SUMMER INTERNSHIP REPORT

ON

“APPSCOOK
TECHNOLOGIES”

Submitted to
RAJAGIRI COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES (AUTONOMOUS)

Affiliated to Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam

In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirement for the Award of

MASTERS DEGREE IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (2022-2024)

Under the guidance of

Mr.Deepak Babu

Submitted By Derry James

Reg. No: b3074

RAJAGIRI VALLEY
KAKKANAD, KOCHI – 39

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 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the Summer Internship Report titled APPSCOOK

TECHNOLOGIES has been carried out by Derry James, II Semester MBA student,
in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Master of Business Administration (MBA)
programme offered by the college during 2022-2024. This is a bonafide report of the
work done by the student under the supervision of the project guide.

However, this certificate is not issued to endorse the views and opinions expressed in
the report.

Mr.Deepak Babu Fr.(Dr.) Saju M.D

Project Guide Principal

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CERTIFICATE FROM THE COMPANY

3
 DECLARATION

I, Derry James hereby declare that the report entitled “APPSCOOK

TECHNOLOGIES” is a bonafide record of the internship done by me during the

period from 3rd May 2023 to June 24th 2023 as a part of my MBA programme at
Rajagiri College of Social Sciences (Autonomous), Kochi, Kerala.

The study has been prepared in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award
of the Master’s Degree in Business Administration during 2022-24.

I also declare that this report has not been submitted in full or part thereof, to any
university or institutions for the award of any degree or diploma and that the
plagiarism reported in this study is within the acceptable level prescribed by the
Institution

Place: Cochin Signature

Date :30/07/20232

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank Dr. (Fr) Saju M.D., Principal, Rajagiri College of
Social Sciences, for the support and encouragement throughout my study in
Master’s Degree in Business Administration.

I would like to express my profound gratitude to all those who have been
instrumental in preparation of my internship report. I wish to place my deep
gratitude to my guide Mr. Deepak Babu, for the guidance and
encouragement offered to me on the making of this report.

Lastly I would like to thank God, my parents, and friends for their constant
support and help.

Derry James.

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 CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ……………………………………………07

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………...….10

INDUSTRY PROFILE…………………………………………………….09

COMPANY PROFILE…………………………………………………….22

VISION AND MISSION…………………………………………………..24

CORPORATE OFFICE…………………………………………………...26

CAPITAL STRUCTURE………………………………………………….26

BUSINESS TURNOVER. ………………………………………………...27

ORGANIZATIONAL HIERARCHY…………………………………….27

PRODUCTS………………………………………………………………..29

SERVICES…………………………………………………………………32

FUNCTIONAL DEPARTMENTS………………………………………..33

SWOT ANALYSIS…………………………………………………………36

ROUTINE WORK. ………………………………………………………..39

TIME DURATION OF THE WORK…………………………………….49

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………….50

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The organizational research was conducted as a part of Rajagiri Business School Kakkanad's
Master of Business Administration curriculum. The project was carried out at Appscook
Technologies Pvt. in May and June 2023. I had the chance to work as a sales and marketing
intern when I was working there.

Appscook created School ERP Plus, a piece of software for effective school administration. My
goal was to effectively recruit 100 educational institutions in Bangalore as clients for my
business by visiting them. The assignment was to demonstrate the software's usability and
usefulness to the school administration in order to increase sales. The product's current rivals
were found through a thorough examination of the market.

To increase the sales of the product and advertise School ERP Plus to various schools in
Bangalore, routine chores were carried out in the Bangalore Region.

The project gave us useful understanding of the many marketing functions. The firm profile,
SWOT analysis, and purchasing driver analysis are all included in the study. During my
internship at Appscook, I learned a lot about the numerous tasks carried out by the marketing
team, including maintaining partnerships with outside vendors and ensuring that staff at various
branches in India receive excellent services.

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 SECTION 1
Profile Study of the Organization

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 INTRODUCTION
In the present landscapes of fast-paced lifestyles and work culture, gaining a bit of experience
has become very crucial to absorb as much knowledge and know-how of the way things are in
the modern workplace. What we didn’t learn much in school is to navigate through a route to
maximize productivity using tech. Today the technical wave has certainly become a necessity for
any organization to assist the workforce and help them get as much work done in a short span of
time. And being an intern at a firm that develops and sells such pieces of tech such as an ERP
system, especially to the school domain was eye-opening in various ways. The accelerated
potential of any institution or organization post implementation of an ERP System identified
through market interaction during a sales campaign brought in a wealth of knowledge. This is the
final report on the summer Internship Programme at Appscook Technologies which includes
organizational study and routine work.

INDUSTRY PROFILE

Software in simple terms can be mentioned as the soul of the technological wave. Every business
that uses technology for its day-to-day operations has a software functioning in hindsight. The
software industry is a subset of the overall technological umbrella and has a lot of
diversifications within it and it is a very promising industry to bet on considering the fact that
global spending on IT is expected to be around 4.67 trillion USD in 2023 and the software
industry’s growth is relative to the overall IT industry. The main players in the field of software
include Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and many others. Most of these companies are home to the top
tech hub on the planet, Silicon Valley, and also have established their presence in similar
ecosystems such as Bengaluru, Karnataka taking advantage of the best quality codes written at
reduced costs. Today we have a number of classifications in the software field. The main
classifications are System software, Utility software, and Application software that mostly run on
computing devices. Software development and implementation on an average costs between
150,000 USD to 300,000 USD in the US for a mid-sized business which is comparatively higher
than the costs in India. But many reports and studies state that the overall figures of performance
and productivity indexes are high and satisfactory for the businesses and that stands as the major

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reason for adaptation of a software culture over traditional resource planning approaches or fears
of missing out. Reports state that 95% of the top well-known business across the world use and
implement ERP software and 88% of the businesses consider it as a massive success. ERP
remains one of the top most demanded types of software in the world. And within the big variety
of variants of ERP software is the School Management systems also known as School ERP
which is grabbing the spotlight among educational institutions.

Educational ERP Systems

The school ERP which is synonymous with “School Management Systems” is a Software
developed and curated to meet the needs of authorities who are mostly indulged in administrative
work. Moreover, it stands as a bridge that connects all the stakeholders of the school ranging
from parents to teachers to the management. Every task involving data recording to
communication of information can be done on a school ERP system thereby creating a seamless
flow of communication among all the stakeholders. Repetitive tasks usually done on paper such
as admission records, attendance marking report cards, and certificate generation and payroll are
done on ERP systems which have now saved a ton of cost and space. The proper records
pertaining to data entry of various causes create a well-organized set of data that can be used for
hassle-free information extraction at the will of the user at any desired time. In addition to proper
records, the ERP systems have the added advantage of security and timely backups which
remains a major relief to the stressor for the staff over data loss and long time data record
procurement. Portions and syllabi irrespective of the educational boards can be properly
structured and be made available to the students, teachers, and management so that a lot of
confusion and uncertainties can be avoided. Principals can have an overall glance at the portions
and progress of the completion of portions and other tasks through bespoke dashboards. Today
the developers behind the ERP are getting more creative and innovative to reduce the burden and
concerns faced by the stakeholder of an educational institution with out-of-the-box features that
makes them mutually stand out from the rest. Features like Live bus tracking are developed for
the parents and principals to have surveillance of discipline and safety of the students. Appscook
Technologies has taken the forefront initiative to innovate toward a better solution in this field
since its incorporation.

