Now that we were on a lean period here at Great Lakes, everyone has found something or the other to keep themselves engaged. The latest craze doing the rounds is entering b-plan contests. (Its got an even bigger boost since two teams from from Great Lakes made it to the final round of IIM-B b-plan contest and one of them won first place!!) It has reached such feverish levels that if you find 3 people standing together talking, you can be rest assured that they are discussing a b-plan!
Not to be left behind, and with starry eyes and dreams of prizes, my friends and I too decided "Chalo guys, lets do a b-plan"
"Yeah! great idea. Ill do the operations" said one
"And Ill do the Marketing bit" said the next
"Me, the Financials" said the last
"Cummon guys, give me something to do too!" said I
"You come up with the idea!" All of them chorused...
Great! I get the best part! No use protesting... I wasn't quick at picking topics... and since we are a democratic race, I have to accept what's given to me.
OK! let me think! ______________________________________
Ok, I've hit a blank in under a minute! Could be a world record of sorts, I'm sure! "Guys! you need to help me out here... What kind of business are we looking at?"
"The money making kind!" they said... Trust my friends to give out readymade answers for these very critical and important questions in unison...
"I know it needs to be money making and all. But are we looking at products or services?" I prod
"Products!"
"Services!"
"Either!"
Great! For this they don't have a common answer!
"Ok lets go over it, what kind of product?"
"Oh! Oh! I've got it!" said Mr V. He was so excited that he was going round an round on all fours all over his bed as if chasing his own tail!
"Dude! What's with the doggy style?! Calm down and spit out the bone!"
He gave me a frown that I swear only a doggy could have given. I decided not to press the issue, lest I end up barking up the wrong tree...
"How about making an oil cube?" he said
A what?? Is it some kind of industrial stuff?
"Err... what?" we ask
"An oil cube! Y'know instead of buying an entire 1 liter pack of cooking oil, buy just a cube of it" he said
I guess we stared at him way too long. He continued "Ok, Ok how about a Chai Cube? Y'know like sugar cubes?"
"Guys, cummon! Thats a good idea no?... No?? Ok, Ok, how about cigarette cubes?"
And I'm wondering why he is so fixated on cubes! I guess he realised it too, and he changed his underlying ideas... on life itself!
"How about an automatic shaver?" he asked
"How would that work?" we asked
"Well it will have a mechanism like a rubber band that you put across your ears in front of your face and then the blade will move automatically over it and clean those stubs!"
Yeah! Right! and by the end of it all we will look like the Terminator without its living covering tissue!
"Or how about a chair that you will never fall down from?"
Why? Are you stuck to it, I felt like retorting.
"How it will work is that it will have high pressure air blowers from below that will keep the chair from falling down! Fantastic, right?!"
By the end of these barrage of ideas we decided that 'product' was not the way to go about with our b-plan.
Finally, we did hit upon a services idea that we discussed and implemented a b-plan on.
But Mr V still has not given upon his futuristic product ideas. We find him lost in thought and every once in a while he jumps up and goes "Eureka! Eureka!". Luckily for us, he sops with the exclamations and does not do what Archimedes did - run across the street streaking!
:)
:-!
Posts
