Professional Networks in India,social networking

8/8/2019 Professional Networks in India,social networking

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ProfessionalNetworksIn India

September 1

2010Professional Networks in India is aresearch project to understand theconsumer perception about the internetservices in India. We tried to understandthrough the project what makes anindividual to be a part of a socialnetworking site. What are themotivational factors, what are theinherent needs that makes them activeparticipants in the social networking siteslike Facebook and LinkedIn?

Exploring ConsumerPreference for Professional

Network In India(http://prof.net.in)


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Professional Networks In India

A study to know the perception of Indian Professionals

towards Social Media Networks.

Under guidance

Of

DR.Vimi jham

(prof.Marketing and Comsumer Reaserch)

Team No.

Memebers

Mohit Sharma -09FT-088

Neeraj Kumar-09FT-096

Raghav Agarwal-09IB-041


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Table of ContentsAbstract: .................................................................................................................................................. 7

Elements of Consumer Learning .............................................................................................................. 8

Motivation: ...................................................................................................................................... 9

Cues: ................................................................................................................................................ 9

Response: ........................................................................................................................................ 9

Reinforcement: ................................................................................................................................ 9

Thee Hit Model ...................................................................................................................................... 10

Awareness ..................................................................................................................................... 10

Relevance ...................................................................................................................................... 10

Benefits ......................................................................................................................................... 10

Research Purpose .................................................................................................................................. 11Research Objectives............................................................................................................................... 11

Write up of In-depth Interviews: ............................................................................................................ 12

Questionnaire: ............................................................................................................................... 14

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 19


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Ac knowledgements

We express our sincere thanks to Dr vimi jham, our Mini Project guide to have given us the

opportunity to work on such a challenging project. We also would like to thank the professors and

students who helped us in the reviews, without which it would not have been possible to accomplish

the project successfully. Their timely feedback has facilitated in bringing the project in the present

form.

Last but not the least I would also like to thank our friends who took time off to share insights about

their experiences about social networks. This helped us immensely to understand the psyche of the

consumer. We just hope that the recommendations and suggestions presented by us are considered

seriously.


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CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that Team No. has successfully completed the mini project, asa part of academic fulfillment of Master of Business Administration (MBA) inthe area of Consumer Behavior.

PROJECT GUIDE(Dr. Vimi Jham)Date:IMT-G


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Preface

Todays business dynamics is very fast; environment is changing. To understand the changing

market behavior the organization has to do a systematic study. A project work is a scientific and

systematic study intended to catch the nerves of the problem or issue with the application of

management concept and skills. We were assigned to understand the customers perception and

attitude towards Online Professional Networks on internet. The Internet Penetration in India is

Increasing day by day and Professionals want to stay connected all the time with most of the people

which will increase their reach and connectivity .Service Industry is growing by huge numbers and

need of staying connected with people of the same genre is increasing .We have social media sites

like orkut ,facebook and you have professional site like likendin. However there is always a gap

where we can club social ethos with professional objectives .so to have a feel what our target

audience feels about the proposed network here we done with the study which has evolved some

useful results which be used in future for shaping up these ventures .

Apart from theoretical concept of the topic, we have included the findings and Suggestions.


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A bstract

Professional Networks in India connects the Professors and students of various B-schools in India.

Professional Network connects the Professors and students all over India to share their knowledge forthe well-being of the future generation. The network helps you to get in touch with the mostknowledgeable person on a particular subject and topic.

You can go through the posts of the faculty and students. The online chat system helps you get theinstant guidance.

If you want to learn, Professional Networks is the best place for you.

We are constantly putting our efforts to make this network much worth to you in terms of the contentand the knowledge shared by experienced professionals in Academic and Industry.

The aim is to create a network that helps you connect seamlessly on any topic and get guidance fromthe Guru s of that topic.

The rate at which companies are increasing their online marketing expenditures, the future of a socialnetworking site in India is good. The advantages like connectivity, knowledge sharing provided by thesocial media networks is immense. Although many people complain the social media to take a share of their day to day life what they could have used the better way. But this is a topic of use or abuse of aparticular innovation.

