The Year 2012 and the product named Rohit Tiwari…

23 years ago, it was the untimely launch of me on 1^st August 1989. That means I was born then. There have been many great years passed by then but the year 2012 has been fairly a cocktail type just like any Indian Movie or the daily soaps. 2012 has been the year of hardships, emotions, depression, recession and the happy expressions for me. The year started with a great sense of happiness and belonging as I had just come from IIM Ahmadabad’s Confluence (Dec 2011) which meant a lot for a person like me dwelling from a not so popular B-School.  I was feeling like a legend in the class after attending few sessions at this Mecca of Management Education in India.  Then this happiness was screwed up completely when I noticed that I was few of those unlucky students in the class who were unable to get the Internships which were supposed to be started in the month of April and completed by June ending. 

One Dabang and Many Brands.

Was traveling a lot last week, few days in Chennai and a day at the ever divine Tirupati. The only thing which was same every where was the craze of the new item song from the Salman Khan starer movie titled "Dabang 2" which is a part of Dabang series. The song has become so popular that, I was amazed to here it in a Tamil Nadu Govt bus also.

Kirana- the Bharat. Retail FDI - the India

Its been more than a month that I have not posted. It is not that I was really occupied with something else but the fact is I had nothing new to write. But today my mind again started pushing me towards writing and my hands again and again typing the word blogger on my laptop. So, I thought what should I write about? and the thought of writing a small tiny article on FDI (the talk of the Nation) launched into my mind (empty mind :P)  after reading a couple of newspaper. (All thanks to my job which allows me to read couple of newspaper).

Frankly, I am neither a specialist to talk about this topic nor am I a generalist who at least know little about this subject. I am just a normal person, an aam aadmi (not the political party :P) just like the majority of us are. So, my comments and thoughts on the subject are limited and are personal.

Marketing Hypnosis......

Yesterday was a great Monday for me, I was refreshed and had a great weekend with my friends at Chennai and returned back to the developing rural land at the place where I work. I was feeling very energetic and the very first thing I wanted to do was to sit in my desk, log on to my virtual world and write something on my blog. But like always I was short of topics. But as the time passed one lady in my office made me think over something very important. She was actually looking forward to buy a Television the coming festival season and was trying to get some reviews and information about different brands. While she was conversing with her colleague about the same, I poked in between (which is my regular habit) and started giving my non-sensible advice.  I asked her which segment of the Television is she buying for which I got a reply saying LED. I advised her not to by LED, instead go for LCD. She said that LED will give a great level of comfort to eyes and wont effect your eye lot. This made me think over it again and again with the following questions :

I think there is an unseen earthquake in the Bell Curve!!

Reading the title of this post, I am dead sure that majority of you may be thinking as to what this slim and weird guy means by "BELL CURVE"?. For those of you who are not the student of Marketing, I will take excuse from the ones who knows marketing and would cover up the next few lines of this post with the definition and history of Bell Curve and its resemblance to Marketing.

Everette Rogers  , professor of rural sociology, explains in his famous book "Diffusion of Innvoations" about how the purchasing psychology of individual vary from person to person. He says that there are 5 types of categories into which these individual patterns can be captured and segregated, 

1. Innovators,

2. Early Adopters,

3. Early Majority,

4. Late Majority and 

5. Laggards.

These categories are shown in the picture just beside. This is based on a concept of Mathematics called "BELL CURVE".

Brands and Bands - The Hyper Sonic Marketing...

As any other Indian citizen I have been brought up watching movies and TV serials which are filled with variety of songs. As a kid I used to enjoy the jingles and anthems that used to be a part of the advertisements which used to flash after every few minutes of a program. In fact I was so crazy about those jingles and anthems that I set the britania biscuits tone which syncs as "tin tin tidin" as my message alert tone for my first mobile phone. One day while I was going through the Brand Equity News paper, I heard about a branch of Marketing named "Sonic Marketing/Branding". Sonic Marketing refers to Marketing your brand with a musical feel. For example : Airtel tone, Nokia mobile tone, Britania's tin tin titin, Titan watch tone etc and etc. But today I find the concept of Sonic Marketing taking a curve into something which can be termed as Hyper Sonic Marketing. Brands have always been using jingles and music but suddenly they are extending their engagement levels with music to a new highs. 

