Marketing Plan for India Launch - Team 21, IIM Ahmedabad

Seth Bindernagel at Mozilla has worked with student teams in India over the past few months. You will find team 21's executive summary below. Their full report is also attached to this post. We would like to thank all the members of team 21 for their hard work, and hope to get comments on it from the SpreadFirefox community!

Marketing Plan for India Launch

Presented to: Mozilla Team
Date: January 29th , 2008
Team : Team 21, IIM Ahmedabad

Team Members:
Vijayendra Haryal ( Team Lead)
Varun Mishra
Gaurav Dayal
Karthick D
Priyambhu Arya

Contact ID : vijay.haryal AT gmail

Executive Summary

The objective was to understand the needs of the Indian market better and aid in launching of FireFox 3 tailored to serve the users best. Indian landscape is unique as here about 24 languages are spoken by atleast 1 million people.

Initially, primary analysis was done to weigh the pros and cons of the English –IN localization versus expanding the breadth of localizations. A market research plan was developed consisting of secondary research followed by primary conclusive research. Secondary research helped in identifying the popular search engines, RSS feeds, news sites and other similar famous websites in India. Statistics on downloading speed, internet usage and access, internet user choices and type of connections were analyzed for identifying the factors critical to success of the browser. Indepth interviews were
conducted for investigating user behavior to identify key attributes. Certain important
issues were also highlighted by the focus group discussion.

Some of the key insights of Indepth Interviews and Focus Group Discussions were
• Mozilla should reduce download time of installation file
• User interface is preferred in a local language – Hindi, Tamil preferred. Languages of the Southern India should be preferred.
• Content Compatibility should be checked with websites specifically Indian
• Toolbar of makemytrip( An online booking website for Air Travel) can be
included
• Customize the English version , for expanding, start with Hindi, followed by
Tamil
• Default set of Ad ins should be there, users are not aware most of the time about them. User awareness needs to be created about installing the plug ins etc
• More flexibility in terms of extensions and more security is desired
• People should have the option to switch between languages
• A collage of retailing stores/ supermarkets links can be tried
• The interface of a browser will not play a very major role
• One would select IE because it's the default browser.
• Mozilla needs to make sure that Javascripts work well like on IE.
• Browser should be a light skeletal structure with more number of customizable add-ons.
• Financial Transactions are not completed in Mozilla. It should ensure compatibility with websites of banks, other sites with online transactions.

The key factors identified were tested by a conclusive research and a survey was conducted in which the total respondents were 190 from various cities of India, primarily Bangalore and Chennai. The three most preferred features were fast speed, compatibility of all web pages and the security of the financial transactions.

Factor Analysis showed that the users can broadly be categorized into two factors. One of the category of factors is the technical attributes while other is the ones that have an Indian Appeal or “Indianess”. Familiarity with the current browser is the main resistance to change, followed by long time of download and not having the download rights to install a new browser.

The main recommendations given on the basis of extensive research were

• Position Mozilla as a more secure, user friendly and fast browser. To back it , make it more compatible with financial transactions
• Also in order to make it more look and feel Indian, other than the English-In version proposed , compatibility should be ensured with Hindi and Tamil fonts primarily
• Factor Analysis shows that the users can be categorized into two main segments – one which is seeking technical features like compatibility, security and the other “Indian”ness . Technical features are preferred and should be catered to first.
• Priority should be given to make the browser more compatible with all websites
• India Specific needs like tabs for travel websites may be included