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Market size.

The global size of the Software industry is estimated at a value of 408.2 billion USD in 2023 and
has a forecast CAGR of 11.7% from the period of 2023 to 2030. It is expected to reach a
valuation close to 800 Billion USD by the end of the year 2030. Whereas in India the software
industry is estimated to reach around 8.44 billion USD with a projected growth rate of 11.30%
until 2028. Enterprise software such as ERP systems continues to be in demand. And the market
size for ERP software globally is 187.88 billion growing at a CAGR of 12.3%. Within the big
ERP market exists the School ERP Systems which has a global market size of 13 billion USD
growing at a CAGR of 6.16%. In India, the School ERP systems are expected to reach a
valuation of 18.82 Billion USD with an impressive CAGR of 16.2% Notably India is a very fast-
growing market for Software and ERP’s. It goes on to predict that schools are enthusiastically
onboarding the ERP wave and that will make significant contributions to the global market over
time. It is very much an agreeable fact to witness such big numbers taking into account various
theories such as Moore’s law which is that “computing power will double every year”. But even
in such a promising industry the risk of less availability of microchips and semiconductors
circulating in the market still remains a concern for the industry’s growth.

Number of players.

The top players are well-known names in the corporate field bringing in massive contributions to
the market with their innovations. The Indian Market drew great inspiration from the global
markets and is now globally recognized for the bright innovations and contributions brought into
the market. The global players are setting up their offices in the Indian market to benefit from
quality codes written under reduced costs the Indian market now has its own players doing the
same by shipping IT products to the international markets and a cheap rate. The global
recognition of India being the “Tech Backbone of the world” goes on to say the immense
potential of human resources is going to put the country in the superpower spotlight. Companies
like Infosys, Tata Consultancies (TCS), HCL Technologies Tech Mahindra, etc are at the

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forefront of establishing the name and fame of the country. They are also known to offer good
pay structures and also recruit a good number of freshers each year.

Narrowing down to the Main players in the Educational ERP system developers there are many.
A few of them have an established presence in the market with an average of 10-plus years of
experience. Appscook Technologies is one among the few. And also due to few entry barriers and
Governmental regulations that favor new startups, there are new new players entering the
market. Broadly categorizing the existing players and encountered players during the sales
campaign, the list is as follows.

Top Educational Institutions ERP Companies in India

School Canvas
Well Established

Fedena

Entab

Chanakya ERP

School knot

Edunext
Emergents

Zero ERP Education

CLOBAS

Digital School

Skolaro

School ERP

Open School

Web School ERP

Edisap School Management ERP

New

MAC EDMS

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Top Educational Institution ERP Companies Encountered.

G J Infotech

Experienced
Established &
Never Skip

Teach Mint

Entab

Emergents
My Classboard Educational Solutions

Sampoorna

Skool Beep

New
Sprinkleway

Self Developed ERP’s

Please note that the “encountered players” mentioned here are the companies that have already
been tied up with schools to which I visited to make a sale and also almost all of the above-
mentioned Companies develop a platform that is sold as a service to different schools. Only a
few companies partner up with institutions and develop bespoke software according to the needs
of schools. A little brief into the alias of the companies that were most encountered with.

MyClassBoard Solutions

➢ Headquartered in Telangana. Has most of the well-known International Schools under

their Clientele umbrella.
➢ Has their presence in many International School chains across the whole country.

➢ Mostly found in schools in the area of Bannerghatta, Banglore.

➢ USP’s Include Data Visualizations and Announcement Module and Highly customizable
UiUx as per the school requirements.

➢ Rating’s on Play Store range from 3.2 to 4.5 stars.

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GJ Info Tech

➢ Started on 20 July 2001

➢ Headquarters at Ernakulam

➢ Software publishing, consultancy, and supply

➢ The client base is more than 1200 schools

Teachmint

➢ Headquartered in Sarjapur Bangalore.

➢ Known as an “LMS” System platform. Provides most of the services as we do.

➢ Has received a lot of recognition and Awards. Has a good social media presence.

➢ USP – Good Ui/Ux. Better Visualization of data. Structured lessons and plans

➢ Weakness – No school-branded app.

➢ Has a rating of 4.4 stars in Play Store.

Never Skip

➢ Has a presence across almost all of the states in India.

➢ Well-established presence.

➢ Has Bus tracking feature with GPS device and CCTV monitoring.

➢ 4.2 / 5 ratings and 1 Million Downloads on cross platforms

Interfirm behavior.

Generally, in the software industry, we see a lot of collaborations and outsourcing of work
between firms when it comes to the development of a product. For example, taking up a

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complete project of developing a web application which is a cloud-based software, the company
taking up the project would have complete authority of developing the project. But sometimes
due to the lack of resources like time and workforce or expertise, the project manager of the
company gets in touch with another firm that has the resources and expertise for that matter and
delegates the work until the work is done. Things like the backend alone will be outsourced to
another company for the build. And the main company which takes up the project will be
responsible for coordinating and guiding the project towards finishing and shipping the product.
This kind of work culture is often seen in construction companies where the main building will
be done by the undertaker and things like modular kitchen building and inter designing will be
outsourced to other firms who are experts and have the know-how to complete the piece of work.

But this is applicable to software firms who are solely in the business of building and developing
the product with a B2B background i.e. They do the work mostly for a business client who
requested a bespoke build. And this client will use the product for their business. However,
clients in the Educational ERP sector will do the build of the product and also do the sales and
marketing of the product. Most of the time the company building the ERP will have its own
development team and a Sales & Marketing team. They will build and sell the product to schools
rather than build and ship it.

So the companies in this field exhibit behaviors of rivalry. There is no collaboration between the
companies under the Educational ERP Systems sector. Everything is done by a single company.
The reason for less collaboration in the field is that when a client (a school) requests company A
to collaborate with another company B providing the ERP because a particular feature was not
present in ERP A then in the long run company B will eventually try to push out Company A by
building a better features on their product for the client. The ERP companies have their own USP
and in the long run, the client will feel as if there is only a requirement of one ERP rather than
multiple ERP and they will opt out of the other firm.

Some companies find their market in specific geographies such as focusing on a single state or a
particular region such as South India alone. These companies mainly compete with the
competitors in the above-mentioned geographic. Some companies target specific Chains of
schools whereas some companies target geographics on a national and international level.
Generally, the competition will be intense in companies focusing on a specific area, and on the

15
other hand, companies that go on national and international levels face less competition. The
reason is the number of established players with scaled and successful businesses in the field is
less in number.

Pricing strategy.

