General gyan on the project scope and background

Hi all,

One (foreign) student asked me what the logic was behind the survey questionnaire. And it is not surprising why some may say this. Knowing where one is coming from during the design phase (of the questionnaire, in this case) helps in charting an analysis course better, perhaps. I promised to make a writeup about the logic and the story behind the questionnaire. So, this is the story, the thinking and the background to the project scope.

We live in what the Chinese would call 'interesting times'. The economic crisis that manifested as a global financial markets meltdown continues to cast its shadow not just on current employment and home values but also on longer term issues such as the ability of governments and private organizations to live upto their pension and healthcare liabilities/ obligations. Regardless of whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, the fact remains that a lot of our old assumptions and beliefs about how the world works, including the bedrock currency arrangement coded in the Bretton woods II system, may no longer hold anymore.

Sample these articles -

The end of retirement (from The Economist, June 2010)

Jobs, pensions and markets (from The Economist, Aug 2010)

This has huge implications for us ordinary people as well, even in countries like India which have (so far) been less affected by the crisis.

Unlike Indian government employees, whose retirement and lifetime pension is guaranteed by the Government of India  - which because it prints its own money is technically safe from bankruptcy and default - the rest of us cannot really say our retirement and pensions are guaranteed in any real measure. Many young people in the US for instance question why they have to pay into social security when chances are they will never get to see a penny from there by the time they retire. We are indeed in the vanguard of the generations that will have to plan for their futures in exacting detail in the backdrop of increasing uncertainty in the years to come.

That automatically brings up its own host of interesting questions - How will we do? What will do? More generally, what is the current crop of professionals in their 20s and 30s thinking and planning in this scenario? How much confidence do they have in the current set of assets and institutions to protect their savings against inflation? What are their concerns, their preferences and their constraints? How and how much does their view and their actual investment pattern depend on their age, gender, wealth, life cycle stage, nature of employment or other factors?

Mind you, this is not idle chatter - In the aggregate, Indian household savings have averaged about 32-35% of GDP annually in recent years. Unprecedented, really. And thanks to all the visionaries starting with Shri PVN Rao and onto Shri AB Vajpayee and then Shri Manmohan Singh for enabling this. Coupled with an Incremental Capital Output Ratio (ICOR) of about 4 to 1, we are essentially assured growth of about 8% p.a. in real terms for at least the next few years based on sustainable internal demand alone. The choices that our target population segment - the young upwardly mobile urban middle class - will make will be multiplied several times fold as these people tend to be opinion leaders and trend setters also. Where will this mass of money flow to - which asset classes? In what proportion? With what confidence should conditions change down the line? So many questions! The project is one attempt to bring some structure and order to this confusing mass of questions by the application of the scientific method and statistical analysis to understand this conundrum. OK, that is the big picture view of a very complex issue. You've already read the scope document, so you now also have a good handle on the actual problem XYZ corp is handling.

Now, kindly read through this post made here in full if you haven't already:

http://marketing-yogi.blogspot.com/2010/10/some-phase-i-guidance.html

This summarizes my initial views on how to tackle a question as complex as this - basically that:

(i) we limit the scope to what can be done realistically. In this case, we focus only on the big-picture, only at the broad asset class level and not go into details of asset sub-classes and particular schemes available therein. I chose to focus broadly only on Equities (including MFs, SIPs and demat equities), Fixed income plans (bonds, insurance policies that fall under this purview, certain pension and annuity plans etc), property (different types and in different types of cities)

(ii) we focus only on the distribution of asset class preferences in the target population - perhaps as functions of demographics and psychographics.

(iii) we come up with recommendations for which asset classes to go with - some sort of ranking perhaps - given the preference structure of the target population.Any secondary analysis that uses population sizes for such segments (e.g. from the Marketing Whitebook) would be a great plus, IMHO.

OK. This post is at a general, big-picture level and is long enough as-is. Shall continue with more specific guidance in subsequent posts.

Again, not all of you may find general gyan of this sort immediately useful. That is fine. Feel free to go with whatever you have in mind. However, have someone in the group look for updates on the specific guidance.

