23 Lessons at 23

Life is a beautiful journey and a learning experience...Good or Bad, everything happens for a reason.
Reflecting on the greatest lessons I have learnt from my experiences, I share a piece of me with you...

1) Failures are an integral part of life.

No-one is perfect.

Everyone experiences failures.

Do not worry.

Just know that "This too shall pass."

And when it does, life's gonna be fun!!

Try learning from the bad experiences in life...
When you reflect back, you'll know difficult times are equally important for you as they teach you important lessons.


2) Do what you love and life is going to be a party!


3) Don't wait for the right time for something you really want to try. Because guess what? That right time will never come.


4) Friends are important.

There may be times you feel lonely or dejected.

There may be times you feel happy and you want to share your happiness with someone.

There may be times when you just want to go for a silent long walk.

There may be times when you need a shoulder you cry on...

For every moment, friends will support you and love you.

Just be yourself, and make some good friends you cherish for life.


5) People come and people leave your life.,,

Some are very special to you and close to your heart, but they drift away with time or you have to let them go for some reasons.

Just LET IT GO...

Know, that there's better in store for you.

I am not saying the new people in life will replace the old ones. They NEVER will, but that doesn't mean, you won't enjoy the company of new people.

You'll miss the old ones sometimes, coz no one else can make you feel the way they did. Know that it's alright to feel that, but living in the past won't get you any happiness in the present.


6) Blocking toxic people out of your life is difficult. But it's important and needed. You may regret leaving them, but in the long-run you will know that you took the right decision.


7) You are unique.

You are formed by your experiences.

Do not compare yourselves to others, because you do not know what they have been through.

But, this doesn't mean you can't learn from people better than you!!


8) Have the courage to be yourself.

People might hate you for that,  but you don't want to end up hating yourself for not being someone who you really are.


9) Be kind.

Show love to people around you in small actions, and you will feel the happiness inside you that no worldly pleasure can give you.


10) Money is important.

So is LOVE.

Know how to balance out the greed of both.

It's okay to want more, but not okay to be crazy enough to run behind either of them.


11) Some people may judge you for your past.

You don't have to justify yourself to them.

If they do not accept you the way you are, it's better to let them go than trying to change yourself for them.

They are not worth it.



12) Love your family.

You may not get enough time to spend with them later.

Enjoy the time you have with them.


13) Time is important.

Don't waste it.



14) Don't get involved in self-pity. That's the worst you can do to yourself.


15) Some may find you sexy, charming, true-hearted, while others may find you irritating enough that you drive them crazy. It's okay. All of us experience that sometime or the other.


16) Be around people who respect you for who you are.

You'll enjoy their company and they will enjoy yours.

There is no relationship without mutual respect.


17) Know when to fight.

More importantly, Know when to walk away and never look back.

Believe me, you'll feel good that you walked away at the right time.

18) You may not end up with the person who you loved the most.

It's okay, most of us don't.

No-one is perfect, until you see them that way.

Enjoy your life with the person you are with, and soon you'll find that everyone has things you love them for!


19) Before doing anything, question your motives.

Your inner demons may be instigating you to do something that you do not feel right about.

Do not do anything you don't wanna regret later.

Do not succumb to those inner demons, and you gonna feel awesome about your self-control!!

20) When you apologize. Mean it.


21) It is never too late to change and improve yourself.

TODAY is he best day to start!


22) FORGIVE. Forgive people who have hurt you in any way. Life is too short to keep grudges.


23) Sing. Dance. Play. Do anything and everything you love. Because life is short!! You will never get this time back.

Share with us what you have you learnt from your experiences!! We would love to hear that!

My Airbnb Wishlist

Airbnb is a global community which provides a listing of private accommodations around the world with prices in the affordable range to lavish range. The accommodations vary from small rooms to lavish villas. One can discover a lot of new exciting places to stay when planning a visit to a new city. Airbnb gives you a unique experience, and is presen in more than 190 countries and almost 34,000 cities. I myself explored the website to come up with my wish-list of the places I would like to stay in!! If you are planning a trip, Airbnb provides you good options. Even if you're not planning a trip soon, explore this website to find out some exciting places that you can visit...

Let me take you through my wishlist to give you a fair idea of the kind of accommodations available on the website:

1) This one is on the top of my list :

It's a luxury retreat located in one of my favorite cities : Bangalore!! Priced aptly at 35k per night, this luxurious space. It can accommodate around 8 people. I would definitely love to spend a few days of my vacations here with a group of my friends.

Equipped with beautiful bedrooms, and a small private pool, it makes for a perfect party and relaxing home! It has a gazebo floating on the pool with floating walkways and rain-shower experience available!! Along with that, there's an outdoor controlled Jacuzzi for a pampering bath, massage beds, personal massage beds for a spa like personal experience, personal gym for the fitness freaks to keep up and a machaan with floating bed, which overlooks a mountain bed. Peace and luxury exemplified at just the right prices, well what more could I have asked for !!