Social networking, popularized by teens sharing information with their friends online on Web sites suchas Facebook Inc., is now blooming in the business world, thanks to new social networks that enableprofessionals and executives in industries such as advertising and finance to rub virtual elbows withcolleagues.

Millions of professionals already turn to broad-based networking sites like LinkedIn to swap job detailsand contact information, often for recruiting purposes. Business executives also have turned to onlineforums, email lists and message boards to sound off on information related to their industries.

Social networking is just one of many consumer technologies, including blogs, wikis and virtual

worlds, to cross over into the corporate world. It is happening as social networking is movingmore into the mainstream. Leading consumer social-networking sites attracted more than 110million unique monthly U.S. visitors in July, up more than 40% from the previous July,according to comScore Inc.

For a variety of reasons, social networking has been slower to take off in the business world.Employees are wary of disclosing too much to potential competitors, and loose-lipped executivescan easily embarrass themselves and their companies online. Policing these services'


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memberships to weed out impostors can be difficult, and the sites are still in the early stages of turning their networks into sustainable businesses. Also, business users typically have less timeto devote to socializing online and are willing to do so only if they believe they are getting aunique benefit from the site

F acts: - Av ailable Research on Internet

Some of the stats collected by I4CP are as follows:

About half (52%) of respondents whose organizations are using social networking sites do so tokeep internal staff and remote employees connected, while 47% of total respondents use thenetworks to connect with potential clients and to showcase their skills. A total of 35% say theyuse networks to assist them in finding a job.

Of those respondents who do not currently utilize social networks, the top reason (37%) is

simply that they dont know what networks to use. The majority of respondents (59%) said theywould likely use social networks if they knew that such use would assist their professionaldevelopment (31% say they already do), and a full 77% would welcome using them if theythought the networks could aid organizational efficiency.

This report actually shows a gap in social networking. Much of social networking, hencesocial, is used for entertainment purposes and I believe theres a gap in the business socialspace

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-networking-for-business-

professionals/5043/#ixzz0yIQbJcn7

Elements of Consumer Learning

Consumer learning is an ongoing process which evolves and changes as a result of newly acquiredknowledge or actual experiences.

The basic understanding of elements of consumer learning should be reflected in the product or service.

In ProfNet s development we have incorporated the following elements:


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Moti v ation:

The main targets of ProfNet are the B-School fraternity (i.e. Student, Professors), Alumni & Industryexperts/ mentors. So ProfNet aims to motivate them by providing certain mutual benefits:

1. Professional Networking: ProfNet aims to build a communication platform betweenManagement Gurus, professors and students of Top B-schools. ProfNet allows its users toconnect through your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter Accounts. This synchronizes differentonline social media platforms to give a better connectivity.

2. Research work & Live Projects: It will help its users to exchange research papers, projects.This network can bring long-term benefits to all participants in terms of education andindustrial exposure and project work.

Cues:In order to promote ProfNet the following cues have been used:

1. Blogs, Write-ups, interviews

2. Students and Professors personal domains free of cost.

3. Promoting through banners & posters

4.

Promotion through other social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter.

Response:ProfNet promotion created a lot of buzz in the IMT-Ghaziabad Campus. Within 2 days of initialregistration we had close to 50 hits. Apart from these students were quite enthusiastic about

posting their work on ProfNet.

During focus interviews there was a lot of excitement and suggestions from the students. Thisshowed that they are waiting for the service to start.

Reinforcement:After the users start using ProfNet regularly it is highly imperative that ProfNet updates itsservices for users convenience and efficient use by them. ProfNet intends to provide followingfeatures to its users as a part of reinforcement strategy:

1. 5 Email IDs2. Online Chat features3. Cloud Computing


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Thee Hit Model

Aw areness

Rele v ance

Benefits

A ttitude

Structural Model of A ttitudeSee from book

Tricomponent A ttitude ModelsSee from book

Multiattribute A ttitude ModelsSee from book

A ttitude F ormationSee from book

Strategies of A ttitude changeSee from book


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Research Purpose

To conduct feasibility study to find out if the concept of launching Professional Network in India is a

viable business solution .