I want is to be a part of Credible India!!!!

Hope is the most essential feeder for growth in any nation. What Hope asks for is focus to build a nation that is compassionate, humble, confident and above all a great one.

The great Indian obsession with wanting to be a great power is impractical, completely undesirable and nonsensical. I want India to be a GREAT NATION instead of just a GREAT POWER. I want a CREDIBLE INDIA instead of being a part of INCREDIBLE INDIA, because:

• Great Powers destroy, Great Nations Nurture
• Great Powers are built by Rulers, Great Nations are built by its Citizens

Unfortunately contemporary History is filled with many such examples which supports this thought. Without exception many nations who were once super power failed to the core; be it the Roman Empire, French or the British Empire. All of them have been liquidated. The American empire is now teetering on the brink of collapse.

Twitter , Politicians and Politicking

Twitter - one of the widely used social networking site has been witnessing a great hungama with the tweets and counter tweets from Politicians from all around the world. Head of states and governments of at least 125 countries are represented on Twitter. The density of tweeting varies from person to person though. 

Very few leaders tweet regularly and tend to use it more as pre-election engagement tool. 

It will not come as an surprise today to see National Leaders, International Leader and the World Leaders tweeting from their tablets, laptop and mobile phones every now and them at not so common timings. US President Barack Obama was the first World Leader to get on Twitter in March 2007; He is also one of the most popular politician on the micro blogging site with more than 16 million followers. 

The Yogi and the Commissar.......

The Yogi and the Commissar.......

Its almost been an year that the urge for a Lokpall bill is fuming in the belly of Mr.Anna Hazare and his followers. It also have been very long that the wants of Baba Ram Dev addressing the issue of Black money to be brought back to India is left unanswered. 

The Yogi is back again, but not with the old attitude of just being a bhola bhaala (Innocent) religious leader but as an activist who is looking for a change and for the betterment of his country. 

The title of this post is copied from the great Arthur Koestler's write up titled "The Yogi and the Commissar" where he speaks of the "Yogi" who seeks change within and for the betterment of the surroundings and humanity. He seeks a change so that he can transform the world. On the other side is the "Commissor", for whom only what matters is power and for whom change comes from without not from within. 



The Nation is witnessing a great match between "The Yogi" followed by his followers and the battalion of corrupt, unpredictable, power hungry politicians and bureaucrats on other hand. But between these two lies the India of intellectuals, business tycoons, new rich entrepreneurs, business man ,traders and the new middle class. But it is sad to notice that the intellectuals lives in the dream world of Ivory and don't want to dirty their hand in politics or join protests like the one of Ramdev to bring change (a very little percentage being exceptional). The tycoons hunting with the hounds and running with the hares are ready to prostrate themselves before every political party and place their bets on multiple horses as they know that peoples mandate and liking for political parties keep changing like seasons. The middle class lives in a cocoon of their comfort zone spending most of their time in working, spending time with family and friends, seeking entertainment etc neglecting the issues which are plaguing the nation. 

If I note all this I find that with all their faults, Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare are better than the best of us irrespective of what kind of allegations related to funds and IT are charged or raised against them. 

I just hope that we see India shining and being called as "The Golden Bird" of the world......

Regards,
Rohit Tiwari

You don’t get it right with one eye closed!!!

You don’t get it right with one eye closed!!!

Ever imagined how does it sense to look around with one eye closed? I guess many of us have tried that and also have found that you don’t get to see the complete picture of the view in front of you. And none of us would want to be the pirate character whose one eye is covered with a black cloth.

