Word of Mouth Marketing

Word-of-mouth Marketing is the passing of information from person to person by oral

communication. Employing this marketing strategy Team NEC visits different colleges in various
cities and give presentations to students moreover NEC has launched a system of engaging student
representatives in respective colleges who not only promote NEC within their colleges but also
bridge the gap between NEC and students. This is the reason behind the increase in number of NEC
scholars from 15 to 100 in 2015. NEC plans to increase the number of colleges and representatives
therein to achieve more number of students in future. Student representatives are encouraged by
their scored points in return of each student they bring on board with NEC . These points will benefit
them in scholarship terms in future when they themselves will be applying for admission in any of
NEC knowledge partner universities.

Cause Marketing
Finding a causes both your customers and your company cares about can create magic for your
business. NEC has utilized this principle of cause marketing in terms of providing cause all their
knowledge partners donors and students care about. Knowledge partners gudents et cost effective
marketing of their degrees and programs , donors get satisfaction that their support is being utilize
by a registered and authentic body while students get surety of their future , a win win situation for
all under one roof .

Online and social media marketing

For online marketing, a popular mode of marketing now a days , NEC is working on development of
its website and advertisement on social networking websites such as Facebook , twitter and
Instagram. It also has a plan to develop a mobile application in future.

Event Marketing
NEC is planning to organize student orientations as events , properly advertised, to create a
marketing impact on target market.

Telemarketing
NEC is also utilizing telemarketing strategy in order to reach students and donors. It collects data of
potential donors and students then make phone calls to them in order to make them aware of the
project and get them on board for further collaborations. So far this strategy has yielded positive
results for NEC to get promoted and attain considerable output

Major Competitors
NEC is a relatively new concept in Pakistan so it has no direct competitors however it has
competitors in terms of providing scholarships to students and these include Gurmani Foundation ,
Al Khidmat Foundation , Care Foundation etc.

Success and Failure of Products

NEC is very successful effort until now however it has some limitations to reach to the maximum
output and these include its lack of expanded team and its not for profit nature of operations. In
order to attain maximum number of knowledge partner Universities, its nature of not for profit
organization creates hurdles since many universities are setup with profit generating motives.
NEC is very successful with the institutions that hold education first priority than profits
furthermore NEC needs expanded team in order to reach to the maximum cities and colleges.
The success so far came due to limited operational span with rightly calculated efforts to those
institutions which were already favorable for this kind of initiative , in order to expand the
number of institutions on board , NEC needs to launch some kind of attractive package for those
universities which hold profit generation as their motive.

Major HR Policies and Practices

At NEC , the role of the Human Resource Department is under supervision of Advisory Board they work to develop
and implement human resource management policies and strategies that enable the organization to attract, recruit,
develop, retain and maintain a high quality, performing and productive workforce within a safe working environment.
The Advisory Board provides leadership and innovation and enables its employees to achieve strategic objectives.
It is also involved in influencing and resolving differences across organizational boundaries; treating staff with fairness
and objectivity while being sensitive to cultural and gender differences. The department in all its activities strives to
ensure transparency, fairness, equity and uniformity in the application and administration of all human resources
policies, rules and regulations and the optimal utilization of its human resources.
The Advisory Board takes leadership providing programs and policies that are responsive to the diverse needs of its
staff and foster a positive work environment that places high value on professional and collaborative work
relationships while recognizing the importance of individual contributions.
Recruitment & Selection
The Advisory Board maintains an active database. They encourage diversity. Their aim is to ensure recruitment and
selection of high quality employees for NEC and to anticipate and forecast the staffing needs both in terms of
numbers and competencies.
Training & Development
All new entrants are given extensive on-the-job training, while seniors with potential are developed through lateral
cross-functional transfers. NEC's decision making is decentralized and done through panels and cross functional
teams and task forces.
Advisory Board also manages HR Policies & Procedures. NEC's policies are market driven and geared towards
achieving benchmarked practices. NEC takes its Performance Management system as a developmental tool. All
appraisals are done as a team exercise aiming to eliminate any bias. The individuals performance is managed
through a balanced scorecard which is goal based.
Industrial Relations
NEC has maintained industrial peace successfully. It manages its unionized staff with compassion and fairness,
considering them as vital a workforce as management staff.

Reporting Relations
The Advisory Board supervises the following sections:

Recruitment & Selection

Training & Development
HR Operations & Services
Industrial Relations
Administration

Future Prospects of Organization

NEC plans to target more cities and colleges in near future. Also it aims to sign MOUs with
more Knowledge partner Universities and donaaor organizations to achieve the maximum of its
purpose.

Overview of the Department(s) Where You

Served Internship
I worked in Marketing and website development departments under supervision of the project
manager sir Faizan with coordination of sir sohail ( Marketing manager of Roshni Homes) and
sir Hamid Raza ( Director of Roshni Homes) , a total of five employees including Miss Afiha
sheikh and Miss Salma , I worked with.

Functions and Operations

The marketing department was responsible for data management of students and donors under
supervision of sir Faizan . It also was responsible for making phone calls to them for getting
them facilitated with information and other relevant details regarding NEC. The website
development department is under supervision of sir Sohail who is working on NEC website
design and content development.