The pricing strategy followed by the companies in this market is known as “User Count pricing”.
This model involves charging customers based on the number of seats, or users, they have on
their account. Many SaaS companies use this model. Customers are charged a base rate per
month for each user account.

The pricing followed in the Institutional ERP providers is mostly a fixed amount per student plus
GST per year. For example 215rs per student + GST per year. There are other pricing methods
followed by the companies where they charge the institutions based on modules required as per
the needs of the institution. There will be a fee that will be fixed per module implementation. The
more the modules are, the more the overall amount will be. But companies used to follow such
trends 3-4 years back today the most common pricing strategy found is the per student per year
pricing. This is preferred because the profit margins will depend on the number of students in the
institution. The more the number of students in the institution more the profit margins will be.

There is also a hybrid type of pricing that exists which is package based. The basic package will
be delivered on a per student per year basis with the adequate features necessary to do the
administrative tasks through the ERP ecosystem. Examples like a mobile app for the parent and
an administrative backend dashboard with the communication feature and fee collection feature
will include as a standard requirement in the basic package. Then there will be a premium or a
platinum package where extra features that will be of convenience and benefits are included and
they will have a slightly higher prices per student per year than the basic package.

An other version of this pricing (which is followed in the company I worked in) is that the basic
package is the main package which includes all the necessary modules and a few added benefits.
A fixed per student per year price will be the amount. Any extra features that are to be
implemented on request by the school then that will be done and the price per student will be
increased. For example in addition to all the features in the main package, some schools in

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Bangalore sends out daily newsletters about the events happened in the school on a monthly
basis. So the schools requested to implement a “newsletter” module on the parent app where
parents can read the newsletter right from the mobile app itself. That was implemented and the
school was charged an extra amount for the module implementation. Whereas if this module is
requested by a lot of schools and the company feels that it is an adequate requirement then no
extra charges will be charged. This type of pricing is a kind of penetration pricing strategy that is
mostly seen in the Educational ERP System market because attractive prices quoted with a
psychological pricing approach is pitched onto the school management executives. Once the
school purchases the service at an attractive price and later on feels the need of extra features
necessary for their institution, then the firms will charge extra amount for the service. They
follow a trojan horse approach where the firm enters the host with an attractive price and slowly
increases the price due to the various necessities the school would require in the future post
purchase and implementation. Revisability or change management becomes a hard task for the
institution and as a result the school agrees to continue with the service provider itself agreeing
to pay the amounts quoted by the ERP company.

Nature of Demand

The Demand for Institutional ERP systems in the educational sphere is very prevalent. It hasn’t
reached full or Over-full demand but still, it’s significant. There are educational institutions that
still prefer traditional ways of school management where they prefer more of a human
involvement and emotions. But still with the adaptability of technology by almost all industries
and institutions it has become necessary to consider ERP systems. Due to various factors such as
efficiency, improved productivity and more cost-cutting it’s right to say that there is a Growing
Demand for Educational ERP Systems in the Educational Institution market.

The demand is mostly seen in schools with a well-established presence. It comes to a point
where schools that cross a big number of student count anywhere from 800 onwards prefer to
have an ERP ecosystem where they can manage the big data with ease. The two-way
communication too is done through the ERP system to the parents via the mobile application
where the parent interacts. Most of the new startup schools and the New generation emergent
schools also see an ERP system as a necessity for their day-to-day operations. If we look at the
17
demand from the school’s curriculum point of view we can see that most of the demand comes
from CBSE to ICSE schools. State schools usually don’t prefer such an ecosystem because they
already have a system from the government that they already have to interact with. And most of
the parents who send their wards to a State school wouldn’t have the necessary tools and know-
hows to use an ERP system’s advantage. Speaking from the experiences of the sales campaign
there were several state schools that raised the concern of parents being illiterate and
unaffordability of “smartphones”. Yet there are State schools that use the ERP ecosystems for
their own reasons along with other big schools

Cost cutting is a major benefit of the implementation of ERP systems as it is very much desired
to lower the operation costs of any business or organization. ERP implementation plays a key
role in reducing the costs significantly. The incurred cost and the maintenance cost combined
will override the benefits of hiring an average employee. Various ways in which a company has
to spend to hire and maintain an employee can be reduced with the help of software and tech.

Improved productivity is yet another important factor and benefit of ERP implementation. ERPs
are designed to make repetitive tasks done with ease and fast. The User experience in the user
interface is crafted in the most ergonomic manner such that everything that is required to
complete a task is displayed within the user face such that an employee has everything he/she
needs within reach. This reduces stress and gets any task done with less effort. The employee
doesn’t have to roam around to get approvals and documents but instead gets everything within a
single platform that is accessible to different authorities on the basis of hierarchy. An important
feature of an ERP system is that it’s a platform in which data collected is stored in a seamless
manner which makes any employee stay professionally organized. This helps the employee
procure any important data or document within a short span of time with reduced confusion and
haste. This also helps in making faster decisions based on well-organized information obtained
from timely data.

With such a well-constructed module which saves time and effort, the employee becomes more
productive and efficient in getting things done in the shortest time possible. Time saved will
result in more time available for employees to do challenging tasks which involves more brain
work.

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All of the above merits would most likely create a growing demand for the ERP and today with
their implementation of Artificial Intelligence into the systems, more and more repetitive
complex tasks will be automated and finished within seconds, and that too at comparatively
reduced operational costs in the long run. This is certainly going to create a good demand for the
product in the upcoming years.

Nature of supply

With a variety of schemes and favorable regulations from the Indian government for startups
every year a number of startups emerge and a lot of them are tech and IT-based backgrounds. It’s
certain that the situations are similar in the ERP Industry, especially the Educational ERP system.
As a result, new players enter the market to supply the requirements with clean codes and well-
developed products. There are a number of suppliers for the Educational Institutions for ERP
systems today and it is almost nearing to a saturated level. The suppliers are exceeding in a
market with a growth demand. Multi-National Companies are already aceing the game of
software and IT products and even well-established companies can enter the market with their
name and expertise to supply even better ERP’s than the existing ones. The competition is quite
tough in this market.

Mainly there are two disciplines that are involved in the production of a software project and that
is the Software Developers and the Product Management. There is a third party involved and that
is a consultant who states the requirements of the product for a market he/she has found. It could
also be a person working in a field who wants to automate repetitive tasks and as a result,
collaborates with the software development team to manifest the idea of the software into reality.
The most important team is the set of Software developers. Software developers, Software
architects, and Testers are all involved in this team to code the product into a minimum viable
product.