Check out more about this place here.

2) Next, on my wishlist is this luxury 3 BR villa of Vishal Dadlani, located near Candolim Goa.

GOA : Dream destination for every youngster!! It is the place to be...and if you're staying in this villa, it's definitely be one helluva trip!!

Located within the greenery, it would be fun to spend your evening relaxing on the porch of this villa. With a beautiful pool and a wonderful view, I would love to visit this one with my family friends soon! The beautifully decorated dining area would be perfect to spend the evening enjoying a wine evening with friends!

Check out more about this villa here.

4) On my wishlist of places to visit is Darjeeling, and if I ever do visit this place, I would like to stay in  villa similar to this one here :

Darjeeling is a beautiful town, and I haven't visited East India yet. On my trip, this would be the perfect place to spend the weekend. The resort is located inside Singtom and Steinhal Tea Estates (one of Derjeeling's oldest tea estates). Enjoying a hot cup of tea relaxing in this garden would be amazing!

Check out more about this place here.

4) This luxury holiday farmhouse Firefly is one of my favorites of the wishlist!! Set on a 4 acre hill, located in Alibag in Maharashtra, this would be an amazing holiday retreat! What's more? This is located just 30 minutes from the mesmerizing Kashid beach.

This farmhouse can easily accommodate 10 guests, and has 5 guest bedrooms.

Check out more about this villa here.

5) Kerala is beautiful, and is definitely on my top priority to explore. Here's an accommodation which caught my eye on Airbnb, which had to be featured on this wishlist :

A nice boat house with no-one to disturb. It's a perfect place if you are on a solo/couple/family vacation in Kerala.

Check out more about this accommodation here.

That was all on my list, create one of your own list and do share it with us...:) Resourceful Bites looks forward to know more about places on your wishlist.

This post was written as a part of contest hosted by IndiBlogger and Airbnb.

PS : All the pictures posted here, have been taken from the Airbnb website where these places have been listed.

#AbMontuBolega Kyunki Ab Nahi Bolega Toh Kabhi Nahi Bol Payega

Indiblogger in association with Strepsils has launched an online Bloggers Campaign #AbMontuBolega. The campaign aims to increase awareness about prevailing social issues in the country, and help provide a voice, a platform for bloggers to connect with like-minded people who feel the angst for the same issues. This blog post is a dedication for the same! :)

Innumerable times, we come across situations when we know what’s happening around us is totally wrong, may it be corruption, or someone throwing the garbage around the street, or other issues ranging from child abuse to deforestation. We want to do something about these issues and we feel strongly for them, but we don’t stand up against them wondering if our efforts can make any difference at all…But I believe “To bring a change you have to be the change”.

While we do not expect the attitude of the people to change completely overnight, we see an underlying movement, a wave of awareness in citizens, to support such causes and raise their voices against them. Here’s a list of causes I support, and I believe we all should support:

Save Water

We all know water is precious, but how can we support the cause?

Well, start right in the morning...

Try to minimize the wastage of water while you brush your teeth and when you take a bath.

Make sure you close any open taps if you spot any.

Plant Trees

We know deforestation leads to many problems, like soil erosion, global warming, etc. but what can we do about it?! We can’t stop industrialization and prevent deforestation, but we can make sure we contribute our bit by planting several trees in and around our neighborhood.

Pic Courtesy : villageofmonee.com

Swachch Bharat

We see a lot of new initiatives like Swachch Bharat Abhiyan being taken up by the government authorities. Contribute towards a cleaner nation by making sure you and your friends do not throw any garbage around.

Especially at times when you find no bins around, try and keep the waste material to your empty bag corner, and throw it away later.

In case you spot anyone loitering, just ask them politely to pick it up and throw it in the dustbin. Next time, they will be embarrassed to throw garbage around.

Child Labor

Children are the future of the nation. Better educated youth will lead to higher development rate for the country… If you happen to come across a child labor, just report it to the authorities, and they will take care of it.

Contributing today in small ways will make a huge difference tomorrow. Make sure you have done your bit and you will feel proud of yourself.

We at IIM Udaipur contribute our bit through our efforts, special mention of the club Prayatna dedicated towards such social causes.

You can follow the campaign by following Strepsils on Facebook or Twitter. 

Clean Shaven Men! Yes, of course, we love 'em!

