Project Management

“Sales & Marketing for the Mind Wars Project”

AT

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF:

Mr.Ashish Mishra, Business Development Head

Xpress Minds Edutainment (P) Ltd.

Group ID: 171356

171356 Sunny Harsoda
181144 Pragyik Tripathi
181163 Tanvi Tewari
181322 Janardan Arjariya
181367 Vinayak Sharma

Submitted on

20th February, 2020

Institute of Management Nirma University

MBA(FT), Batch 2018-20

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Particulars Page No.

Profile of the organization 3

Organization History in Brief 3
Management at Xpress Minds 4
Size of the organization 6
Vision & Mission 6
7 ‘S’ Framework 7
Porter’s Five Force Model 8
Future Plans & Strategy 9
Project Work 10
(Live Project)

Critical Issues 15

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 Profile of the Organization

History of the Organisation

Xpress Minds Edutainment (P) Ltd is one of India’s largest quizzing companies based in
India. It organizes various quizzing events and knowledge based programs around the world.
It is well known for its effective management of such events and has got success in this field
on several occasions.

This venture was started in the year 2012 with the sole purpose of making the knowledge
more accessible and fun to learn. From there on company has won many awards in this field
and is excelling by getting some of biggest clients in the country like ZEE Entertainment Ltd.
It has conducted more than 1000 quizzes for variety of clients in more than cities in India and
in abroad.

The company is led by the quiz masters Kunal Savarkar and Seema Chariwaho and they have
years of expertise in this field. Since it is a startup it is looking to set its foot across various
platforms of Edutainment industry. The organization is clear with its goals of reaching the top
of the Edutainment industry by being ethical and promoting the importance of knowledge
acquisition.

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About Management

Xpress Minds is a startup set up by its co-founders Kunal Savarkar and Seema Chariwaho.
The organization follows a flat structure where there is no hierarchy and each and every
person in the company work together in achieving their goals. Though there is designation
given to a person in the origination but all individual have to adopt cross functional roles. The
production and business development head would sometimes need to adopt the
responsibilities of the HR head in his absence or some any other role.

Kunal Savarkar is the CEO of the organization and he is also the quiz master when it comes
to knowledge based events held by the company. He is the architect who has conducted more
than 1200 quizzed over the span of 20 years. He was also the content editor for ‘Kaun Banega
Crorepati’ (2000-2002). He has conducted quizzed at NDA, IITs, IIMs, NGOs, MNCs etc.
KunalSavarkar is an architect who has conducted over a 1,200 quizzes over the last 2
decades. Content Editor for ‘KaunBanega Crorepati’ (2000-2002), he has conducted quizzes
at LBSNAA, NDA, IITs, IIMs, MNCs and PSUs, NGOs, embassies. He has conducted 4
series of quizzes on Doordarshan including the National FinaléRounds of India’s largest
School Quiz-the INTACH India Heritage Quiz 2014-2017 and Brain Bout-India’s largest
corporate quiz in terms of employee engagement on NDTV. He has written over a dozen
books.

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Seema Chari is the creative director of the organization. She is author of 12 books on GK and
quizzing. She has hosted Brain Bout India’s largest corporate quiz in terms of employee
engagement on NDTV, Sweden India Nobel Memorial Quiz, inter-school and corporate
quizzes for INTACH, Titan Quiz for Women, Alliance Française quizzes (in French),
QuizItalia, and more than 100 quizzes on food, books, literature, lifestyle, economics, science
and entertainment.

The other team which follows in the top management:

Production Head- Ashutosh Silmania

Head of Business Development & Strategy- Ashish Mishra

Content Head- Raktim Nag

Sr. Human Resouce Manager- Aditya Kulashri

Sr. Production Manager- Leena Piplani

Sr. Outreach Manager- Kavita Narula

Sr. Outreach Manager- Anshu Arora

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Sr. Outreach Manager- Ujjal Rajak

Sr. Content Manager- Masoom Mumeen

The roles are distributed based on the work which needs to be done. There are no
unnecessary positions in the organization and each individual has some or other role to play.
Also there is division of roles based on the project which the company is receiving. Suppose
there is requirement of an outreach team in a program then an outreach team will be formed.
So in short there is no rigidity in the organization and there is molding of the roles based on
the projects handed over by the clients to them.

Size of the Organization

The organization is very small currently as it is just startup. The current number of employees
is approx. 40 but they are looking forward to expand it to 120 in next 3 years. The reason
why they want to keep such small number of employees is to reduce the expenses.
Furthermore they also want to select that bunch of people who are passionate about the
concept of knowledge acceleration in the country. They want the people who can stay for
long in the organization and be loyal to their work. Also they really appreciate honesty and
transparency from their employees and want them to take the roles and responsibilities in the
organization. They want people to take the cross functional roles in the organization and
come forward to any creative ideas.

