Project Experience at Festool, Germany
March 2008

Festool, headquartered in Germany, deals in Power Tools like Drills, Sanders, Router and Planars catering to the Automotive & Wood Working segments. They implemented a market research project in India on the topic, 'Market situation and future possibilities in India for Festool GmbH'. Four students from SPJIMR were selected for this project Daisy Fernandes, Abhishek Chauhan, Gaurav Agarwal and Rakesh Kumar; all belonging to the Marketing specialization of the two year full-time PGDBM course.

They were invited to Germany for a week in September 2007 to understand the products of the company. The project was carried out in India over a six month period, after which a final follow-up trip was made to Germany.

The team started working on the project in October 2007. They took inputs from professors and other colleagues from the automotive and wood working industries to chalk out a plan for the project. They then distributed zones amongst themselves and visited approximately 17 cities across India, meeting dealers and interviewing consumers across segments in each of the cities. They used a snow-ball approach to get further contacts.

Once the project was completed and recommendations were prepared, the team was called to Germany in March to present their findings to the Board including the CEO of Festool. The board was highly impressed by the findings and recommendations. The CEO commented, “We have never met students of this caliber who have carried out such an in depth study”. The project coordinator from Festool told the participants, “Looking at students like you, we are convinced that China may be the manufacturing hub of the world, but the Intellectual Capital of the world will always be India.” Their appreciation was reflected by a 50% increase in stipend for each of the student and soon to be finalized job offers for a few and a certificate which stated that the outcome and final presentation have been at par with international standards and excellent in quality and performance.