Short Falls
One major short fall and weakness of the marketing and website development department is
that both of these lack in number of permanent employees dedicated to specific areas of the

work. At present number of employees are less so work load is much bigger that it halts the
speed of working and obviously the quality of work as well. Tasks remain pending or do not get
accomplished on time. Further due to less number of employees NEC is not expending rapidly,
which it needs to be for tapping more cities and areas. Among other shortfalls includes its
employees being busy in their own works such as studies which also divide their energies and
make them less productive.

Critical analysis of the management patterns,

weak areas that need to be improved
The advisory board which is responsible for administration and several other work
areas of NEC
Is comprised of people having multiple jobs and tasks , though they are highly qualified individuals
but their time is not specifically dedicated to NEC which is definitely a cause of hurdles in NECs
progress. Though they are always available for supervision but mostly a lack of dedication towards
NEC exists which is not favorable situation for NEC to be most effective initiative.

Responsibilities as a student Intern

Duties
I performed the duty of Searching donor organizations and clothing brands for students
scholarships and donations for Roshni Homes, making phone calls to them to obtain the
information of the processes to get the scholarships and donations also the information if there is
any opportunity available to sign MOUs with them so that the facilitate NEC scholars and
Roshni Homes respectively.
I also Searched about Banks in Lahore , Karachi and Islamabad to get information of HR
departments of the respective banks for keeping them in loop so that in future NEC can place
students as interns in these banks.
Other duties included to manage the database of colleges from Okara , Gujrat and jhang districts
also made phone calls in few colleges to ensure the details of their concerned authorities. I also
managed database of Students from Okara and Gujrat Districts who are enrolled with NEC and
called them for providing the missing documents in their profiles.
Furthermore I wrote content for NECs website , designed layouts and comics.

Accomplishments

Completed all the tasks that were assigned to me. Also developed my own portfolio
as graphic designer, traded with Insta Forex at Karachi stock market as part of
personal development. Obtained fluency in tele-marketing. Got the offer of working
with NEC.

New Knowledge Acquired

Learned about startups and the pitching methods and tools. The experience of telemarketing , data management , fund raising tools and methods ,portfolio
development , effective CV writing , website development and trading at KSE can
fairly be regarded as my new learnings.

Problems Encountered
The contact details specially phone numbers provided on internet of donor organizations were
mostly invalid and it was hard to find exact details which I managed to find after hours of
searching different links more over tele-marketing and Portfolio development were new
experiences for me, earlier I had no idea how to make my own portfolio as graphic designer and
use of Adobe InDesign for this purpose. Furthermore targeting brands such as clothing brands etc
for fund raising, was a new experience for me it increased my insights of social work and made
me inline to the required kind of communication as well which is needed for effective fund
raising.. Also developing feasibility report and planning schedule was a beneficial experience
that will be helpful in future for planning projects and schedules.

How internship experience impacts you career

This internship will help me during my career in several ways as it has equipped me
with skills of database management, developing feasibility reports , website
development and marketing skills. I can utilize this experience also for initiating my
own startup business as I have made few valuable contacts during my internship
which can provide me assistance in doing so. In addition I have opportunity to join
NEC as employee which will increase my experience in field work as well.

Conclusions
improvement

&

recommendations

for

National Education Consortium is a good initiative and unique in its nature which is
fulfilling the needs of education sector in a different but effective manner. Its a sort
of platform for all stakeholders benefiting literacy and overall society effectively. It
provides necessary guidance to students in making their career choices and t he

required resources in doing so which will boost awareness at initial level of higher education also
will reduce the burden of medical and engineering fields which are mostly chosen fields in
Pakistan and due to this high number of students intake in these fields, unemployment has also
increased. So NEC , which promotes other disciplines at initial level , is not only putting efforts

in reducing this burden and thus controlling the unemployment to some extent but also is going
to be a hub of all educational needs of Pakistani students. Along with that NEC is fulfilling the
needs of partner universities in terms of students intake and marketing in a cost effective manner
since partner universities will no longer be needing large amounts to be spent on their
advertisement as team NEC will be doing it so universities will be getting benefits by this
initiative more over the students who get admissions work for university in duly assigned
working hours as part of their agreement to the university which is also helpful in attaining a
workforce for the universities with absolutely no cost.
However in order to increase the span of work, NEC needs an increased team dedicated and
specific to its operations. It also should have launched some arrangement of benefits especially
for those institutions which have profit generation as motives though working hours of students
should be sufficient but if NEC launches a mechanism of providing a portion of students
income, after completion of their education, to the respective university it can attract those
Universities as well to sign MOUs with NEC which are presently reluctant to do so.
Further NEC should work on getting colleges on board in a collaboration to provide certain
number of students each year to get enrolled with it just like it has collaboration with
Universities which provide scholarships and admissions to certain number of NEC Scholars. This
will reduce the cost of NEC as well as colleges will automatically be turned into NEC workforce
and in return they will be improving their market as well. Again this idea can only be
accomplished if NEC will have a larger and efficient team to deal with those colleges effectively.
But if NEC adopts this method it will boost its productivity to the next level.