Research Objecti v es To study the consumer group behavior of B-School graduates for providing access to knowledge

between different B-schools.

To study the online surfing behavior of current B-school graduates.

Methodologies

Focus Group Interviews

Target Group

B schools Professors

B school Students

Sample Size

33

Tools Used

Pen

Paper

V oice Recorder

Colleges Targeted

IMT-G

MDI


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Most of the people perceived the subscription fee as the major hurdle coming on the way to thepopularity of this concept. If you want to be LinkedIn or Google, you need to follow the same path. Firstcome with the basic services offer them for free, and try to move the user up the value chain using yourPro services.

Some of the participants did not feel this particular service at all relevant to them. They wantedinstantaneous rewards from being the part of the network. They considered their selves as not internetsavvy and they looked for few but intense relationships. Internet, for them, is a superficial thing.

Some of the participants suggested targeting the different market segment where you can get premiumservices as this service will have more relevance to them. The corporate, job seekers and entrepreneurswere some other target segment in their mind for this type of networking.

Apart from these resistance, students were enthusiast about this particular service and wanted to try itfor free or for an annual charge of less than 500/.


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Questionnaire:

Depending upon the qualitative analysis done in the previous stages, we identified following

factors of utmost importance to the social media consumers. I am quoting sentences from our in

depth interview conversations:

1. All my friends are already active there.2. I can find and communicate with the person of my choice at anytime.3. The company reputation, a big name supporting the service, matters.4. They provide the services with no charges at all to me.5. I do not feel any need of spending money on owning my name on space.

Depending upon the responses from the qualitative research, we came with the following questionnaire

to measure the factors contributing to the acceptability of a particular service quantitatively.

Questionnaire (http://tinyurl.com/profnet4u):

1. With how many different people do you communicate regularly via the Internet?2. Has the usage of the Internet influenced your life in a positive way?3. Rank the following depending upon hours per week you spend on the following Internet

services: Educational Sites/Contents, Entertainment, e-mail (reading, writing), Social

Networking Sites, other services (sports...)

4. Do you feel a strong necessity to go onto the Internet when you are not online?5. Do you ever feel guilty or depressed after using the Internet for a long time?6. Do you feel bringing Professors, Students and alumni of B-schools of India through

Professional Networks would help improve the connectivity.

7. My name is my identity, I would not lose it so easily neerajnarayan.inSince just one .com or .in domain exists for your name, don't you feel that you should

own your name? To what extent you agree with the above statement?

8. Do you feel this particular service would give you better visibility and separate identity inthe fast moving internet world?

9. To what extent do you feel this particular network could provide one stop solution to allyour learning and connectivity needs?

10. In your view, how much should it cost the service provider for a year for providing youthis particular service?

11. How much are you willing to pay for this particular service for the entire year, taking intoconsideration you own your domain name and 50 mail ids?


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1 . With how many different people do

you communicate regularly via the Internet?

2. Has the usage of the Internet influenced your life in a positive way?

3. Do you feel a strong necessity to go onto the Internet when you are not online?


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4. Do you ever feel guilty or depressed after using the Internet for a long time?

5. Do you feel bringing Professors, Students and alumni of B-schools of India throughProfessional Networks would help the participants in long run?

6. My name is my identity, I would not lose it so easily neerajnarayan.inSince just one .com or .in domain exists for your name, don't you feel that you shouldown your domain name (Rs 199/year)? To what extent you agree with the above

statement?


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7. Do you feel this particular service would give you better visibility and separateidentity in the fast moving internet world?

8. In your view, how much should it cost the service provider for a year for providingyou this particular service?

9. How much are you willing to pay for this particular service for the entire year,taking into consideration you own your domain name and 50 mail ids?


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1 0. To what extent do you feel this particular network could provide one stop solutionto all your learning and connectivity needs?

11 . Cluster Analysis on : Help participants, Sense of ownership, Better visibility, One-stop solution, Attitude towards Internet, Internet necessity in life


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Conclusion

In the end, it can be concluded that though there are number of people interested in this Project,

it would take some time to make students realize the value of the professional network.

Date post:	29-May-2018
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Professional Networks in India,social networking

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