This is then shown to the client as a demo to see if the idea is in sync with the coded product. It
goes through multiple iterations to finally ship out the product. The Software development team
must have a thorough knowledge of the various languages and approaches in building the
software. In a country like India, the skills are abundant and are available at a low cost. Hence

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the issue of lack of resources doesn’t concern that much. The manager is responsible for building
a team effort and coordination. He/she happens good at communicating just like the software
developer and has thorough knowledge of the different approaches and strategies in building the
software such as managing the project through a waterfall model, Big Bang model, or an Agile
model. The agile model is usually followed and is more efficient in managing iterations and
changes in the software build. Agile methodology is basically a divide-and-conquer strategy
where the software is divided into various phases and is completed in sprints which is a duration
of one to two weeks. In the sprints, the software is tested and iterated as per the client’s
requirements. Once the phase is completed then the team moves on to the next phase until the
entire software build is completed.

Challenges in the Industry.

Quality Human Resources.

As previously mentioned about the fact that India has become the tech backbone of the world
with a lot of available skills, the problem is that the resources (the developers) lack experience
when they are exposed to challenging or new environments. It generally takes a lot of time to
understand the need and through multiple trials and errors is how the product comes to a
shipping stage. The basics of learning the core competencies and skills are available to an
individual with an internet connection. Learning the new languages used in developing a product
has become very available for anyone who aspires to get into a software development career but,
that is only going to give a basic idea and it’s only a scratch on the surface. There are a lot of
things that need to be learned the way down and only with a little experience will you be able to
develop the product with minimum resources. Just some scratch knowledge about languages and
approaches wouldn’t be sufficient in a workplace with a serious project at hand where there is
room for less error.

Increased Competition

Due to the entrance of new firms in the Educational ERP space it has become difficult for
companies to survive in the field. The governmental regulations which favor the entrance of new
startups have made it difficult for the existing firms to survive and therefore have little room for

20
error and reputation-ruining activities. The only way to survive is to build solid trust and
relationships with existing clients.

Change management

The problem for new players in the market is to convince the school authorities on how good
their software is to change from the existing software to a new one. It’s usually a tedious task to
change from an existing software because the users using the service already have been well
acquainted with the usage of the software and introducing a new software might be difficult for
some folks to adjust to the new ways. Sometimes even convincing the administrator and the
parents to shift to a new platform becomes a tedious process.

Illiteracy and Affordability

A common problem that was encountered during the sales campaign. There are a few schools
with good name and fame in a particular region. The school is running successfully with a lot of
students queuing up for admissions resulting in a lot of admissions waiting for the school. But
the problem is that the parents (who are one of the main users) are either illiterate or they
couldn’t afford smartphones. This is a major problem not just in Bangalore but in many other
states in India. As a result, the ERP software cannot be completely implemented because the
parents are also an important user in the ERP ecosystem. Their inputs are important for data
sorting and storing. It has been a very surprising fact that there are modern parents of toddlers in
today’s world who still cannot read and write.

USP’s

Unique Selling Propositions or USP’s plays a key role in differentiating a product from the rest
of the crowd. USP’s itself are enough to create a monopolistic market for its own and
unfortunately, that is less in the IT market and very much in the ERP market. Recent news stated
that a similar platform to Twitter called “threads” was developed by Meta Inc. The recent star in
the social media “Club House” had a small clone in twitter known as “Spaces” where people can
host new topics to have a live debate on. Similarly, the “Stories” on Instagram, the “Status” on
WhatsApp were all adopted from the Idea of the famous Social Media among Gen Z – Snapchat.

21
All these examples goes on to say that copying is quite legal in the IT Business especially the
software business and ERP’s are no exception. Many of the school ERP providers used to have
either one or more UPS such as Bus tracking, and School Branded Logo mobile application but
today any firm in the market are free to make a similar copy of the feature which is a USP for an
other firm.

COMPANY PROFILE

INCORPORATION AND HISTORY

The idea of developing a platform where the communication of official information from an
educational institution to the stakeholders of the organization especially the children was an
after-effect of a parent struggling to get clarity on the information because of the absence of his
ward due to some inconvenient reasons. Dr. Jayan Joseph took the initiative of building such a
platform to establish a proper communication channel between the management and the parents
of the school so that all of the information related to academics alone were to be properly
communicated. Along the way, he also discovered the need for parents properly being informed
about the live locations of the bus because of frequent traffic in the city and rare cases of
breakdown. Also, parents who run late to catch the bus due to various reasons for delay could
also benefit from timely and live information on the location of the bus along the route of
transport. The challenge for the implementation of the idea was that the smartphone evolution
was only at the start phase and also the availability of such phones was not as wide as seen today.
Most people who used phones to communicate did not have a smartphone at hand. Even though
touchscreen phones were in the hands of the masses they still did not have the extended tech
conveniences as smartphones today.

So the implementation had a lot of limitations. This was solved with the implementation of the
send messages to a number to receive alerts feature, A feature which was very commonly seen
and utilized by the reality singing competition T.V show Idea Star Singer where the T.V show

22
interacted with the fans to get their skin too in the game to boost engagements for the show
which is one of the major reason for the show’s success. Here all the parent had to do was to text
a certain code to a provided number from the school and as a result, a text message will appear
with the last departed location to the mobile phone. This way the parent can know about the live
location which was a major convenience by innovation. With the Minimum viable product
comprised of a message communication platform about academics and bus tracking information.,
the first-ever product of Appscook technologies came into existence. Dr. Jayan Joseph put
together a team of developers and a sales team to cater the service to various schools and the
project took off to a successful start.

The company was officially Incorporated in 2013 and has made a remarkable presence in the
Educational ERP sector. Ever since the Minimum Viable product was launched the company was
able to gauge the interest of many Educational Institutions in K-12 category and was able to gain
many insights from various concerns and requests made by the existing customer base. With the
insights gained from experience over the years, the company gradually made changes to the
Minimum Viable product and then was able to make a transformation into a fully-fledged
Educational ERP system with a variety of features.

Going a little deeper into the unknown history, the platform was initially developed with a group
Airtech Developers with the collaboration of Dr. Jayan Himself. The product then failed under
the management of both parties and thus was completely bought out by Dr. Jayan Himself. Then
Appscook Technologies was officially Incorporated with five founding members:

i. Dr. Jayan Joseph as the Managing Director and CEO

ii. Mrs. Divya as the key developer

iii. Mr. Soora

iv. Mr. Nidhun

v. Mr. Febin

Dr. Jayan plays the protagonist role in the leadership of the team where every job blueprint is
designed and directed by him. Especially the sales part where he has relevant knowledge and

23
experience in. The innovative ideas are discussed and implemented with the development team.
The cohesive bond is brought in by Dr. Jayan in order to move the entire workforce forward
according to his leadership styles and the work culture is a very important factor that he demands
perfection in.

Today the company is well known in the Education Industry across South India with
collaborations over 600 Schools in the entire country. The name “Smart School Diary” rings a
bell with many Educational K-12 Institutions across the country as it is the name by which the
famous developed ERP system functions in at various schools. The ownership pattern has
slightly changed across the period with a couple of employees at the bottom level back then now
has a significant equity in the company and is also responsible in the top level of decision-
making.