To shave or not to shave? It’s a question many men ponder upon, wondering what the ladies like in their man?! Well, as you all know females are complicated beings, they have a way of their own…Some love the messy look of the guys, while others like their men to be clean shaven and smart! I for one am one of those who look for a clean shaven man. Clean shaven and well-dressed men are treat for the eyes!:p

I remember, the first night out at engineering college. All friends were supposed to meet up near the hostel. Being the start of new college, all the friends were still in the “I wanna get to know you” phase. The guys turned up just in time and the ladies were ready to go! As we (the girls) descended the steps to meet our dates for the night, we were thrilled and excited!! The excitement increased down with each step, and what awaited our eyes, simply delighted us to the core. The guys had clean shaven, and were all dressed in black shirts (PS: They looked hawt!). Used to seeing them with their stubbles, this was a nice change for all of us. We were instantly impressed by their looks. The night turned out to be just perfect. Out of the 8 people who went out that night, 4 of them ended up dating each other. That’s what you call striking gold at the perfect opportunity! They made the perfect first impression, and that made a huge difference in the long run for all of us!

This is dedicated to my guy friends, who think not shaving is cool!:p

This post is a part of #WillYouShave activity at BlogAdda in association with Gillette.

I nominate Ashish Mittal and Shivam Mittal to do a blog post on their experiences of the same, for the given contest.

My Dream Home

Each one of us dreams of that day, when we will have a home of our own. We have our dreams woven around the idea, imagining, how we want it to be. Some of us wish for a small bungalow with peaceful surroundings, while some wish for a huge flat in a posh area. We assimilate our ideas and wish we would implement all of them on day, when we build/buy a house of our own.

For me, I would want to live the modern dream of a young single girl in a big city. I personally, would prefer to have a beautiful big rooftop flat in a posh area of Mumbai rather than a big bungalow.

How would I want it to be?

Big white walls - with minimalistic design - and - simplistic yet classy and elegant furniture - with a lot of space around.

First on my list for my dream home, would be a room full of clothes and shoes (I am a girl, what do you expect?! :p ) . Attached with a sophisticated bathroom, would be my wardrobe. With beautiful dresses and gowns, varying from formal classy ones for office parties to sexy pretty dresses for cocktail parties with friends!! And of course, a large collection of stilettoes and footwears to complement all of those dresses! And yes, in addition, a big mirror with a nice soft rug in the room would be just perfect!

Porcelanosa has something which just fits in my requirements, have a look :

Next would be a huge bathroom- elegant and stylish with a nice bath-tub to take bath in, after a tiring day end. Every morning, walking into it would just give an ideal start to the day!

Porcelanosa just fits in the requirements with some similar offerings…Have a look :

Or something like this, would be even more amazing :

Moving on to my next fav part, the kitchen and the mini bar. I’d love to have a ritzy fancy kitchen with all modern amenities just fit in the right places. Two-three bar stools for the guests would be just right! Chatting around with my girlfriends while cooking together and enjoying a glass of champagne would become easy with those around.

Porcelanosa has something similar for my dream house, check it out here :

To top it all, I would want a nice large rooftop swimming pool with an amazing view of the city. Comfy mattresses to lay down on a lazy Sunday evening, would be a dream come true!

Porcelanosa offers variety of classy flooring options, have a look :

I wish I would someday own such a place of my own, and get a chance to use one of these beautiful designs of Porcelanosa in my dream home! 

Looking for furnishings and ideas for your new home? Check out the Porcelanosa website here.

Do you have any ideas for your dream home? Share it with us!!

This post is written as a part of competition held by Indiblogger in association with 24k Livings .

A healthy child makes for a happy home

Children have their own special ways to add joy to every day. They are naughty yet cute, resilient yet confused, simple yet so complicated. They add color and happiness in our daily moribund lives! I, being the eldest one among all my cousins in the family, have seen many of my cousins grow up. From the first moment I took them in my arms as a kid, to the time they started going to school, and became old enough to tell me I have become old fashioned, they have always served as the source of energy for me! They have been a source of inspiration.

Growing up in a joint family, I was always blessed to have company of my cousin brothers and sisters to play with. My little cousins Arushi, Anant, Akshet, Arnav, Luv, Shivam and Siddharth are like my lifeline. With them around, the whole house comes to life. Their company is a sheer delight and their presence makes life much more exciting. The energy level around the house rises with their presence.

The worst times around the house are when any one of them falls sick. The whole house seems lifeless and life comes nearly to a halt. There is worry around the house and the smiles on everyone’s face fades away until their health is restored. 

