Students to run a ‘Mandi’ for a cause……Mihika Basu
For yet another year, around 300 first-year management students from the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (Nitie) will take to the city streets on August 1 in a socio-marketing event ‘Mandi’.
It is a day-long event in which the students sell educational and innovative toys on the city streets and forward the sales proceeds to Navnirmiti, an NGO that manufactures these toys and works for economically-disadvantaged students. The estimated sales target this year is around Rs3 lakh, said SV Girish, a student. Last year, students had raised over Rs2 lakh.
Mandi integrates principles of statistics, managerial economics, marketing and basic market research with practical application for a social cause.
“This exercise in strategising, identifying key areas in the city’s market, devising strategies for products and implementing them provide an invaluable lesson to students in consumer behaviour and the finer nuances of personal selling. It also teaches the importance of corporate social responsibility,” said Ritika Bansal, another student.
Buyers will be asked to fill up a specially designed feedback form on gifting and the data will be used for preparing a market report for the gift industry. “The idea is to find out the potential of the industry and get an insight into gifting patterns,” said professor T Prasad, the brainchild behind Mandi.