Management Lessons from M-Store

Hi to all my readers! It’s been quite a while! Three months to be exact. These three months saw a lot of changes. I graduated from IIM Kashipur and started working in Mumbai. More on all that later – in my next blog post about my IIM days. For now, let us stick to the topic of this post.

Warning: This is a long, 3000 word post.

Note: This post may interest you if you are interested in entrepreneurship or would like to read about some of the challenges linked to it. Otherwise, this post may not interest you. Will come back with an interesting post for you soon.

M-Store:

MStore or Merchandise Store was a store that we ran during our days at IIM Kashipur. What is it? Who started it? Why does it merit a blog post? So many questions may arise. Let me answer all that, as briefly as I can.

A brief history of MStore:

The Inception:

The Merchandise Store of IIM Kashipur was started in September 2013. An initiative of On Your Mark, the Marketing Club of IIM Kashipur, the Store was started by our senior members of the Marketing Club, ably led by Mr.Lakshya Sharma. The initiative was an idea of our coolest Prof – Prof. Dwarika Uniyal. The idea of the store was to procure IIM Kashipur – branded merchandise for the students, faculty and staff of IIM Kashipur.  Many of my batchmates got on board as we were excited by an idea of such a store, run by the students. A chance conversation with Lakshya got me into the Store. All that I had to offer then was a contact that I had from Tiruppur – the textile manufacturing hub of the country.

Our First Order:

We started with our first order – winter hoodies to withstand the cold of Kashipur. That was a first-time experience for us and as novices, we made a lot of mistakes. Right from order-taking to negotiations to customization to money collection to sample checking to delivery, there were mistakes committed at every stage. The result was that the product was delivered late – late by about a month. What’s worse was that we had gone for a complicated design – a design that could be done only by a digital printer. Despite the supplier’s warning that the design would look awkward if done by traditional printing, we asked him to go ahead as we were running late on schedule. As informed, the design looked shoddy and awkward. We delivered the product and as expected, received a lot of flak. But on the bright side, the product quality was decent and it withstood the cold of Kashipur. In between, we also took orders for a winter cap, where again, some miscommunication led to a product that was too flimsy to withstand the Kashipur cold.  For both these orders, we went with a vendor from Tiruppur.

The Redemption:

It was March 2014. Having received mixed responses for our first 2 orders, we really wanted to redeem ourselves. We analyzed our mistakes in the first 2 orders and we learnt what not to do from our end. We decided to go in for a T-shirt order now, before it was time for us to leave for our summer internship. Despite the short operating time, we went ahead with the order, focusing exclusively on our batch alone. The result was that we were able to deliver the shirts right on the last day of the term. For once, the product was on time and without any mistake. For once, we received some positive response and that pepped us up.

The second year:

We were ready for the second year. We were completely in control and we planned it all. We knew that we had some good orders in store this year and our faculty members were supportive too.  During the short holiday we had, I paid a visit to Tiruppur and to that particular supplier. I visited his plant and tried to understand the manufacturing process. That visit convinced me of the credentials of the supplier. I discussed this with our team and we realized that the debacle of our first order was more of our mistake than that of the supplier’s, for he followed our instructions to a T. 

So we had zeroed in on that supplier for our biggest order to date – IIM Kashipur T-shirts for the students. This time around, having learnt from our past mistakes, we were spot on from our end. Right from order taking to order placement to money collection, we made no mistake. We were happy with our work. But then there’s Murphy’s Law right? If everything was going right, then there’s certainly something wrong and Mr.Murphy had to intervene. Like the classical law, everything that could possibly go wrong at the vendor’s side went wrong. Here’s a look-back on the sequence of events:

1.      We placed the final order to the vendor and paid the advance on September 2^nd, 2014. The vendor promised delivery of the finished product on or before September 25^th.

2.      First, there was a delay in raw material supply to the vendor.

3.      Then, the print did not stick to the fabric initially.

4.      As a result of these, there was an operational delay at the vendor’s end.  The production got delayed by 10 days.