With the fast pace of life and use of modern living methods, the exposure of children to ill effects has increased alarmingly. Increase in pollution exposes them to harmful air borne diseases. Excessive use of pesticides and chemicals in food, and junk food eating habits increases their chance of falling ill. There are similar other harmful habits that children these days are exposed to. What then, can be done to make sure that the kiddos of the house are protected and lead a healthy and happy life…

A simple suggestion would be to change the bad eating habits of the children, and train them to adopt healthy habits. But even with this, we cannot guarantee that they will not be exposed to other factors which can affect their health negatively. The best option out is to develop a strong defense mechanism in the body, which can easily fight off diseases. The easiest option to achieve this goal is feeding them herbs like amla, giloy, etc. on a regular basis to help them build a strong internal defense mechanism to fight off diseases. This option may not look so attractive to the busy moms. Dabur Chyawanprash comes as the rescuer for all! It contains a number of herbs and is one of the best known antioxidants. Built with natural ingredients, it helps strengthen body’s internal defense mechanism. It is proven to have immunomodulatory and anti-allergic potential. In addition, it also contains herbs that help strengthen body’s natural defense mechanism by stimulating the natural killer cells. These natural killer cells assist in fighting off virus and bacteria in the body, hence, giving increased immunity from infections. So, what are you waiting for…Check out more about dabur chyawanprash here and protect you kids today!

This post is written as an entry of blog competition by Dabur and Indiblogger for Indi-Happy Hours Campaign " A Healthy Child makes a Happy Home". 

More details here: https://www.liveveda.com/daburchyawanprash/

Exciting Online Deals : UpTo75.com

With increasing business in e-commerce, many new websites are coming up with new ideas. Ordering online is increasingly becoming more convenient, with  a lot of attractive deals and offers along with cashback offers and exchange options. Resourceful Bites previously introduced its readers to the website Cashkaro.com where you can get exciting cashback offers and money saving deals. Here, we introduce you to another website, which can conveniently help you save your money. UpTo75.com!!

UpTo75.com is a website which offers you free discount deals and coupons in varied categories. The website covers more than 30 categories, and has some exciting deals in store for its users, and that too without any additional charges!! The interface is user friendly with section for special deals, like Jaw Dropping Deals, Top 20 deals, etc. 

WHO CAN BENEFIT??

Anyone and Everyone : We all shop online and order food from restaurants. If not that, they have categories like Adventure and Gaming, arts and crafts, automobiles and accessories, books and magazines, clothing and accessories, computer and accessories and what not! From hotels and restaurants to banquet halls, you'll find that there's a deal for everyone in store!! Check out the categories section to find out, which deal suits you the best!

Retailers : You will find some of the top brands and retailers listed on the website. As a retailer, you have an easy option to add offers for your website on this website. 

Corporate and Group Discounts : Looking for some additional group discounts or corporate discounts? Yes, they have that too!! Check out the Employee Benefits section for some exciting deals. You'll find deals for corporate outings, flower bookings, skill development courses, etc.

What's great is they have deals for online shopping, and they also cover deals in particular cities. They cover major cities like Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, etc.

What are you waiting for?? Check out the deals and make the most out of them today!! 

Check out the website here : UpTo75.com

Influencer Marketing

In this age of expanding digital media influence and constantly changing digital landscape, it is extremely important for marketers to adopt new strategies to increase visibility of their product. Although the marketers have tried many new marketing tactics, some of them have been more powerful than others. Maintaining a worthy digital media presence and content management are two of these exceptionally powerful digital marketing tools which aid in attracting, engaging and inspiring consumers to connect to your product. One of the marketing techniques which implement both these tools is influencer marketing.

What is Influencer Marketing?Influencer marketing is a form of marketing which involves marketing your products and services to consumers and influencing their buying decisions through individuals also known as influencers.Influencers are people who have a voice in the industry and have a known influence the target audience.

Influencers may include people with high authority like politicians, CEOs, etc., people who are subject matter experts, or people who are very active on social media and have a dedicated fan following due to their regular social media activities like bloggers, etc.

How to go about Influencer Marketing?Certain elementary steps that define the process of how to go about executing influencer marketing are:

1)      Identify the most relevant influencers and define what you are looking for- One can choose to use digital tools to identify influencers or research online using certain keywords to find the relevant influencers. Rank the influencers in terms of their importance and define what you expect in terms of results.

2)      Build a relationship with the influencers- Monitor their activities and attempt to engage with the influencers on a personal and informal basis, like commenting on blog posts, retweeting the tweets, engaging in an ongoing conversation, etc. This will display your interest.

3)      Connect and Build Brand Familiarity- Once you have interacted with them you can connect with them on a personal level through a message or an email. Provide them a brief introduction about your brand, and help them connect to the brand by sharing some brand info with them.

4)      Tell them exactly what you want them to do and what you will do in return- Communicate about your upcoming digital promotions. Offer them a sample of your product, give them an exclusive sneak peak or share a premium reward to them for their involvement. This will increase their interest and loyalty in being associated with your brand.

5)      Precautions to connect-Make sure you request and not demand.Respect the privacy in case they refuse to be associated with you.Once associated, allow them to be themselves instead of guiding them to talk about your brand.