VISION AND MISSION STATEMENT

Vision/Core Purpose

To provide meaningful solutions to lead and inspire life

Mission/Core Values

i. Demand Excellence
ii. Responsive and Result Oriented
iii. Keep Relations for Life based on Their Values
iv. Creative and Progressive

Appscook Technologies is on a mission to see 10,000, 000 smiles by the year 2030 and is
strongly sticking to its mission by taking various actions. They make sure that both the parties
involved in the business have a pleasant experience and that is the employees as well as their
clients. This is in line with their third core value which is to maintain a good relationship with all

24
of their employees who are currently working with the organization as well as the employees
who have moved on to other companies or left the companies.

They establish a good relationship with all of their partners involved and even the interns who
have worked there. In fact in a way one of the main reasons for having the internship program
was to make the interns know about the good work culture at Appscook Technologies. The
notion of having a good work culture with true professionalism was established over the course
of the internship. They also maintain a good relationship with their clients also. Both the existing
clients and previous clients enjoy a good bond with the company. The company was able to win
the trust of their clients. This is very evident from the relationship and rapport they have with the
company and the employees. Some company even benefits from the liberty to get a level of tech
assistance from the company even after moving on to another platform.

The other three core values are also very visible throughout the daily operations and work
atmosphere. The demand of excellence is visible and very much evident through the daily stand
up meetings held at the end of the day (which the interns not a part of). The level of knowledge
the team had about the various aspects of their market and especially the sales clearly states the
need for demand of excellence. Only with such a level of excellence can the company and the
team move ahead and thrive in the stiff competitive market.

The results obtained from occasional meetings with the interns and regular meetings with the
employees prove the evidence of result oriented approach of Appscook Technologies. The
insights they get from the responses of the interns by interacting with the market is taken into
analysis and is evaluated based on their trial and error efforts. A few of the previously discussed
new tactics that were taught during the training days were evaluated and the positive results were
made aware to all other interns to follow a similar approach to get more results. This also shows
the creative side of the team where the previous experiences taught the company valuable lessons
and the creative approaches to make a sale or approach and convince a person or a decision
maker.

25
 CORPORATE OFFICE

The Corporate Office is situated inside a building called the Presidency Complex at Parayil Lane,
Poothole Road, Thrissur District. A very well-known landmark near the building happens to be
Jayalakshmi Silks. The Company has rented two spaces in the building at the Second floor of
the complex. One of the space is where the main office is with the staff and executives working
in the common place. The other space is two “shutters” away which happens to be known as the
“marketing room” This is where the Interns and sales team gets trained for the fieldwork. A few
years back the marketing room was leased out to another party because of less efforts into sales
efforts. But now it’s taken back for their own use. The office at Thrissur where the Interns
received the training is also the headquarters of the company.

NUMBER OF UNITS

Appscook Technologies has its main Headquarters in Thrissur and has a few Virtual Offices in
different locations. There is one Virtual Office in Bangalore and There is another in Kochi. The
company happens to have two Virtual offices along with a Head Quarters making it 3 Office
Units in total. The company has plans to set up an office in Kochi soon.

CAPITAL STRUCTURE.

As on 2018, Dr Jayan Joseph is CEO and Director of Appscook. Adv. Sony Jayan holds 90%
shares of the company. Dr Clemence and Dr Jacob own 5% shares in each of the firm. Appscook
have an authorized capital Rs 1,00,000. This information is as of 2018 reports. Today at the
present year the shareholding pattern has changed very much, especially with the introduction of
Employee stock options. Today one of the employees who used to work in the bottom-level
management is working as the Chief Operating Officer and has some equity in the company.

Initial investments state that there was an investment of 100,000 rupees into the company at the
beginning. The exact ratio of contribution is not exactly known. As per the information obtained
from sources which is not official, the business today owes around 2 crores back to Dr. Jayan
Joseph. Because of confidentiality, a detailed report of the investments and equity are not known.
26
 BUSINESS TURNOVER.

The exact figures of the turnover are not made available to the public. Most of the financial
information were not disclosed.

The Liquidity ratios and other important figures are not disclosed by the firm due to
confidentiality reasons.

ORGANIZATIONAL HIERARCHY

The organizational hierarchy has changed significantly since its inception. The organizational
hierarchy that was seen in 2018 is not what it is today. Various employees who were at the start
are now at the top level due to their excellence in their careers. Today the hierarchy can be
represented as follows.

27
It is very evident that the employees with greater potential gets promoted to higher positions of
responsibility. The company has various criteria of promoting the employees and getting a pay
raise.k

28
 1. The employees are promoted if they exhibit a good excellence in their career and show
the management that they are capable of taking things into their own hands and managing
them.
2. The employees get a pay raise if they acquire new skills such as certifications or a new
skill that is trending in the industry. It can be skills like learning a new programming
language or a new marketing tool. These types of pay raises can be seen mostly by the
tech team who uses technological skills.

Employee Strength

The company has a total of 30 employees working in various departments. The employees are
mostly working in the offices and only a few employees are outsourced for specific reasons. This
could be mostly from the development side.

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

PRODUCTS

School ERP Plus is a clever communication tool that unites the school, the parents, and the
students equally. It is a group of integrated programs that, as the name suggests, a school can use
to gather, organize, store, and analyze data from a variety of its activities. It makes it easier for
all parties involved like the management, the board of directors, the teaching facilities members
and non-teaching staff, and, of course, parents to exchange information. The ERP could be
accessible anytime from anywhere because it is a web application. This ERP system has been
used by approximately 600 schools across Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, and the whole
country since its launch in 2014, which is a very impressive accomplishment.

Given below is a short description of the three main divisions of the ERP together with the
associated modules:

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System for Resources Management in Schools (SRMS)

Some of the core features of this system, which will simplify back-office operations, are as
follows:

a) Fees management through connectivity with more than 53 banks.

b) Creating timetables and managing substitutions
c) Human Resource Management System (HRMS)
d) Tracking of School vehicles
e) Library and Books Management Module

LMS, or learning management system

It is a tool for managing, documenting, tracking, reporting, and delivering training programs or
educational courses. Teachers have the choice of logging in using a PC portal or a mobile
application called "Title Plus" provided by Appscook. The primary modules are as follows:

i. Student Attendance
ii. The CBSE (Uniform System of Assessment)
iii. Reporting to educational boards and submitting them
iv. Assignments and instructions
v. Daily reports
vi. Exam timetable creation

Parent Connect: "Better Relationship...Better Communication"

The main aim is to forge solid ties between the school and parents in order to create a promising
future for the pupils. This is managed through the “Parent Connect” mobile application, which
can be downloaded from the Play Store as well as the Appstore, and SMS text messages. These
are the main modules:

i. 108 regional languages are supported by the messaging system for students or
departments.
ii. Missing SMS and voice call

30
 iii. Vehicle breakdown notification system
iv. Photos and videos in the gallery
v. Leave application

Benefits:

- A single software that may be used throughout the entire school to manage all student-
related data. The administrator's job is made easier by this.
- More time to concentrate on strategic projects
- Parents have access to every academic data pertaining to their children. As a result, the
relationship between teachers and parents improves. Given the rise in the number of working
mothers, this is especially important.
- Parents can focus their vital time on giving their children the right direction and fostering
their academic greatness when they are regularly aware of their ward's performance.
- A school with strong performers and a modernized ERP system gains the respect of the
community.