Vision and Mission

The company has no clear laid down vision and mission but each and every employee knows
why he is in the organization and what roles and responsibilities he/she needs to perform. The
key goal in all their projects is to push the knowledge to each and every part of the country
and also to encourage people to develop a habit of acquiring knowledge. They also want to
develop an environment in the country of quizzing and other knowledge based events.

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The 7-S Framework

The Mckinsey’s 7-S framework consists of some elements which is basically to understand
the functioning of an organization and how those elements work together in the organization.
It is also used to improve the performance of the organization or to determine the best
practice. It had divided those elements into two categories, namely, hard and soft elements.

Hard Elements

Strategy- The organization devises a customized strategy for each client so that there
requirements can be met completely. There is no rigid system which the company follows.
But the core for all the projects is somewhat same. They conceptualize, create, structure,
conduct, and finally host knowledge-based contests on any theme, for any target audience, in
any format, through any medium. This is what make the organization one of its kinds and
give them a competitive edge over its competitors.

Structure- The structure followed by the organization is of flat structure since it is a startup.
There are some clear defined role like of content head, production head etc. But sometimes
they also need to perform the functions of other departments. Also there is no formal chain of
communication or hierarchy system. All are working at the same level to achieve the goals.

Systems- The daily activities and procedures of the company includes daily targets given to
their employees and reporting the work done by them. There is daily goal set and then there is
a format for reporting the work done by you. Also there are certain requirements for each
days task which also need to be reported at the end of the day of the work. This helps the
organization to regularly monitor the performance of each and every individual.

Soft Elements

Shared Values- As shared values are the core element of the 7 S frameworks and so it is in
the core beliefs of Xpress Minds. All employees in the organization are expected to be honest
and transparent and be ethical while performing their tasks. Passion is what drives them and
hence it is one of the most important elements for the organization.

Style- The style of leadership adopted in the organization is of a democratic type. Opinions of
all the affecting parties are taken before any major change needs to be done. Even when there

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was oppose of some systems the leadership listened very keenly and made the required
changes in the systems.

Staff- Each employee has certain role to play in the organization. The employees are selected
by keeping a certain role for them in the mind. They also have prior experience in the field
they are assigned.

Skills- The employees of the organization are well verse with the roles they are given and
they have varied skill sets. They have prior experience working in that field and also are from
good educational background.

Porter’s five forces Model

1. Rivalry among existing competitors- There are not many quizzing and knowledge
based companies in India. Xpress Minds has gained top spot when it comes to
knowledge based events. It is among top companies in edutainment industries. The
competition from existing competitors is not that much. There are few companies like
Byju’s, quizmaster etc. But Xpress Minds is working towards in completely different
league with its focus to give the best results to its clients.
2. Bargaining power of suppliers- Since Xpress Minds is a service company which
does not require any material as such for its operations. Thus this factor has very less
influence on company.
3. Bargaining power of buyers- This factor also doesn’t affect much because the
buyers are the big firms, PSU, NGOs etc. So there are not many buyers for this niche
segment and therefore the company has an upper hand in this element.
4. Threat of Substitutes- Since Company is in niche business it has very less substitutes
available in the market. Quizzing has very less substitutes and there are not close
alternatives too.
5. Threat of new entrants- There is always threat of new entrants. But after
establishing over so many years it is difficult to take the top place in short time. Any
new entrant entering into this niche business will have to take lot of time to come at
top.

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Future Strategy/Plans of Company

The future strategy of company is very clear and it wants to be at the top of edutainment
industry. It wants to capture the projects from bigger clients. It also wants to keep good
relations with its existing clients and it seeks for continuous business from those.

Currently it is having one of India’s largest first of its kind knowledge acceleration program-
‘Mind Wars’. This program will probably for the next 3 years and company is looking to
expand its scope in multi-dimensions.

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Introduction

The project on which I was supposed to work was ‘Mind Wars’ and the internship program
for the same was ‘Xuberance’. This was the project for ‘Zee Entertainment Ltd.’ and the
interns were chosen from various B-schools across nation for this purpose. This was one of
the largest internship programs which were spread to pan India. There were total of 144
interns selected for the program. The interns included departments from Marketing and HR
majorly. The marketing interns were given the role of ‘Business Development Associate’.

About the Project

About Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd.

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. is one of India’s leading media and entertainment
companies. It is amongst the largest producers and aggregators of entertainment content in
the world, with an extensive library housing over 260,000 hours of television content. With
rights to more than 4800 movie titles from foremost studios and of iconic film stars, ZEEL
houses the world’s largest Hindi film library.

Zee’s OTT platform, ZEE5 has 100,000+ hours of catch-up content and 90+ live TV
channels. The company has a strong presence in the movies and music space through ZEE
Studios and ZEE Music Company respectively. Zee and its affiliate companies have leading
presence across the media value chain including television broadcasting, cable distribution,
direct-to-home satellite services, digital media and print media amongst others.

