& Presents A Live Case Study Competition Sitting on his desk, sipping a cup of hot coffee, Raman looked back at the last one year which has been nothing short of sheer excitement and tremendous opportunities for Freecharge. in, an ecommerce portal, that has redefined the way business was done in India. One year old into its business, Freecharge was sitting on a huge consumer base of 1 million+ unique users in the last one year, an enviable achievement for any organization which is just one year old in its operations. Introduction: Freecharge. in is a business unit of Accelyst Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
It started its operations on August 15, 2010 and worked on a unique business model in which they enable the user to recharge his/her mobile phone for free. For every recharge done on Freecharge, there are discount coupons provided of the equivalent amount to the users. The discount coupons are primarily of top Indian food joints and retailers. The contact details of the users are taken during the recharge stage and the cupons are delivered at their doorstep. These coupons provide exciting offers and discounts on some of the most prolific food joints like Dominos, Pizza Hut, Cafe Coffee Day, Shoppers Stop, CrossWord to name a few.
The complete list is given in Exhibit 1. Target Group: Freecharge’s business model has a very wide appeal in terms of demography, but if we have to narrow it down, the main customer segments are young students, office going people who use prepaid mobile network services, are net savvy and carry a credit card or debit card. This gives a pretty strong base of customers for freecharge to explore and offer its services. The major telecom partners for whose prepaid connection recharge can be done on this website are listed in Exhibit 2. Process:
Enter the details of your number and tariff according to the service provider At the same time you can pick up the coupon of the same amount and of the retailer/ food outlet of your choice. Go through the regular process of online payment through secured gateway The delivery of the coupons at your doorstep is taken care by the freecharge team at no additional expense to the customer. Over the past one year, freecharge has garnered great success with this simple yet effective model. It is a new line of business and freecharge has plans ot scale up the entire operations to make it bigger and reach a larger number of people.
The current statistics about freecharge are given in Exhibit 3. Issues: As Raman sips through his coffee, he also ponders over few of the areas of the business that needs instant attention and would require brainstorming by his team as far as the feasibility goes. The following areas are at the top of his mind: 1) A complete SWOT analysis of freecharge analyzing the potential revenue streams that can be looked into, the possible deals (retailers and service partners) that can be ventured and the various channels that can be explored to expand the service.
Freecharge has already tied up with D2H services as well as a logical extension of its business. 2) Understand and analyze the feasibility of Physical Coupons that freecharge offers to the doorsteps of the customers. Is there a way by which this system can be improved and made more efficient? 3) There is also an issue of proper tracking of redemption of this coupons and keeping a robust monitoring system to find out the business generated by this coupons in the retail partner stores. Raman would like to get your ideas over these three issues and would like you to help him out in coming up with optimal solutions for them.
So put on your thinking caps, don your entrepreneurial coats and take out your marketing wands. Exhibit 1: Exhibit 2: Exhibit 3: Freecharge went live on August 15th, 2010 • 1 million+ unique registered users in 11 months • 100,000+ Facebook fans • Alexa India rank: 384 • No advertising to date • Dispatches 20,000 couriers daily, pan India. Guidelines: 1) Every team can have max 2 members, currently pursuing Post Graduation in Management. 2) All the members of the team should be from the same college. 3) More than one team can participate from the same college. ) The contestants need to submit their entries in a Word document titled: BuzzCase_TeamName_CollegeName before November 23rd, 2011 end of day at njm@nmims. org 5) The contestants need to corroborate their strategies with a primary survey with a sample of 50 people. The excel sheet of the primary survey results and the questionnaire should be attached with the solution entry. 6) For any other queries, contact Krishnakant Jonnalgadda: 9975043898 or write to us at krishnakant. jonnalgadda@nmims. edu& Presents A Live Case Study Competition
Sitting on his desk, sipping a cup of hot coffee, Raman looked back at the last one year which has been nothing short of sheer excitement and tremendous opportunities for Freecharge. in, an ecommerce portal, that has redefined the way business was done in India. One year old into its business, Freecharge was sitting on a huge consumer base of 1 million+ unique users in the last one year, an enviable achievement for any organization which is just one year old in its operations. Introduction: Freecharge. in is a business unit of Accelyst Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
It started its operations on August 15, 2010 and worked on a unique business model in which they enable the user to recharge his/her mobile phone for free. For every recharge done on Freecharge, there are discount coupons provided of the equivalent amount to the users. The discount coupons are primarily of top Indian food joints and retailers. The contact details of the users are taken during the recharge stage and the cupons are delivered at their doorstep. These coupons provide exciting offers and discounts on some of the most prolific food joints like Dominos, Pizza Hut, Cafe Coffee Day, Shoppers Stop, CrossWord to name a few.
The complete list is given in Exhibit 1. Target Group: Freecharge’s business model has a very wide appeal in terms of demography, but if we have to narrow it down, the main customer segments are young students, office going people who use prepaid mobile network services, are net savvy and carry a credit card or debit card. This gives a pretty strong base of customers for freecharge to explore and offer its services. The major telecom partners for whose prepaid connection recharge can be done on this website are listed in Exhibit 2. Process:
Enter the details of your number and tariff according to the service provider At the same time you can pick up the coupon of the same amount and of the retailer/ food outlet of your choice. Go through the regular process of online payment through secured gateway The delivery of the coupons at your doorstep is taken care by the freecharge team at no additional expense to the customer. Over the past one year, freecharge has garnered great success with this simple yet effective model. It is a new line of business and freecharge has plans ot scale up the entire operations to make it bigger and reach a larger number of people.
The current statistics about freecharge are given in Exhibit 3. Issues: As Raman sips through his coffee, he also ponders over few of the areas of the business that needs instant attention and would require brainstorming by his team as far as the feasibility goes. The following areas are at the top of his mind: 1) A complete SWOT analysis of freecharge analyzing the potential revenue streams that can be looked into, the possible deals (retailers and service partners) that can be ventured and the various channels that can be explored to expand the service.
Freecharge has already tied up with D2H services as well as a logical extension of its business. 2) Understand and analyze the feasibility of Physical Coupons that freecharge offers to the doorsteps of the customers. Is there a way by which this system can be improved and made more efficient? 3) There is also an issue of proper tracking of redemption of this coupons and keeping a robust monitoring system to find out the business generated by this coupons in the retail partner stores. Raman would like to get your ideas over these three issues and would like you to help him out in coming up with optimal solutions for them.
So put on your thinking caps, don your entrepreneurial coats and take out your marketing wands. Exhibit 1: Exhibit 2: Exhibit 3: Freecharge went live on August 15th, 2010 • 1 million+ unique registered users in 11 months • 100,000+ Facebook fans • Alexa India rank: 384 • No advertising to date • Dispatches 20,000 couriers daily, pan India. Guidelines: 1) Every team can have max 2 members, currently pursuing Post Graduation in Management. 2) All the members of the team should be from the same college. ) More than one team can participate from the same college. 4) The contestants need to submit their entries in a Word document titled: BuzzCase_TeamName_CollegeName before November 23rd, 2011 end of day at njm@nmims. org 5) The contestants need to corroborate their strategies with a primary survey with a sample of 50 people. The excel sheet of the primary survey results and the questionnaire should be attached with the solution entry. 6) For any other queries, contact Krishnakant Jonnalgadda: 9975043898 or write to us at krishnakant. jonnalgadda@nmims. edu