Sudhir

Some quick announcements

Hi all,

A few quick announcements.

1. The deadline for phase III is Wednesday (10-11-2010) morning 6 am. A dropbox will be created and opened on blackboard for this purpose. Your deliverable for the project will be a power-point presentation with an upper limit of 30 slides for the main presentation and no limit for auxiliary or backup slides

2. Lecture 10 will essentially be student group presentations of their project report. Kindly ensure the entire group is present in class for this purpose. Groups will be picked up at random.  Presenting groups will have 15 minutes of talk time + 3 minutes of Q&A from the class at large. My colleague, prof. Tanuka Ghoshal, who once worked with IMRB Calcutta (real MKTR experience, folks!) has kindly agreed to join the panel evaluating the presentations.

OK, a few groups, maybe 4-5 can be accommodated in class, what about the rest? SO, I'll ask the other groups to take a 20 minute appointment with me and make the presentations. Shall book a conference room/MLT for the purpose. This is to ensure all groups get a fair chance to showcase their PPts, their thinking and emphasize their recommendations to XYZ.

I'll create a google spreadsheet on view access which I will fillup as you email me your preferred slots for. I'm told that since many folks have travel plans for the next weekend, I'd rather get presentations for groups of sections A and B done on Wednesday (10-Nov) itself in the evening, and those for sections C & D on 11-Nov in the evening.

3.Pls find below the lastest update on group respondent collection status. 2951 responses in and still counting, folks! This is exciting. Even dicounting say, 10% to within ISB multiple surveys by a single respondent and another 20% to incomplete/unusable survey, we still end up with a neat 2000 odd usable responses. Wow. Great going there.

4. I've been asked to write up the logic behind the way the final questionnaire has been structured. I shall attempt to provide a write-up for my thinking when I put this together, with ample help from the AAs. A lot of this hinges on what was written in the scope document and the interpretation of which was further expanded upon in this blogpost:

http://marketing-yogi.blogspot.com/2010/10/some-phase-i-guidance.html

Kindly read the above post in full if you haven't already. It pretty much represents the tack I have tried to take in designing the phase II survey. However, you needn't feel constrained with my thought process and could feel free to use the info collected to support the story you may have had in mind a priori. I shall do this over the next few days.

Even otherwise, I plan to dig up and post useful info relating to what last year's class got right and wrong regarding their project in phase III last year. Now, there's no reason why you should repeat mistakes already made last year. Hence, I would certainly recommend that at least a few people from each group keep an eye on the blog for updates in this regard.

5. I was thinking of holding an 'open' tutorial on JMP, methods, anything project related etc over the weekend sometime. Friday is diwali, sat and sun, am told many folks are traveling home for the weekend. Well, I'll try to make this monday evening sometime for roughly an hour then.

6. You may have noticed already that the final slides putup on blackboard may have some slides that either weren't covered in a particular section or have been altered significantly since. This happens because, well, the slides are evolving as the course proceeds. I would recommend that folks download the latest set of slides uploaded at the end of the lecture for section 'D' for use later on. Of course, I try to ensure earlier sections do not lose out on important things that may have come up later on. One reason for having the blog is to be able to communicate interesting/important issues arising in one section across the entire class. LIke happened in the JMP-ANOVA case in sections A and B, sometimes, it would make sense to actually re-do a portion of the slides in the subsequent lecture.

Chalo, last but not least,

"A HaJaAr HaPpY DiWaLi To YoU AnD FaMiLy!"

Sudhir

Do believe the hype

Well, was browsing through this typical Tom Friedman column titled 'Do believe the hype' - IMHO the column is rather shallow high on anecdotes and low on evidence - when I chanced upon this beautiful example of hands-on innovation aiding our rural masses in meaningful ways. I've always been a hard proponent of the mobile revolution changing business, possibilities and ecosystems and this just comes as more sweet vindication (or selective memory, whichever way you see it).

