Aurolab: go to market strategy

Abstract

We are thankful to Prof DVR for letting us avail this challenging opportunity of working on a live project. Without his support and constant mentorship throughout the project, our learning of 1year MBA would have been incomplete. I would also like to thank Aurolab management Mr. Sriram, Mr. Sivanand, Mr. Krishnakumar who instilled faith in us, gave away their valuable time and resources to interact with us to ensure that we have all the support needed to make the project a success. The project was challenging one for multiple reasons:1. Industry is fragmented, the competitors are known but are unlisted companies. Therefore no credible benchmark information is available on competitors information on Rand D, marketing or sales-force numbers2. Although consumers of eye-care products are patients, doctors are the most crucial link in the whole value chain. Doctor can influence the decision of the patient in favor of one product over the other.3. Aurolab is a non-profit organization which does not indulge in any unethical practices such as kick back to doctors for recommending their products, pseudo-import practiced by competitors where an Indian made product is sold as an imported one.4. Aurolab wants 60% of its revenue to come from non-profit sector, which leads to supply crunch at times in the other sector. After interacting with various stakeholders of the organization, we understood that market trusts Aurolab for its quality reputation, even its employees are highly committed individuals who are well entrenched with the company s culture and vision. However, in order to achieve next level of growth in market, company need to carefully evaluate its systems and processes for going to market and that is where we were able to contribute. Our task has been to help Aurolab define there go-to-market strategy for next 4-5 years. We also realized that it may take Aurolab some time to implement with our complete recommendations therefore small effort big impact items shall be implemented at priority (low hanging fruits).We have started with situation analysis where we have critically examined how much the organization knows about its own business. We realized that a lot of information is available internally to different stakeholders; however, thisinformation is not organized systematically to take informed decisions. Then, we have focused on frameworks on how Aurolab should define what Aurolab should achieve i.e. howAurolab should define its objectives, positioning statement and branding for its products. We are thankful to Prof DVR for letting us avail this challenging opportunity of working on a live project. Withou this support and constant mentorship throughout the project, our learning of 1year MBA would have been incomplete. I would also like to thank Aurolab management Mr. Sriram, Mr. Sivanand, Mr. Krishnakumar who instilled faith in us, gave away their valuable time and resources to interact with us to ensure that we have all the support needed to make the project a success. The project was challenging one for multiple reasons:1. Industry is fragmented, the competitors are known but are unlisted companies. Therefore no credible benchmark information is available on competitors information on Rand D, marketing or sales-force numbers2. Although consumers of eye-care products are patients, doctors are the most crucial link in the whole value chain. Doctor can influence the decision of the patient in favor of one product over the other.3. Aurolab is a non-profit organization which does not indulge in any unethical practices such as kick back to doctors for recommending their products, pseudo-import practiced by competitors where an Indian made product is sold as an imported one.4. Aurolab wants 60% of its revenue to come from non-profit sector, which leads to supply crunch at times in the other sector. After interacting with various stakeholders of the organization, we understood that market trusts Aurolab for its quality reputation, even its employees are highly committed individuals who are well entrenched with the company sculture and vision. However, in order to achieve next level of growth in market, company need to carefully evaluate its systems and processes for going to market and that is where we were able to contribute. Our task has been to help Aurolab define there go-to-market strategy for next 4-5 years. We also realized that it may take Aurolab some time to implement with our complete recommendations therefore small effort big impact items shall be implemented at priority (low hanging fruits).We have started with situation analysis where we have critically examined how much the organization knows about its own business. We realized that a lot of information is available internally to different stakeholders; however, this information is not organized systematically to take informed decisions. Then, we have focused on frameworks on how Aurolab should define what Aurolab should achieve i.e. how Aurolab should define its objectives, positioning statement and branding for its products.