5.      By September 15^th, we were forced to take an additional order due to a confusion that arose with respect to the batch T-shirt. As a result, an additional 30 pieces were added to the initial order on September 17^th.

6.      When the sample product was ready, the vendor sent a whatsapp image for approval, as I had already seen the fabric during my visit to Tiruppur. The image was of the shirt before the printing of our institute logo. The product was approved by us without the logo. Little did we think that the logo printing would go so wrong.

7.      The vendor dispatched the final product on September 30^th. We were supposed to have it by October 4^th.

8.      By October 7^th, there was no sign of the product reaching us while the online status showed that the product was delivered. We contacted the vendor who contacted the courier.

9.      The courier service was clueless initially. Then they promised to get back to us within a day.

10.  We discovered the next day that the product got shipped to the wrong address due to some confusion with two similar packages. Whether, the mistake was on the courier’s part or the vendor’s, we were not sure. Anyway, the product then got shipped again.

11.  Finally, we got the product on October 16^th. We were in for a shock. The logo that we did not check was printed in the wrong color.

12.  Imagine if Manchester United logo were printed in blue colour or Chelsea’s in red color, how blasphemous it would be. The same was the case here. Instead of dark blue color, the logo was in a light shade of blue. When asked about it, the vendor coolly replied that only with a light shade would the logo appear nice in the dark background. Oh God! I gave the vendor an earful that night. That was probably the angriest that I had been in Kashipur.

13.  The next 2 days were spent on contemplating what to do as the wrong logo would be deemed unacceptable. I was on the phone all the time for the next 2 days and the vendor finally agreed to take them back and rework on them, to get us the correct logo.

14.  It was an arduous task to repack the lot and re-ship them back to the vendor. The whole deal cost me about Rs.8k personally (which I adjusted in the final payment to the vendor).

15.  The lot was re-shipped on October 21^st. Then it was a long wait for something to happen from the vendor’s side. So many tricks were tried on the fabric by the vendor to no avail.

16.  It was mid-November and by now, many people started demanding a refund of their money, and we had to refund a few people who were willing to wait no longer.

17.  Finally, the vendor decided to attach a patch of the right logo over the wrongly printed logo. Since we had no other recourse, we agreed and the patch-up work was done.

18.  Then the issue of payment cropped up. We had paid only 50 percent and the vendor felt that we may not pay him the remaining due to the delay. So he demanded that we pay him up or else, he won’t dispatch. Oh God! This was a shocker and he was behaving like a goon. I then spoke with him, paid him a token amount and got the goods dispatched.

19.  Finally, the goods arrived on December 3^rd, 2014. A delay of 68 days. By now, people who ordered had even forgotten that they had placed an order with us.

20.  We gave away the shirts and for once, I was a relieved man.

The aftermath, the devil threat and handing over the baton:

The T-shirt order took a huge toll on me – mentally, physically and emotionally. I decided not to be directly involved in any of the upcoming orders. My teammates stepped in and they took care of some of the other orders like TEDx T-shirts, winter hoodies, fest T-shirts, fest hoodies and so on. Most of these orders were successful as we built a new supplier network consisting of suppliers from the vicinity that we managed to seal a deal with. 

But one of the orders – the TEDx t-shirts,  got delayed. The first batch of shirts was delivered on time, while the second batch got delayed by about 25 days. That delay spurred an anonymous mail sent in the name of ‘devil’, which spewed venom in every sentence. That only added to our headache, but we knew better to carry on with our work than to waste our time on anonymous mails.

Finally, it was time for us to hand over the reins of the Store to our junior team. We had a wealth of knowledge to share with them through our learnings from our own experiences– mostly on what not to do, rather than what to do.  But with the knowledge of all our mistakes to guide them and with a renewed list of a good vendor base in hand, we have left them with an excellent structure in place, from where they could take the Store forward. We had already hit rock-bottom during our tenure and so they have nothing to worry about.  I firmly hope and believe that the Store is set to soar high in the days to come.