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On April 5, 2019, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. (ZEEL), a global media and
entertainment powerhouse, announced the launch of one of the world’s largest quiz program
titled Mind Wars for school students across India.

As yet another step taken by media and entertainment powerhouse, Mind Wars is a first of its
kind initiative, which will be hosted on a multi- platform ecosystem, providing a
comprehensive knowledge acceleration program for students studying in grade 6th to 10th.
The company aims to leverage the power of its multimedia prowess to build a property that
will span across both digital and TV, backed with an unprecedented on-ground presence
across the country. The company also aims to enhance the knowledge quotient of over 1 crore
students from 40,000 schools across 200+ cities of India.

In line with its macro level strategic intent to integrate technology with its content offering,
with this initiative, ZEE aims to offer a strong knowledge based kids entertainment platform,
which will be hosted on its state of the art digital entertainment platform- ZEE5. With its

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robust technology and customized user friendly interface, ZEE5 will enable and enhance the
participation levels, providing an easy access to 1 crore students across the nation. Mind
Wars will offer an open platform for the school kids to benchmark them against their peers on
a national scale using multi-platform testing formats across three content buckets:
Curriculum, General Knowledge and Current Affairs.

The knowledge series will be conducted in the following sequence of events:

 Online Qualifiers: To be held online on the Zee5 app and website resulting in the
formation of 40000+ school teams with 2 champions per school
 City Finale: To be held across 200+ cities and towns resulting in 200+ winning
school teams who will be crowned as ‘City Champions’
 State Finale: To be held across 32 Indian States and Union Territories resulting in 32
winning school teams who will be crowned as ‘State Champions’
 National Finale: State Champions will compete on National Television for the title of
Mind Wars Champions India 2019

With such well-planned pattern of quizzing at each level, Mind Wars aims to maintain a
strong engagement level for the schools and students.

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Observations

About organization

In my two months of internship, I had a few observations about the organization. Here is list
of the same:

 The organization was very particular about our daily goals and reporting. They had
strict rule about the reporting through Google forms. Our SPOC gave emphasis on its
importance and I made sure that this was taken care of. If we failed to do so they
would not be able to know what work we have done and also they won’t be able to
contact the schools later on after we leave the internship. Their outreach team had
follow-ups after we had sent the details of the schools like Name of Principal, Name
of SPOC of school, phone no, email id etc.
 One more observation which I made was that the company was very flexible with
getting the job done. They did not have any rigid framework to be followed. They
also laid in the their support when and where required by us.
 Another thing which I observed was that company focused more on honesty and
loyalty. If I had sincerely visited the schools and done the proper work asked by the
organization then they appreciated that and encouraged to get more of the same. They
never said that convert the schools in one visit and were satisfied even we were
regularly visiting the schools.
 Company had certain checklists for the schools we had to visit daily. We had to make
sure that we ticked in all those boxes. Some of them were like getting posters stuck on
the notice board and clicking a picture of the same, handing over the yearbook to
schools who were interested in Mind Wars. Also we had to collect some data from
school which needed to be filled in excel.

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  There were many suggestions given by interns like reaching out to the chain of
schools, how to promote at various platforms, converting DEOs etc. Also the
suggestion of converting and promoting in residential societies was also dropped
because of the inputs given by the interns working on the ground.
 Xpress Minds had put huge responsibilities by assigning the districts to us. We were
the people who were working on the ground and had the power to make the program a
success or a failure. Therefore they had very high hopes from us and they were ready
to provide any assistance to us required in the process. Ashish Mishra, business
development head, also agreed to reimburse all the expenses which I was incurring
like food, travel, accommodation etc. They just wanted to see the results coming from
each one of us.

Critical Issues

Though there were so many positives in my internship, there were some gloomy things too.
Here are some of the issues I could identify:

 The biggest issue which not only me but all the other interns faced especially who
joined after 15 days of the program. The timing of the internship was not well
planned. Most of the schools were closed in some areas and some were about to
close. The last date for schools to close in Rajasthan was 20th May. So I had roughly
one month to cover those schools.
 One issue which frustrated me the most was the assignment of the same district
which was allotted to me to another intern. This made the number of schools for me

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 to visit very less in my hometown. Further he had begun his internship 15 days
before me and this meant that he had visited all the major schools in the city. There
was no point of me visiting those schools once again as I would not be counted under
my conversion. So my comfort zone was shrunk.
 Another issue was that sometimes there were govt. holidays or some other holidays
which gave us very few days in that month. Moreover there well elections also held
in the States.
 In some of the schools principal was busy and they asked to get an appointment.
After sending the proposal and request for appointment on the mail, some the mails
were not responded. Also we had to contact office to get us an appointment for such
schools. This made the process of conversion time taking.
 There were cases where I visited a school three times but could not find any higher
authority to which I can talk to. This also wasted lot of time. Pitching it to a person in
admin or a teacher would not be as effective as pitching to a person from
management.

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