6)      Measure your results- Find out which associations have been more helpful and have reached more audience. Measure your results, learn and iterate.

7)      Strengthen the Relationship- Thank the influencers for their association and their efforts. Continue to engage with them on later stages to strengthen the relationship.

Why use Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is unique and more authentic than traditional forms of marketing, as it is like indirect marketing. It helps you engage with the right target segment of your customers, and has a greater reach. It can be rightly named as modern word-of-mouth marketing which if presented through right influencers has the potential to reach higher number of people. The only drawback it involves is that it is uncontrollable, and if done wrongly it may end up upsetting the customer and presenting a negative brand image.

Overall, if used well, influencer marketing is an excellent way to connect to your customers and market your product.

My personal Experiences :
I myself have been involved in influence marketing, both as a marketer and as an influencer.

Being a food blogger, we were called for a lot of restaurant reviews and hotel launch parties. While some of them allowed us freedom to blog about our experience others emphasized on positive reviews. From my personal experiences, I would recommend, that as a marketer, you should understand the practical limitations of a blogger, and allow them freedom to express their opinions, rather than guiding them.

Platforms like blog adda launch a lot of competitions for bloggers, where bloggers get to experience a product exclusively and in return they have to blog about their experiences. This is the simplest form of influencer marketing.

Know that most influencers are very well-connected with other influencers in the field, hence, one negative comment can lead to a lot of negative comments and conversations centered around your product.

Remember to use it wisely and your brand will prosper!

Journey of Zomato since Inception

Co-author : Bhargav Kundem, IIM Udaipur

What is Zomato?

Zomato is an online portal which lists the information on restaurants, cafes and nightclubs also including information on home-delivery options and other dine-out choices. Zomato was originally started by Deepinder Goyal, IIT Delhi to help out his colleagues in search for menus of restaurants. It started as a small database of restaurants’ menus which Deepinder circulated among his colleagues to help them save time while ordering food. The activity took off very-well and Deepinder took it to an official level, naming the website Foodiebay.com. Officially launched in July, 2008, the website started by listing over 1200 restaurants in Delhi-NCR region and by the end of 2008, it had already crossed the mark of 2000+ restaurant listings. In the next 6 months, Foodiebay expanded to Kolkata and Mumbai. Deepinder knew that local knowledge of the city is more advantageous while assigning the job, hence, he carefully chose his executives.

Capital Investment

Zomato received an initial investment of Rs.4.7 crore from Info-Edge India in August, 2010. Due to high growth rate of the company, they witnessed an increase in capital fund investment by Info-Edge. Info-Edge subsequently invested Rs. 13.5 crore in September, 2011 followed by a $2.5million and $10million investment in year 2012 and 2013 respectively. By the end of this period, Info Edge almost had 57% share in the company. With its plan of expansion to different countries and other cities of India, Zomato was blessed by a whopping $37million investment from Sequoia Capital and Info Edge in November, 2013.

Business Model

Zomato follows a simple business model. While starting afresh in the new city, one person is assigned in each city to collect data about the restaurants and clubs around the city. There is a centralized team based out of NCR which processes and cross-checks the data to confirm the validity. The data is then processed to be put up on the website. There is a separate team for advertising, which sells the website to the restaurant owners and attracts them to advertise with Zomato. 95% of the revenues are earned from advertisements from the local restaurants, while the rest can be attributed to event ticketing and restaurant booking.

Financial Analysis

Even though the company grew at a tremendous rate during its initial years, it witnessed an exponential growth after rebranding itself with the new name. It is now a source of 600-odd jobs. The website observed a response from 8 million unique visitors by the end of 2012.  The metros were the highest revenue earners and the company saw the EBITDA break even in December, 2012.

The company generates its revenue from hyper-local advertising. It saw a remarkable amount of revenue amounting to USD 2 million at the fiscal year ending March 31,2013. They now witness monthly revenues close to USD0.5 million.

Adapting with Demands

Zomato revamped its website to adapt itself to the changing requirements of the users. The revamped website had a more focused approach on human opinions. The features of the new website are a better search feature with additional filters as per user requirements, a more organized form of presenting the data, easy upload of photos. They also re-modified the presentation of the reviews and added a personalization layer to the whole website. Zomato is now viewed more as a social-network of foodies. 

Marketing Strategies of Zomato

Zomato started with direct marketing techniques like SMS and Direct mailers. Through direct SMS, Zomato targeted six lakh unique customers as a first stage. Irrespective of users’ responses Zomata blasted them with 6 SMS per day for one month. Zomato believes it increased their reach with this technique. Next is direct email, where they effectively reached corporates in bulk and hence reached the professional employees which are their primary target. The mailers were designed in such a way that they are difficult to classify as spam mails until and unless user opens the mail. And few users liked reading them during breaks during office hours. Also using direct emails, they were sending Monthly newsletters to the subscribers. Because of the nature of the email, but the average time user spent on this email was only 0.2 seconds. They distributed pamphlets in specific areas. The pamphlets were very specific to their business. They were attractive, colourful and of good quality to customers.