Lessons learnt from MStore:

During the course of running the Store, we learnt so many things – both good and bad. Sometime during the T-shirt fiasco phase, I decided that if we ever come out of it, I’ll definitely write about it someday. Sounds like Chetan Bhagat, I know, but yeah, whatever. Here are some lessons that we learnt:

1.      Buy Right:

 Prof. Dwarika informed us that the golden rule of retailing is to buy right. We faltered on that front on many occasions and we paid the price.

2.      There are no friends in business:

 This may shock some of you, but if you’re serious about your business, you’ll understand. Don’t let any personal equation come in the way of professional relationships. I was on friendly terms with the Tiruppur supplier and we interacted like friends. I was able to negotiate a good price too, because of this. But all that changed with that T-shirt order and the day he threatened us to pay in order to dispatch. That was a rude wake-up call. That’s when I realized how it was a mistake on my part to try and be on friendly terms with him. While it was okay to be friendly, there always exists a thin line that separates the professional front from personal relationships and it is important to be conscious of that.

3.      Create competition:

 This is a simple rule of Economics. Monopoly seldom thrives. Always create a competition. Our reliance on a single supplier in the initial stages, cost us dear. 

4.      Seeing is believing – not quite:

 As far as this Store is concerned, I’d not settle for seeing. I’d need to touch and feel the sample, before I’d believe. Never go in for an order without physically examining the sample yourselves.

5.      The customer is always right:

 Well, this is the hardest lesson to take in. It is a simple fact. The moment a person pays you – be it 1 rupee or 500 rupees, he/she becomes your customer. A person’s behavior changes completely the moment a transaction takes place. Friends may turn foe, foes may turn friends. It’s all part of the game. Through it all, remember this fact! The customer is always right! The success of your business depends on his/her satisfaction. But then…

6.      It is impossible to satisfy everyone:

 This is something that you need to understand and accept. While you can strive hard to give your best, perfection is not always possible. There will always be that one customer who may not be satisfied, no matter what you give. Their sole objective might be to find fault with everything. You can never satisfy them. It is important to identify them early and weed them out slowly, if you are to move forward.

7.      Never promise more than what you can deliver:

 This is another important lesson that we learnt the hard way. You can promise less and deliver more. That way, you’ll delight the customer. But by doing the opposite, you will only disappoint him/her.

8.      Apologize when things go wrong:

 Yes. Own up your mistakes!  Apologize! The one thing that we became experts in during our tenure at the Store was in writing apology mails. :P  Not something that we can be proud of, yet, it is something that we learnt and learnt to do well. The numerous apology mails to all the angry emails that we received from peeved customers made us experts in the art of writing apology mails. And we received so many howlers. Most of them from people we knew well on the outside. That’s when I realized how people change the moment they become customers. I even wondered how so-and-so person could spew so much venom in his/her mails, when he/she hardly utters a word outside. That ‘devil’ anonymous mail was another case-in-point. But anonymous mails don’t deserve apologies.  I realized that even I might do the same the moment I become a customer. The other day, I received an apology mail from Ola cabs and I was laughing at it, for I felt that I could write the mail better :P Experience, you see!  ;-) :P

9.      Things can still go wrong:

 Despite all your efforts, there are certain things that are beyond your control. And so things can go wrong. So be prepared for it and don’t fret over it. During the months of October and November 2014, I hardly had a night of peaceful sleep. Whenever anyone questioned me on the shirts or passed a comment on the MStore, I felt hurt. Every morning, I used to wake up and the first thought that came to me was about the shirts. I used to open the MStore mail id the first thing in the morning and see if there are any angry emails from the customers. If so, I’d again get hurt on reading them. It was only later did I realize that I was taking it all too personally.  Come to think of it, we did everything right from our end as far as the T-shirt order was concerned. The only mistake on our part was to trust the supplier and approve the sample without the logo. That’s when I realized that things may go horribly wrong, even if you do everything right from your end. You just have to be prepared for it. For in Service industry, there’s no certainty. When things can go wrong for a product like Maggi, it can for anything and anyone. That’s why the whole Maggi ban episode amused me. I was observing how Nestle are handling it and tried to relate it to our own experience with the shirts.