Do Believe the Hype (By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN in NYT)

Here’s an example of why I ask these questions. It’s a typical Indian start-up I visited in a garage in South Delhi, EKO India Financial Services. Its founders, Abhishek Sinha and his brother Abhinav, began with a small insight — that low-wage Indian migrant workers flocking to Delhi from poorer states like Bihar had no place to put their savings and no secure way to send money home to their families. India has relatively few bank branches for a country its size, so many migrants stuff money in their mattresses or send cash home through traditional “hawala,” or hand-to-hand networks.
The brothers had an idea. In every Indian neighborhood or village there’s usually a mom-and-pop kiosk that sells drinks, cigarettes, candy and a few groceries. Why not turn each one into a virtual bank? So they created a software program whereby a migrant worker in Delhi using his cellphone, and proof of identity, could open a bank account registered on his cellphone text system. Mom-and-pop shopkeepers would act as the friendly neighborhood local banker and do the same.
Then the worker in New Delhi could give a kiosk owner in his slum 1,000 rupees (about $20), the shopkeeper would record it on his phone and text receipt of the deposit to the system’s mother bank, the State Bank of India. Then the worker’s wife back in Bihar could just go to the mom-and-pop kiosk in her village, also tied into the system, and make a withdrawal using her cellphone. The shopkeeper there would give her the 1,000 rupees sent by her husband. Each shopkeeper would earn a small fee from each transaction. Besides money transfers, workers could also use the system to bank their savings.
Since opening 18 months ago, their virtual bank now has 180,000 users doing more than 7,000 transactions a day through 500 “branches” — mom-and-pop kiosks — in Delhi and 200 more in Bihar and Jharkhand, the hometowns of many maids and migrants. EKO gets a tiny commission from the Bank of India for each transaction and two months ago started to turn a small profit.

Wow. Eh? They broke even. Awesome. May hajaar more such flowers and stories bloom, some led by ISB grads, I hope. So, what was the investment that went in? Where did the idea come from? Who are these young geeks out to change India and thereby the world?

Abhishek, who was inspired by a similar program in Brazil, said the kiosk owners “are already trusted people in each community” and are already in the habit of extending credit to their poor customers: “So we said, ‘Why not leverage them?’ We are the agents of the bank, and these retailers are our subagents.” The cheapest cellphone today has enough computing power to become a digital “mattress” and digital bank for the poor.

The whole system is being run out of a little house and garage with a dozen employees, a bunch of laptops, servers and the Internet. The core idea, says Abhishek, is “to close the last mile — the gap where government services end and the consumer begins.” There is a huge business in bridging that last mile for millions of poor Indians — who, without it, can’t get proper health care, education or insurance.

Wow. By now, my admiration for this duo is sky high already. Think of what an incorruptible biometric identification universal ID like the UID can do in this milieu? Thin of the ecosystem for business it can create and spawn.....wow only.

What is striking about the small EKO team is that it includes graduates from India’s most prestigious institutes of technology who were working in America but decided to come home for the action, while the chief operating officer — Matteo Chiampo — is an Italian technologist who left a good job in Boston to work here “where the excitement is,” he said.

 Aha. Welcome home, Signor. Lest we forget America was made great also by a large swarm of skilled immigrants from all over the world - from German aerospace pioneers to desi silicon valley stars. India, traditionally has been this open land where ideas and immigrants from all over the world could come and mix and create and bedazzle. We lost that mojo somewhere in the past 1000 years but thanks to beginning made on 15 Aug 1947, we're well on our way to regain our traditional influence and place in the world, Heaven willing of course.

India today is this unusual combination of a country with millions of people making $2 and $3 a day, but with a growing economy, an increasing amount of cheap connectivity and a rising number of skilled technologists looking to make their fortune by inventing low-cost solutions to every problem you can imagine. In the next decade, I predict, we will see some really disruptive business models coming out of here — to a neighborhood near you. If you thought the rate of change was fast thanks to the garage innovators of Silicon Valley, wait until the garages of Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore get fully up to speed. I sure hope we’re ready.

