiences and market the value of these to advertisers to
help them sell and strengthen their brands.”
 Corporate Goals of TOI (Times Of India) :
Continue to develop innovative products in accordance with our
mission statement, adding three products each year.
The various marketing strategies adopted by Times Of India includes the following.

These strong business strategies adopted by the newspaper helped it to widely circulate
this English daily all across the nation and even internationally.
 To improve the product quality so as to draw more readers across the nation and
worldwide.
 To increase circulation by launching new editions of the newspapers in both
English and other regional languages to expand the scope of the paper.
 To cover news relevant for students who are appearing for competitive
examination that need daily general knowledge about the nation and about the
recent news updates of happenings around the world. A weekly paper called
Ascent is launched for the benefit of job seekers and students.
  To invest more in TV advertisements for a wide coverage and increase in the sales
margin.
 To invest in social campaigns involving the youth of the nation.
 Apart from these the rate of subscriptions per year is kept low at Rs 250/- which
allows the buyers to opt for combo offers all throughout the year. The price per
paper is also kept low at Rs 3/- per paper which is lower than the competitors like
the Hindustan Times and the Hindu.

CAMPAIGN
BCCL and its subsidiary Companies focus on every media platform starting from
newspapers to Books, Magazines, TV, Internet, Radio, and Event Management, Movies,
Music and more. Promotional campaigns are very important for expanding the scope of
the newspapers worldwide. Giving the readers discounted offers provides for more
promotions of the English daily.

It is very important to get the promotions right. Providing for combo offers for regional
newspapers, or providing combo offers for both the advertisers and the buyers’ at large
etc. help in driving the sales margin.

These promotional offers help in enticing new readers to create a brand image of the
Company as well as for the newspaper itself. Times of India collaborated with HDFC
bank to launch a new program which is called the Times Card. These promotions help
to create brand awareness and customer familiarity that reinforces the brand presence all
across the nation.

The Times group has other brands like Mumbai Mirror, Maharashtra Times and
the Economic Times to cater to the needs of all classes of readers.

Starting from entertainment to finance, news from every sector is covered by Times of
India.

It also has some owned channels under its brand name which are as follows.

Zoom TV

Movies Now

MN+
 MNX

Romedy Now

Times Now

ET now

Mirror Now

These channels offer full entertainment to the consumers all across the world.

CONCLUSION
TOI (Times Of India) is among the world’s largest newspaper with a superior brand
image. It has the largest circulation and distributing channels and has captured the
attention of the media and all kinds of news for the readers. It has wide circulation
channels of around 4 million and three hundred thousand copies which is the largest for
any English daily newspaper in the world leaving its tough competitors like Economic
Times and The Hindu behind. Therefore we conclude that:
TOI (Times Of India) follows Differentiation as it’s Generic Strategy.