Right now Zomato promotes itself as Food Network. On Social Media, they follow simple strategies of always be there for your customer and only best content needs to be sent to customers. They treat Facebook and Twitter as two different platforms. Even though content is similar, as twitter is more real-time they run contests frequently like Foodie Friday, Yummy Yatra, etc. Twitter is more used for interaction and conversations and Facebook is primarily used to push their content and to reach more people.

Once a user logs into Zomato with the help of Facebook or Google account, his/her friends will be automatically identified on the site and they can easily follow their friends. As the friends’ ratings are more trusted by users when compared to Zomato’s, influencing factor is much higher with the help of social media. The review count per day has gone up by 75% while the number of ratings per day has increased by 100%.

Reasons for success

Zomato is very high product focused. They ensure their customer gets the best products and they are happy. This increased the brand loyalty among the users and they are happy to return to the website. Strategically, Zomato has first mover advantage in the business they are in. Even though the business model is not inimitable, with the kind of evolution Zomato is undergoing they are well set for future.

Effective use of analytical tools like Tweetdeck to gauge the interaction Zomato is able to extract from Twitter, to track what’s happening in the network and respond quickly to loyal customers. They have been using Sproutsocial tool as well to ease up responding to customers and monitor performance on social media.

Competitor Analysis

Just like Zomato, Google Maps started showcasing restaurants, different businesses etc. Even though it can be considered as a competition because of similar business model, Zomato has a first mover advantage and has already occupied large cities and fan base. In the Google maps model, only one thing which can be drawback for Zomato is the accessibility. Many users use Google maps for navigation and Google has integrated maps with this data base which reduces the intention to use Zomato in users. Zomato considers websites such as Justeat.in as substitutes which have equal potential to eat up the market share of Zomato. Burrp is another website which has a similar business model as Zomato. But Zomato also has a differentiator over other websites. While all websites just lists the restaurants’ names and their ratings, Zomato takes a step further and gives the user, menu of the restaurant which is updated every 90 days.

There are a lot of competitors in the market which give a tough competition. Some of the big names include Burrp!, Yelp and Google. In addition to that, they also face a lot of challenges due to varying market demands in different countries and different cities. They also see varying user behavior in different countries which poses a challenge to design the market strategy for each market.

Future

With current valuation close Rs. 1000 Crore, Zomato is aiming to become a global internet brand. They have a plan to use latest funding round to reach 22 more countries within next two years. Another goal they have set for themselves is that in next three years they want to get enlisted on public exchange. Apart from India and UAE while other countries are a tough nut to crack, Zomato is still working on globalising their business model and strategy to set better future.

Unwind through eyes of Organizational Behaviour

As the Unwind journey came to an end, it taught us a lot of important lessons and left us enriched with experiences. It was an experience which brought out the best and the worst in each one of us, but we over came our fears and left our inhibitions behind; in the end growing together as a family. The whole section is now one, and not just 61 people put together in a classroom.

We, the management students, learn a lot of concepts in our subject, Organizational Behavior. We saw the practical implementation of many of these concepts in the last 3-4 days. I am sharing some of those experiences here, relating them to the concepts we learnt in the classroom. Maybe, you could relate to a few of them! 

• As Unwind began, we were divided into a team of 2, each forming an example of an organization (Bhokal and Atreyu), where we had a structured system with groups and individuals, working towards a common objective (of winning the trophy and getting glory to our team).

• From selection of CRs (Richa and Anand) to represent the team to defining the POC's for each event, we had a clear division of labor. We matched the skill set and abilities of the individual to the requirements of the job, hence making the person-job fit better. Each event had 2 heads, an example of job sharing. This information was shared each member of the team through the mail, to avoid any confusion, hence, maintaining the transparency in the organization.

• During the initial days of the event, we observed only a few people were interested in actually participating. We assumed Theory X to be true, and forced the people to work with us, without actually providing them the motivation or trying to find out the lack of interest among them for not working. This approach failed miserably, and failed to obtain the desired results in the initial stages.

• As we proceeded we realized Theory Y is the one which actually works. As the Bhokal team succeeded in creating a wave in its first event (Unveiling Act), people got motivated to work, and the energy levels touched new levels and the engagement automatically increased. The events saw more participation from the individuals. 

What is remarkable is that this change came in a matter of few hours. We realized that under the right circumstances, each individual in the team accepted their responsibilities and that each one of them were fully capable of working productively when provided the right motivation. As our CR's motivated the team, and gave them clearly defined objectives, people worked harder without anyone forcing them to work.