10.  Never quit in the face of adversity:

 During the crisis phase, there were so many days when I felt like quitting the Store and running away from it. But then, I resolved to stay on and face it all, come what may. There would have been no bigger shame than to quit and run away in that kind of adversity. If you brought this upon yourselves, then be brave enough to stand up and face the consequences yourselves, than run away. The whole shirt episode strengthened my nerves many fold and I developed a thick skin.

11.  Easy to criticize, tough to act:

 We are all arm-chair experts. Yes, we are. You, me, everyone. We find it easier to criticize, but when  asked to act, very few of us would come forward. Only when we come forward, would we realize the truth in this statement. I realized it and learnt it the hard way. I know I’ve needlessly criticized some in the past. But this Store experience changed my outlook.  I realized how it is easy to talk, but a lot difficult to act. I’ve almost stopped criticizing anything after this experience. If I don’t like it, I simply ignore it, rather than criticize it; unless it really warrants that criticism.  The same was realized by a couple of friends who once wrote a venomous mail to the MStore. An assignment they took up later, changed their outlook. Having said this, I do believe that criticism is necessary. You won’t improve otherwise. But the criticism has to be constructive in nature. And you should be judicious enough to decide which ones to take seriously and which ones to ignore.

  

There may be numerous other learnings, but these are the ones that came to my mind right now. I read somewhere that success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.  To draw a parallel, the glory of success is short-lived, while the scar of a failure, lingers.

There are so many success stories to talk about in my Kashipur life. But all that taught me so little. This one small seemingly-failed-episode taught me so much that I’ll cherish the learnings from this experience. I am calling it a seemingly-failed-episode ‘cause none of us would term it a failure. The Store may have failed to match up to our lofty expectations during our tenure, but we have put up a structure in place, that we are sure, would succeed.

There you go! I’ve shared all that came to my mind. Like I said, I promised that I’ll write about the whole episode. I was contemplating a case study, but then Harvard case studies require some drama and I’m hardly in a mood to build a fictitious drama around this episode. Hence this post here.

I’d be doing disservice to this post if I failed to mention the team that I was talking about. Nikhil Dudhe, Vineet Chauhan, Pavansivakumar Nalla, Harish V, Barnali Roy, Swami Sachidanand, Nikhil Kumar, Deba Pratim Sinha and Sherry Singh, along with yours truly. The MStore would have shut but for the efforts put in by these people, at different points of time –be it small or large.  I should also mention the founding members of the Store – Lakshya Sharma, Shashank Kumar, Shashank Jareth, Saurabh Bhise and Arun Kandikonda – our eminent seniors from the Marketing Club. The Store was their vision and we’ll remember it always. I also take this opportunity to thank all the well-wishers of the Store from different batches and some of the Faculty members who stood by us and encouraged us , especially Prof. Dwarika Uniyal and Prof. Rajat Sharma. 

Here’s to the prosperity of the Store in the days to come! Cheers!

-Ashwin Murali

PS:  MStore was started as a not-for-profit initiative. We reverted to a traditional business model when we found out that it is difficult to sustain that way. But even then, our bottomline is negative as it stands. It will take some time for this to change.

PPS: I may have learnt so many courses during MBA, but nothing taught me more about running a business than this experience with the MStore. And I’m immensely proud of that. I’ve shared some of my humble lessons with you here. I may be wrong about some of my learnings, but I’m happy that I’ve had the chance to make my own mistakes and learn from it. Just like the rest of us!