 OK. This is classic Friedman. Feel-good and all but better not to get carried away prematurely only. Actions speak louder than words and let the deeds of our entrepreneurs speak in making our country a better place for all its citizens to live in, while doing better than breaking even themselves.

Oh, might as well. On the same note is this splendid piece from Business standard by Arvind Singhal. Recommended read again and a better researched article than Friedman's.

The next five years (in the Indian Economy)

I believe it was some European CXO on a Des visit who remarked "A day in India is like a week in Europe." Yup, I guess.

India’s GDP in 2005 was about $785 billion, which has increased to almost $1,400 billion in 2010 and should cross $2,000 billion by 2015, implying that Indian economy would have added almost one India of 2005 to its size in the next five years. This spectacular growth, on a relatively high base of almost $1.4 trillion, translates into unprecedented opportunities and greater challenges than what India has faced in the past. Let us look at 2005 and then try to crystal ball 2015 for a few consumption categories.

Wow, eh? Jai ho, indeed.

In 2005, our domestic market for four-wheelers was just about 1.1 million vehicles. It will cross 2 million in 2010 and touch 4 million by 2015 (including as many as 110,000 in the luxury and premium segments). There were less than 100,000 users of smart-phones in 2005, about 25 million in 2010, and perhaps as many as 225 million in 2015. From a user base of about 8 million laptop users in 2010, there could be as many as 50 million by 2015. There were less than 25 million Internet users in 2005, increasing to about 75 million in 2010, and projected to grow to more than 250 million by 2015. From less than 250 multiplex screens in 2005, to about 800 in 2010, the count could cross 2,000 by 2015. Similar increases in multiples ranging from 2x-10x could happen across many consumer product categories.

..... Since the market opportunity is likely to grow in multiples of the current size, most businesses should rework their strategies and rewrite their business plans rather than just continue with incremental additions to their current plans.

But, as is often the case with Yindia, the challenges rise just as fast as the opportunities....only.

It is, however, more important to also give a hard look at the challenges that Indians and Indian businesses will encounter in the coming years. The first and more critical is the physical infrastructure. Doubling of number of cars and two-wheelers on the roads will need a corresponding increase not only in the road network but also in parking spaces, auto repair workshops and fuel vending stations. Adding of almost $400 billion in additional private consumption by 2015 will require a mind-boggling increment of nearly 1.5 billion square feet of retail space alone (or about 6,000 shopping malls of 250,000 square feet each). E-waste from the installed base of hundreds of millions of electrical and digital devices will run into tens of millions of tonnes, requiring enhancement of waste-management capacity by almost 10 times of what exists today. Steady increase in urbanisation will imply an additional demand for almost 20 million urban dwellings in cities where the infrastructure is already creaking to its limits. Strain on social infrastructure, be it education (primary, secondary, higher, and vocational) or health care (primary, secondary, and tertiary) or clean drinking water or sanitation will further increase manifold, rather just in simple double-digit percentages.

And so on and on. The next decade is crucial folk.s Make or break is it. We have to, and I mean have to, make the big push and enter the club of solid middle-income countries by 2020. There is no way in hell or highwater that we can afford to miss this bus, as we have done so often in the past.

Jai ho and Jai Bharat.

Websurvey latest news

Hi All,

As of now, some 2243 responses have flowed in. I thin its been great going so far.
Below is a pivot table with the # responses by group I have got at the time of writing. There's some glitch that is disallowing me currently from collecting more than 2000 responses, IT says it can be fixed.

Some concerns:
1. I'm told some ISB folk have filled up multiple surveys on behalf of multiple teams. This was precisely what I feared when allowing ISB folk to fill in surveys.

People, respondents' IP addresses are logged by qualtrics. Multiple surveys by within-ISB IPs will not be counted, pls be aware.

Also, within-ISB surveys are permitted only for foreign or exchange students only. Upto 10 responses from within ISB from each of such students is enough. Additional responses from within ISB for groups may not be counted for phase II, please be cautioned.


2. The fact that the final survey was hurried through and had to be released sans requisite pre-testing shows in that there are several ways in which the questionnaire could be improved. That said, however, we go with what we currently have. Let us make the best of what is out there currently.