Mobile Applications
In addition to the ERP system which is made available to the administrator who also controls it
there are stand alone mobile application and platforms which are tailored to different
stakeholders of the institutions. Some of them are

➢ Appscook Dean – A mobile application exclusive to the principle of the school. He would
have features such as student profle where the marks and fee structure and payment
history of individual students of his school. And also some profile on day to day activities
of the teachers.

➢ Appscook Bus tracking – A stand alone mobile application for the bus driver / Conductor.
The application runs on mobile and helps to share the live location of the bus at a
particular route. Also gives out alearts and SOS callouts just in cases of emergencies.
Also does the job of communication of bus timing changes etc.

31
 ➢ Appscook Tutor Plus – Another mobile application for teachers to interact with the
students and the ERP ecosystem. Here the attendance marking feature is made available
for teachers to mark attendance, send out daily reports on the activities done in class, give
information on homework and create exam timetables and portions. There is a desktop
version also of this product where the features are more in-depth and vast.

SERVICES

a. Website building

Companies now require custom web applications to achieve ease of use, accessibility, scalability,
and portability. Custom web applications are becoming in demand and are very popular in the
world. The site improvement division of Appscook complies with the client's requests in order to
provide creative solutions that meet their demands as a business.

b. Mobility

Mobile technology is viewed as a business enabler that can exceed client and staff expectations
for software usability and productivity. With a good variety of portable apps that serve a
seamless experience for both enterprise and consumer mobility, the Appscook mobile
applications business unit serves both enterprises and customers.

c.E-commerce

E-business expertise enables us to provide unique, mind-blowing arrangements that match our
customers' payment methods. The Appscook e-com group is reliant on the vast collective
knowledge of engineers and experts in financial exchange frames, as well as highly tailored
content management frameworks.

32
 FUNCTIONAL DEPARTMENTS

To become the forefront leaders of innovation in the software market, Appscook depends on its
people, expertise, and passion. These are its departments:

HR Department.

The Human Resources Department oversees the Resource Development Division's need for
labor. It embraces making plans for the future and determining how many employees the
company will require in the future and the kinds of skills they should have. Depending on the
following variables, it is done

• The number of employees leaving the job or attrition rate.

• The projected growth in sales of the business

• Technological changes

• Productivity level of the workers

• Communicate with prospective clients with an eye on business and resource requirements.

• Managing and organizing the activities for the roles defined

• Client relationship building and Follow-ups

• Coordinating the Resource Development activities, enabling business development

• Training and Development

The HR department is constantly keeping a watch over the employees of the organization. In
order to improve the efficiency level of the employees they have to undergo regular training and
development programs. All training and development needs are carried out by this department.
The department also suggests the employees to take up workshops from other experts in order to
keep up with what’s trending in the market.

33
Marketing Department

The marketing team is of utmost importance to the company. To increase sales, the company
increases spending in the marketing division. The establishment and management of company
development and sales operations is the primary responsibility. The major purpose is to meet
short- and long-term financial and corporate goals. Finding new business possibilities, whether
they be in new markets, new business connections, new channels for reaching existing
customers, or new product or service offerings that better serve the demands of existing markets,
is often the responsibility of a business development expert.

The latest addition to the marketing team is the digital marketing executives. Their primary focus
is on establishing a good prescience over the internet to create good first impressions.

Finance Department

Appscook Technologies' finance department is a standard feature of all businesses. There is only
one person who looks at the finances because it is a new company. There is help outsourced from
outside at times from a Chartered accountant. The principal financial choices are made by the
board of directors.

Technical Department

The software development division primarily focuses on creating enterprise-level apps as well as
developing cutting-edge and excellent applications. Their training department seeks to develop
future software engineers who can handle the daily rigors of software development. The
following are the areas where the team exhibits their excellence in.

FRONT END: ANGULAR JS, HTML 5, JAVA SCRIPT, J QUERY

BACK END: AMAZON AURORA

REPORTS: iText, Apache POI

FRAMEWORK: MVC and recently Dot. Net

34
SERVER: AMAZON EC2

JAVA EntSRMSrise Edition, Spring, Hibernate.

Future Plans.

The company still is on the direction to achieve it’s goal of seeing 10 crore smiles and is strictly
sticking to the path of collaborating with some of the best schools in the country. They are
scaling up the sales campaign. The company also plans to promote a good work culture in order
to attract new employees and expand its operations and set up new offices in hot spot locations.

Unique Selling Point

The SMART INTIMATION feature is one of the distinctive features offered by Appscook
technology in their ERP system. The SMART INTIMATION feature in an ERP is necessary so
that schools employing the ERP may notify parents even when there is no internet connection.
Despite being an online-based system, the ERP offered by Appscook allows schools to simply
send notifications to parents without an internet connection. As a result, the schools are able to
communicate information in case of emergencies like hartals and bandhs as well as after school
hours without having to physically visit the institution or register into the system.

The ”School Branded Application” currently stands out in the spotlight among the feature of the
unique features of the School ERP Plus system. This strategy was implemented to help the
schools in their marketing and branding of the school’s digital presence. Having a school-
branded mobile application creates a good perception among the public and the stakeholders.

And from a personal selling experience, it can be said that the pricing strategy of the service
itself is a very attractive feature of the Software.

35
 SWOT ANALYSIS

Strength

• Established Presence in the market.

• Innovative thinking backed with execution.

• More experience from multiple feedbacks.

• Good Operations and Supply Chain w.r.t Development

• Easy-to-use product UX

• Sponsorship

Weakness

• Not Updated.

• Poor Infrastructure and working spaces.

• Competitor analysis and knowledge.

• Lack of proper planning of resources.

• Lack of Market knowledge.

• Product Quality

Opportunities

• Crossing boundaries on a state and National Level.

• Finding out USP from the market situations

• Hostile takeover over a Franchise.

• More / Compulsive Adaptation towards technologies.

• New Startup Schools

36
Threats

• Competition from Similar firms and Custom bespoke software developing businesses.
Education Board platforms.

• Cross-platform regulations (iOS)

• Increased Privacy Sensitivity of Users.

37
SECTION - II
ROUTINE WORK.

38
The routine work executed during the entire internship program can be categorized into 6 parts
They are as follows:
1. Training Period :-
The training period was the first part of the Internship and the training was done mainly in two
locations. The first part of the training was mainly about sales and the entire process of sales. The
training was given by Dr. Jayan Joseph the CEO of the company and it was held at Angamaly at
the KIED (Kerala Infrastructure for Entrepreneurship and Development) building near the Telc
railway station. The training elaborated on important aspects of sales such as:

1. General Overview on Sales.

2. SPANCO Process
3. Burger Concept of Sales.
4. MAN Analysis.

The first part of the training lasted for four days and it happened along with the other interns
working at Appscook Technologies for their other product “Digikari”. These interns were from
Adi Shankara Management College.