• The team practiced for the events together in the MDS Common Room. You could clearly see people rehearsing with more energy, when they realized that their team members are observing them. This demonstrates the Hawthorne effect.

• We saw people coming from different cultures and different backgrounds (no work experience to people with experience of more than 5 years) coming to work together in the team. We had a few like Uppendar (GOD) , Satish (Team B6), Ejaz (footballer) who understood only English and faced difficulties while other communicated in Hindi. We unknowingly ignored this fact at earlier stages, but with time, we changed our language to suit theirs, so the communication is clear. Notice that this is similar to the effect of  globalization we'll observe in actual organizations, where we'll have to work with people from different cultures and different backgrounds.

• We all had individual differences and different personalities. Some were morning people, while other preferred working at the night. Some spoke too loudly to make themselves heard, refusing to listen and coordinate. Some worked well as individuals rather than being a part of the team. In the end, we evolved ourselves to suit our styles as per the demand of the job and worked to achieve our results.

• The key learning of Unwind was the change in perception we felt for many our team members. We perceived others based on our own individual experiences (social identity theory), and through the attribution process assumed the reasons behind their particular behavior hence creating the first-impression error for many of our team mates. Initially, there were perceptual biases present. This affected our decision in the initial stages, but this changed when we got a chance to work together as a team. We recognized each others strengths, and worked together to meet our objectives, leaving our differences behind.

For example, many of us considered Anand, our CR to be aggressive, and difficult to work with, but after working with him we discovered how caring he was as a person. He made special efforts to keep the team motivated and keep them working in sync with each other. He displayed amazing anger management skills at crucial of times, maintaining his calm. Some instances include encouraging everyone before each event, making sure there were enough team members to cheer the ones participating in the event, arranging food and tea for us at midnight and making sure each one of us was well-fed, scolding us when we lost because of complacency from our side, but also appreciating us when we worked hard and brought glory to the team (performance appraisal). He maintained the discipline in the team (sometimes we slept at 5am-6am and woke up at 7am for the next practice), making sure everyone turned up for the practice on time. 

• Everyday, we lost some events and won some. We experienced daily hassles and daily uplifts after each event. 

• After winning each event, we celebrated as a team. We were proud of our team members for bringing us glory, which in turn made us feel overjoyed to be a part of the team. This is a subtle example of the concept of basking in reflected glory. 

• There were a few instances during the event, when people who performed the best couldn't give the performance they were capable of delivering. Sometimes, there were external causes of behavior which hindered the individuals from giving their best, like in the mess night, the external factors were the unavailability of mic and sound system not being loud enough, causing the dance performances to deteriorate. While at other times, there were internal causes of behavior like lack of sleep, tiredness, etc which affected the performance on individual level. Some of us believed that there existed a fundamental attribution error while judging our performances.

• Sometimes, I also observed the Halo Effect coming into play. When we saw people performing good in one-two events, it made us assume that they were good at overall management skills. More apparent was the team halo effect. For example, when we lost in dance performance even after having a lot of good dancers in our team, the dancers took the blame and responsibility on themselves (on individual level), rather than considering the lack of coordination and practice for the team as a whole. 

• Many of us connected with each other because of the similar-to-me effect. For example, I on a personal level connected much more with my room-mate Richa when we shared our passion for the team on the whole, and for being a part of as many events as possible. We both ran together from one meeting to other, struggling together with our studies and exams. This strengthened our friendship in undefinable ways.

• Our seniors gave us motivation on a regular basis. Their guidance and immense faith in us encouraged us to perform better than we thought. This is a good example of self-fulfilling prophecy (the Pygmalion effect). 

• We experienced the learning goal orientation, desiring the trophy, the win and recognition of team efforts satisfying our interest of learning new skills which we hadn't tried before, and in meeting the challenges with all constraints (like time constraint, resource constraint, etc.).

• There existed a stereotype that all from Bhokal team were aggressive and ferocious. Although, this was true in general sense, I believe we had a good mix of people in the team. Some were calm and composed, and managed to maintain the peace, while some others were aggressive, who motivated us and helped us work harder in our tasks.

• In the whole event, many of us made efforts for impression management as an individual, trying to change the first-impression errors people had about us. 

• We changed ourselves according to the existing conditions. At first, the focus of the team was on creativity and trying to bring out new ideas. There were many instances, when we failed to achieve the desired results, so we realized that more than creativity and innovation, traditional methods are rewarded (observational learning), we changed our approach while preparing for the events. This example demonstrates law of effect where the operant conditioning took place, i.e. where behaviors with negative consequences were avoided at a later stage (negative reinforcement). 