Shall add more thoughts as they occur.

Sudhir

Websurvey Updates

Hi all,

The websurvey has already garnered some 1100+ responses.

Yay and Whew!

Great effort so far, teams. Let me hurry to add however that the above 1100 responses include quite a few by groups taking the surveys themselves to check the websurvey out.

Thanks to all those who wrote in with pointers to typos and other errors. We've accommodated what changes we could without changing the structure of the survey and invalidating past responses to particular questions.

How are groups doing? Well, here's a picture from a quick pivot I drew as of 1740 hrs Tuesday. Let me see if this comes up well....

Alright. There you go.

Update: Have been asked for a word doc copy of the survey. The argument is that this way groups can study  the questionnaire logic and better plan the analysis to come. I agree. I'll do one better, let me share with you the exec summary sheet that has been generated also. Shall ask the AAs to putup on the blackboard.


Sudhir

Websurvey Live Link

Hi Class,

Please find below the websurvey live link. 

https://isb.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6EV6qH9ft6cKbOI

Pls forward to as many genuine respondents in the target population as you can find. KIndly do not forget to mention two things:-

1. Your group name. The respondent has to enter the name of the group that has forwarded the survey to him/her.

2. The incentives for survey completion - both monetary and data/information related.

If you detect any obvious issues with anything in the survey - typos, logical errors etc, let us know. There is cope to correct typos etc even while the survey is open.

Pls remember, the survey closes midnight Thursday (11.59 pm on 4-Nov-10). All valid and complete responses from each group obtained till then are counted towards the group's credit for phase II.

Sudhir

Errata from Lecture 7

Hi Class,

Lecture 7 deals with Causal research (Experimentation) and the analysis of variance. The two are together because they are connected - the former collects data which the latter is very well suited to analyze for inference, recommendations and action.

The hands-on work regarding running ANOVA models on different software - primarily JMP, Excel and R - in class today led to two errors for which reason I write this erratum online.

1. JMP by default seems to read all data in as numeric only.  In ANOVA, our independent variables, the Xs, are nominal/ categorical. So, JMP's reading them wrong resulted in the results being misleading as well. Even the ANOVA results JMP displays are nothing but the joint significance F-test which is computed on a linear model considering the Xs as metric.

The way out is to double-click on each column header and redefine the variable type to categorical/nominal. Then the thing runs fine and the results seem plausible.

2. Excel is not well-suited to doing ANOVA related work primarily because the data input it requires seems to need lots of prior editing.The data must be sorted and placed in arrays before Excel will read and analyze them. JMP is much better placed in this regard. R has its own issues. It does not give the joint significance F-stat and p-value.

So, bottom line - we stick with JMP as the best of the lot - after inputting data in the appropriate manner.

OK, more generally, there are two kinds of statistical tests that we do to conclude things one way or the other - tests of association that typically involve interdependent data, and those of dependence that involve dependent data. The stats primer started with basic model building - waded into over-identified systems and from there into models of dependence. The chi-square tests we saw last class were tests of association and today, we see a powerful battery of tests for dependence.

This has applications on the ground - not just in the project but for business problems, situations and issues you are likely to face at work. Take a re-look at your ELPs to see if the methods picked up could have come in handy. The reason I'm hard-selling data work and quant methods and what we have been doing in the past 2 odd lectures is that I get the vibe I haven't convincingly conveyed their importance, practical utility and breadth of applicability in real-life problems to a significant section of the class. 

Well, class, the going gets tougher, of sorts, here on. We're entering a rather dry part of the course involving analysis and some data work. My experience tells me that data work imparts real skills that are sale-able in the marketplace - whether explicitly or implicitly. It lends realism, credibility and perspective to the problem formulation and research design skills we learned in the early part of the course. So even if the lecture appears rather dry, dull and all, hang on. It will all connect together, not least through the project, to tangible knowledge learned and skills earned in the course of the course.

My apologies to sections A and B for the JMP issues that came up. My thanks to the folks who spoke up and pointed out the errors.

Sudhir