The IOC - FLAME Rural Marketing Fair

Every year, the students of FLAME School of Business organize The Rural Marketing Fair as a major initiative to bolster Indian Industry’s potential to understand, tap and serve the ever-growing rural markets. As a field-based course, this fair was organized twice at Jalgaon and once in Buldhana in Maharashtra. The course emphasizes that rural markets, with increasing purchasing power and changing mindsets, have been projected to have more than 50% of the total market share by 2015.  The time is therefore right to encourage the current management students or future leaders to get exposed to the rural market realities. The fair is in the format of stalls organized by FLAME students. Over 350 companies with suitable products for rural consumers but mainly focusing on urban segments are approached. Progressive and prosperous families from nearly 100 villages are specially invited in consultation with the local agricultural authorities to participate in the fair on a given day. In the past the fair has attracted approximately 2,400 participants, including farmers and their families as opinion-leaders.

Rural Marketing Fair's aim is three fold: 

• To assist selected villagers as rural consumers to get exposed to a range of products, which at present primarily focus on urban segments
• To help participating as well as non-participating companies to conduct necessary market research, i.e. to identify the users and non users, undertake sales promotion and product testing activities, conduct focus interviews, display sample products, and most importantly understand and appreciate rural buyer behavior
• To facilitate the management students of FLAME School of Business to have firsthand experience with the rural consumers of tomorrow.

Rural Entrepreneurship Appreciation Program (REAP)

Societies now recognize that entrepreneurs create and provide significantly more job opportunities than any other economic agency, more so in the rural areas.  Besides, entrepreneurs have proven capability to bring about changes in the lifestyles of consumers by keeping, offering, and promoting products of interest convincingly.  Entrepreneurs try to optimize competitive advantage by skillfully capitalizing on available resources, people, and opportunities.

In Jalgaon and Buldhana during the Rural Marketing Fair, students have seen how the Rural Consumer is neglected although he is the future of Indian Business houses.  They also have an opportunity to see the other side, by working with or under a person who is immediately close to that consumer and serves him day and night.  He is called a retailer, a shop-keeper or a dealer, but most importantly he is the rural entrepreneur with outstanding abilities to add value to the rural customers.  He plays a very important role than merely selling products.  Unfortunately, not withstanding their professionalism, very few companies realize, appreciate, or even recognize that role.  Customers and entrepreneurs cannot remain isolated. 

 While in the rural shops, the students do whatever task the owner asks them to attend.  That gains them his respect and social acceptability that is very essential for their learning.  There are many such things that students can learn, which they do when they do a study of these rural entrepreneurs and prepare case studies.

Discovering Realignment Initiatives of Visionary Enterprises and Rising Sectors (DRIVERS)

Realizing that improved industry interface offers many benefits to the learner as well as knowledge institutions, a new course on DRIVERS has been introduced. It focuses on improving the industry interface. This is a 2 trimester course, mandatory for all second year students.  At the end of the course, student develops a great deal of expertise in selected sectors and promising companies.