• Many of my friends performed on the stage for the first time leaving their fears behind. They did so with confidence because they took training from the other team mates (who had prior experience) and actively learnt.

• Continuous feedback from the team members helped improve the level of performance in the team. What was admirable was that the feedback was taken positively, and each Bhokali used the feedback to bring the improvement in his/her performance rather than taking it as criticism.

• During one point of the event, we also experienced role conflict. Although, the roles were clearly defined earlier, due to role juggling by an individual, it became difficult to concentrate on one event. While some others took the charge of handling the event (although not formally) there came the problem of role ambiguity at some stages. Some were even followed by desk rage and disagreements among team members, but a little time-out helped calm down things and achieve greater outputs.

• Soon the final results of the event was declared, and we lost by a margin of few points. This acted as an acute stressor for each Bhokali. We were unhappy and exhausted. You could sense the change of mood from the expression on the face of each team member. Our flight response was to walk away from the scene. Many of us also tried to change our displayed emotions, and act according to the display rules, but it was quite difficult to hide the felt emotions. Unwind hence taught us the importance of Emotional Stability. 

• Unwind was a complete emotional roller coaster ride, where we experienced emotions varying from love, excitement, enthusiasm to being distressed, fearful, jittery (The circumplex model of effect) and what not!

• In the end, I would like to conclude by saying that, although, it is still difficult to accept the facts, social support from the team has enabled us to be stronger in the situation.We had a great learning experience. The whole Unwind experience increased our cognitive and practical intelligence, but most of all it taught us time management skills and improved our emotional intelligence through its varied experiences.

These were some of the basic application of concepts we learnt through Unwind. There were many other concepts involved in the Unwind experience, which I will be sharing in the next post in the series.

Further motivation by our team-mate Gazzali :WATCH ON YOU TUBE

Unwind at IIMU

As the atrocity of the mid-term exams came to an end, excitement was brewing up in the campus because “Unwind” was here!! You could visibly see a drastic change in the atmosphere at IIMU. People who were running from room to room in the hostel, dejectedly a day earlier worrying about the exam were now running excitedly around the campus for preparation of Unwind.

What is UNWIND, you ask?

Unwind, is an event organized by CulComm (in association with IRIS, Lakesiders, Rangmanch, Footworx, Octaves, pwnd) to unite IIMU students by giving them a platform to fight for their section, display their talents and discover themselves stretching beyond the boundaries to take their respective section towards victory.

Events

Soon, the time for the declaration of war arrived. IIMU Junta assembled in CR3, and one could clearly see the divide between the sections with each one occupying one side of the classroom and cheering for their section. As the details unfolded, each one chalked up a plan in their mind as to how to prove that their section is the best. As the meeting came to an end, junta was super-charged and excited to prepare for the first event which was to begin in another 70 minutes.

PUB RUN:

ABOUT THE EVENT: Each section was assigned 10 minutes to strategically occupy the area in the arena to place their posters. 

WHAT HAPPENED: In a team of 5, students of each section assembled to cheer their team and guide them. The event turned out to be sensational and stimulating with each team succeeding in occupying the areas which they found appropriate for their marketing strategy. Running from one place to another, with a few even climbing the roof to occupy the place of their choice, the event turned out to be a huge success. Electrifying slogans from each team cheered the participants and added to the charm and enthusiasm of the event.

UNVEILING:

ABOUT THE EVENT: Each team is assigned 20 minutes to give a preview of their team, their talents and to launch themselves. With seniors and the other section crowd, performing team had to gauge the mood of the audience and perform to impress and capture hearts.

WHAT HAPPENED: The grand “Unveiling Act” was the act where both the sections were given 20 minutes to “unveil” their section by displaying their talents through all possible means including dance performances, group slogans, section theme and section t-shirts. There was a fantastic show put up by both the sections in a span of few hours. Both teams tried to deliver the best trying to impress the audience. For section A, they performed a dance and a small drama act to portray their theme while for section B, there were some unique dance and drama performances enhanced by performances from skilled football players and acrobatic skills, and finally unveiling the group theme of “BHOKAL”(which means excellence in a certain field) with a structure lit with LEDs and a few fireworks.

As the first day of Unwind came to an end, a lot of equations around the campus changed for the better. A few hours of work together, and our outlook for each other and for our team underwent a huge transformation. We discovered how talented our colleagues are, how to work well in a team, how to manage a team of over 60 people, how to work in sync and manage the varying needs and demands of each individual always trying to maximize the output from each one of them, how to match the job skills with required skills of an individual motivating them to perform their best and much more than that, it is a journey we have embarked upon. An experience worth every moment it exists. With hope in heart, we begin this wonderful journey.

Watch this space to follow us through this journey. Discover how it changes us and how through a few fun events, we learn more managerial concepts than we could even imagine!

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