The second part of the training was held at the Corporate Headquarters office at Poothole,
Thrissur. Here the resource persons were Mr. Bastin Tomy (Chief Operating Officer), Ms. Divya
Ranjith (Chief Information Officer), and Ms Anjana (Digital Marketing executive). The second
part of the training at the headquarters mainly focused on the following topics:

• Product training
• Sales
• Mock Roleplays of a School visit
• Competitor analysis
• Organization profile
The duration of the second part of training lasted for 5 days and on the last day, the allocation of
location was given to the interns. The location assigned to both of us was Bangalore, Karnataka.

39
We were asked to divide the place and cover areas in Bangalore. A little information was given to
us regarding accommodation possibilities and how to navigate easily through Bangalore.

3. Field Work

The fieldwork started two day after the training was finished. A day was given to go back to our
houses and pack the essentials for the internship. Our arrival at Bengaluru was at 14th May
Sunday at the morning and got in touch with some a few students who were already doing their
internship in Bengaluru to know about the possibilities of accommodation and the situations
there. A good accommodation was found to settle and the Sales field work began on 16th
Monday.

The routine work consisted of many tasks. Starting with:

• Deciding on a location to cover the schools in the locality. I mostly focused on covering
the schools on the outskirts of Bengaluru and My coworker covered the schools in Core
Bengaluru City. The locations I covered were places like Electronic City,
Bommasandara, Chandapura, Anekal, and Attibele which were away from the core city.
• Suspecting & Prospecting Process in SPANCO. Here before visiting the schools, we had
to do a background study of the schools. Things like the syllabus the school followed, the
number of students studying at the school, the availability of Mode of transportation.
Availability and Validity of any existing ERP system that is used by the school etc. All
this information was required to make a smooth sales pitch in order to identify “Burgers”
which is making the customer aware of the problem they’re facing and the solutions we
have to the problem.
It was made clear to target and visit schools only that satisfy the criteria of ICSE & CBSE
schools and a minimum count of 400 students. All of the information was obtained
through their respective websites. The schools in the locality of choice were found using
the help of Google Maps and a route that covers the maximum number of schools was
found out. On a daily basis, we were requested to cover at least three schools.

40
 • School Visit – The planned schools were visited and the main objective was to somehow
make it to the principals’ room by requesting security and the receptionists. Some schools
required appointments meanwhile other schools allowed visitors to meet the principals of
the Administrator or any other important decision-making executive.
Once the important person is met the pitching of the product happens wherein we either
tell about the benefits of having an ERP system implemented through “burger language”
or we pitch our product as the better product compare to the existing platform that they
use (which was mostly the case). The main objective was to convince the authority to
take up our product with the set of unique features. Also, we were assigned the task of
getting the contact details of the person whom we met.
• Post Visit – All details about the schools such as the number of students, the availability
of ERP systems, The availability of Transportation, the syllabus the school followed and
the contact details of the person whom I’ve met were all to be noted and recorded in an
Excel sheet. A diary was to be maintained journaling the rights and wrongs that happened
during the visit to schools.
• Follow-ups – This is only for the schools who showed an interest in the product. Every
conversation ended in an open-ended manner and we asked the executive if we could
follow up with them on a later date. The ones who showed an interest were kept in touch
a few days after the school visit to see if they had a second thought about the
implementation of our ERP system.

I covered a total of 70 plus schools through the school visit and Personal contacts. On a daily
basis an average of 5 km were travelled on foot and 15 km through public transport.

3. Teachers Training.

Teacher training was another task that was assigned during the fieldwork. This was a task which
involved giving the product training to the teachers at a school. We were asked to report at the
National Public School at Sarjapura, Bengaluru at 10:00 am. From there we were escorted to a
training room where all the teachers of the schools assembled. The training session started at

41
11:00 am where we explained about how the teachers could professionally stay organized using
an Educational ERP system. The ERP system is accessible to many stakeholders in the
organizations ranging from the parents, principal and even the non-teaching staff. It’s not only
restricted to the administrator. Only if the other parties use to interact with the ERP system will
the proper functioning of the ERP system happen. And each kind of stakeholder has its own
module.

Here for the teachers, there was a module designed and developed for them to interact with the
ERP system. Every module such as “attendance marking” “daily reports” and many other
features developed for the convenience of the teachers was trained to the teachers. The system
was already being used by the school for a few years and this training was sort of a brushing up
for the teachers who already use the software and a new experience for the new joiners in the
school. The training session ended with an interactive session where the personal doubts were
cleared on the spot for the teacher who had them and also a few suggestions regarding the
implementation of certain modules for better user experience. The suggestions were recorded and
informed to the supervisors. One of the objectives of the teachers’ training program was also to
get feedback on the product experience. The various suggestions were taken into consideration as
they are valuable inputs. There was a talk with head of the teacher’s department to get their
inputs as well.

4. Assistance for Sponsorship Event

Appscook is a company that maintains a healthy relationship with any parties that were involved
with them and the company has many contacts with many eminent organizations. Appscook
Technologies took the opportunity to strengthen the bond with one of their renowned client “The
St. Francis ICSE by sponsoring their most anticipated event the St. Francis Educational
Conclave. We were invited to the event and we were also involved in assisting the supervisors in
their promotional activities. The evaluation of the display video advertisement in between the
events and the volunteering, Assisting the guests who the company was involved with the
company and setting up the advertisements. The event ended with a dinner session.

42
5. Post-Implementation Support

This is a task that is not exactly like teachers’ training but shares similarities to some extent. This
task was assigned to us where we have to visit a newly converted school and give assistance and
support to the staff members using it. The new implementation can cause a lot of doubts and
uncertainties. We, interns, were asked to go to the new schools and get in touch with the
principal and the administrator who’s using the ERP system. All questions had to be answered
and any special features that were requested were to be recorded and informed to the supervisor.

We were asked to go back to Bangalore after the return from sales work and we had to visit a
newly started up school of NPS chain in Vidyanandapura in Bangalore. There we met up with the
principal and the administrator and had a brief discussion on the features present in the ERP
system. The principal also requested a lot of features that were not in the package and they were
recorded for the development team to work on. We were also asked to make a tutorial video for
the parents to use the app and that too was communicated with the marketing team.

6. Reporting and Feedback.

The reporting and catchup meeting on progress and situations of the market was communicated
officially through meetings. A total of two online meetings occurred during the field days. The
interns from all fields reported together and were briefed on their progress and situations in the
market. Feedback from both sides was exchanged for mutual benefits. And finally, after the field
works are done there was a final presentation where all the details of the field work were
properly presented to the executives at Appscook.

43
ACHIEVEMENTS ON COMPLETION OF THE WORK

After a total visit of 70+ Schools around Bengaluru, there were many takeaways from the work.

