The Manager's Perspective

ITC's foray into branded school notebooks segment is really changing the scenario in this segment. This is where only 10% of the market is under organized players. Apart from the notables such as Navneet, ITC's Classmate and Nightingale, the whole market is dominated by the regional players, who are mostly in the unorganized sector.

This article points out the efforts undertaken by ITC to be a leader in this segment.

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Notebooks was a Rs 5,000-crore (Rs 50 billion) category growing at 9-10 per cent every year. Importantly, there were huge visible gaps in the market. The organised segment accounted for less than 10 per cent of the notebooks market.....

....After two full years of being in business, the Classmate brand is already the No. 2 player, inching close to market leader Navneet.
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So, ITC is getting aggressive in this regard and trying to get into the top position.

But, is this a good business to enter, considering that notebooks are slowly being replaced with more e-options?

There are some more questions...
1. Is ITC correct in focussing only on the students segment?
2. ITC already failed in the greetings cards segment. Is this not a dying segment again?
3. What should Navneet do to maintain its leadership in the onslaught of ITC?
4. Lets assume that you are a start-up entrepreneur. Is this business lucrative enough for you to enter? If yes, what segment you would target, and with what positioning? How would you keep the biggies at bay?

Lets discuss it in the comments section....