• I was able to generate an interest from 30 schools in the product

• From the 30 schools that were generated I was able to get a positive interest from 13
schools.
• I was able to take it to the level of Product demo from 4 schools where I showed the
demo of the product to the top-level management executives.
• I was able to convert 2 schools and the remaining schools are still in talks with and
hopefully will get converted with the help of an experienced professional.

Figure 2.1

44
Figure 2.2

Figure 3.3

45
LIMITATION OF WORK COMPLETION

The biggest limitation that stood as a barrier was the market timing. The interns went for the
sales campaign into the field work during the times when the academic year for the schools
ended. Students were at home for their summer holidays and teachers were almost done with the
remaining backend work in the schools and even they had some time off their work. So they too
were not present in the school campuses. Only a few faculties and staff were present in the
school premises. Most of the school executives in fact suggested that the best time to come to the
schools for such purposes was before December. The reason was that was the time when the
academic year is slowly coming towards the end period and the management executives would
have more time to meet the sales executives and would have enough time to think about the
implementation of the product or manage the change management from one platform to another.

Some school sees the value of the product but when it comes to the negotiation part, the school is
not willing to see it as an investment. The schools don’t take out money from their own pockets
to implement the product but charge extra fees from the student’s fees to purchase the product.
Most Schools said this as an excuse and the deal didn’t go through.

Another limitation of the completion of the work is getting through the security or the
receptionist. The front-line executives most often judge the book by the cover and as a result
barrs the sales executive from entering the campus to meet the principal. They are not willing to
even hear the potential benefits from the product mostly because they’re unaware about the
product’s Unique Selling Points and benefits.

Transportation was a major issue that remained as a limitation for work completion. The use of
Public Transport helped a lot but they only travel through the main highways and routes. Some
of the schools were far away from the main routes and the buses did not go anywhere near the
schools. As a result a few potential leads were not met. The sales pitch couldn’t happen because
of inaccessibility and this created difficulty in reaching good schools.

46
The less uptime was yet another limitation for the completion of work. The product once crashed
during the live demo and this resulted in a poor impression in front of the management
executives. Due to this issue the confidence levels were affected whenever a demo presentation
occurred keeping in mind the possibilities of failure.

LEARNINGS FROM THE WORK

1. Learned about the School ERP Market situations and conditions in Bangalore.
2. Importance of effective communication within a short span of time.
3. Gauging the interest within the short window timeframe to get more time.
4. Importance of planning before doing any work can save a lot of time and other important
resources.
5. Application of textbook and classroom knowledge in real-life workplace.
6. Consumer behavior when it comes to Educational ERP systems
7. Level of literacy among consumers of the product and their level of know-how’s when it
comes to technology adaptation.
8. Importance of rapport creation with people to gauge interest.
9. Various sales techniques that generate the right lead with less efforts and more planning
and knowledge.
10. Work cultures in different organizations.

AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE WORK FOR THE ORGANIZATION

• The areas for improvement were already suggested to the superiors during the final report
presentation. Some of the excerpts are mentioned below.
• The organization must have a better working space for their employees. Today there are a
number of studies relating to the increase in productivity when the surroundings are in a
good state. This has to be taken into consideration, especially for a company which is 10
years in the field. The company must have a better and bigger office for various
departments with proper lighting and better maintained surrounding with the necessary
facilities.

47
 • The company must know more about the limitations faced by the intern who is
inexperienced in the field and must give support for the initial days just to sail through
the storm.
• The company should be a little more aware of the needs of the customer. Of course, the
company started off with an innovative solution of establishing creative and ideal ways of
communication among the stakeholders of the organization but it is still in that old phase.
The company hasn’t moved from the old innovative stage to the new. The company must
know more about the pain points that is faced by the customer in the present scenarios
rather than the past.
• The company should also maintain their product well and prevent scenarios where the
crashing of the product happens. The uptime running time must be increased and
improved. Perhaps shifting to a better web server and the usage of better technology to
create the frontends will improve the product.
• More focus on improving the brand image and brand presence across multiple channels is
a must. The company is not even making it into the “consideration set” or an “evoking
set” of a customer. It is very essential for the company to create a brand personality and
good brand equity for the company because today that too plays an important role in
creating a good impression.

How routine work learnings can be incorporated as part of Organizational study?

There are a lot of takeaways for both parties in this Summer Internship program conducted by
Appscook Technologies. Here the above key learnings from the intern’s side is itself a valuable
input for the company. And the company too can benefit from training the interns. The company
plans to host another internship program in the future and the insights gained from the
experiences of the interns will be a great benefit for the company. The rights and wrongs can be
properly analyzed and be made aware of to the new interns joining the company so that they
make less room for mistakes and more room for productivity and overcoming challenges.

The company can think of and make strategies and Unique selling points with the information of
new potential players entering the Educational ERP space and can think of new ways to make

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their brand more stable and relevant. An improved work culture can facilitate better outcomes
and better maximization techniques of resources can lead to more output. The company can think
of the possibility of overcoming the challenges faced by the consumers and think of ways to
make their products more available to the masses so that they remain more profitable.

The daily commute is a big problem during the initial stages of the Internship. Traveling to
unknown locations in a city like Bangalore can be very puzzling at times. Lot of money will be
spent on commute, especially on cabs. The interns of newly appointed salesmen who are
covering areas of Bangalore which is a potential market can be made aware of the cheaper
alternatives and route planning techniques so that a lot of confusion and stress can be neglected.
This improves the productivity and the sales representative can visit more schools within a day.

Textbook and class knowledge become useless unless and until it’s being used in the workplace.
Work becomes more interesting when something that was learned is practically used in the real
life at work places. The resource persons can inculcate more textbook concepts that are taught in
classes to make the training sessions more interesting and memorable.

TIME DURATION OF THE WORK

The working time for the sales campaign took 6 days per week. The sales campaign which had
the process of visiting the schools were only for 5 working days that is Monday to Friday. Some
times on Saturday and that instance occurs only when a client requests a visit on a later date due
to their inconveniences. The client might be bus with certain duties on the working days but still
may show interest in the product and in such scenarios the visit will happen on Saturdays.
Otherwise Saturdays is usually for creating a weekly report of the visited schools and a general
planning for the next week’s visits. Sometimes on Saturdays the follow-up meeting and catchups
with the supervisor at the location itself will happen. Sundays are non-working days.

Please see the table next page.

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Responsibility Date Duration
Training Days May 5th to May 12th 8 Days
Fieldwork (sales) May 14th to June 22nd 7 weeks
Teachers Training June 4th 1 day
Office reporting June 24th to June 26th 3 days
Post Implementation Support June 27th to June 30th 3 days
Final Consolidated Presentation July 1st 1 day

BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://www.netsuite.com/portal/resource/articles/erp/erp-statistics.shtml

https://www.statista.com/statistics/605888/worldwide-enterprise-resource-planning-market-
forecast/

https://learn.g2.com/erp-statistics

https://truelist.co/blog/erp-statistics/

https://www.erpfocus.com/erp-cost-and-budget-guide.html

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