In real life if we want to see the world with two eyes open, then why don’t we understand that we gotta see the business world even with the same two eyes open. In majority of cases the students at Business School or academic institutions and the newly joined freshers at the offices are trained in a way to see the world with only one eye open.  I recently had few converstaions with the newly passed out MBA’s from different B-Schools who joined different national and multi-national companies. Majority of these people said that what they were taught at the B-schools was no where in connection to the reality. The major problem which every one faced was they were trained to be a specialist in one subject of business management without connecting the dots with the other areas of management. For Example: one person who specialised in marketing  working in a shipping company had the problem while closing the deals with the clients because he had the best knowledge in marketing but no knowledge of finance, operations and law.

Therefore for any successful business professional today it is a must that he doesn’t see the business world with one eye closed. He/She should posse’s knowledge in each and every area of Business management. it 

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

Untapped Market – “THE POOR”

The world is getting smaller as a result of Globalization. The distance between people, cities, states and nations is narrowing down to very minimal because of the development in the technology in the areas like tele communication, internet and transportation and so on. It was very difficult for someone who lived during 1800’s to think of reaching England from India in just a journey of less than 24 hours; the local transport from one city in south to capital city of India would have cost a more than 24 hours of time for a person during those days. Likely it was next to impossible to think about having an instrument called mobile phones which will make the communication easier than just easy.

But look at today; the generation living today is more equipped with all those speedy and flashy gadgets and instruments which have made life more and more comfortable. Almost every product from every company – from a pencil to a laptop to a limousine to an airplane is available in every part of the world. The markets throughout the world are almost covered and companies are looking forward to find new fresh markets to get into.

SO, what could be the left over untapped market which these companies should be planning to get into? The answer is not hidden somewhere; the companies have actually found out the world’s only untapped market and the market is “the market for BPL (below poverty line)”.

Many companies (nationals and multinationals) are investing their time and money on conducting research to find out ways and means to tap their feet into this untapped market. The primary base for this kind of market is the rural areas. Majority of the companies in the world are heading towards finding out the ways and means to get in to the rural markets of the continent of Africa and the subcontinent of India.  Now, the developed world already reaching its saturation level and the developing world still figuring out ways and means to develop, corporations are vetting their luck upon the rural markets which they feel are the most potential and less exploited markets ever.

Let us see some examples of companies and industries getting into the rural markets with focus upon the Indian subcontinent. Hindustan Unilever Limited- the sister concern of the FMCG giant Unilever entered the rural areas of India during the early 80’s with an innovative idea set of providing its products in the form of the sachets at very minimal and affordable prices to the rural customers. HUL still backs upon its much acclaimed “Lady Shakti” program which it launched in the rural areas where female residents of the rural India goes from door to door explaining about HUL’s products and selling it and making their living out of it.

Likely, it would not be surprising to know that rural India uses and subscribes to mobile phone and its services far much more than the urban Indians do.  Same is the case with the DTH technology; the growth of DTH technology is more in the rural areas when compared to the urban areas.

The reasons may be many. Firstly rural India has a mix blend of poor and rich people. There are people as rich as an owner of BMW or Mercedes in urban India who lives in rural India. For example few rural citizens in Punjab own their personal limousine and Bentleys which a moderately rich class of people in urban India cannot afford. But also on the contrast there are also rural residents who survives on $2 a day which in India is considered moderate (Indian law as today says that BPL= <20 rupees a day).

There are various schemes and innovations being done in the area of selling which is being customized for the prospects in the rural areas (mostly the poor customers). Understanding that it would be troublesome for the people in BPL category to invest in the products which are very expensive- the companies have started pool buying - where individuals in the same locality or community buy a product together and use it for mutual benefits. The seller (the company) will provide financial assistance for the same. For example: farmers can buy one tractor and use it mutually or a community can buy one washing machine and use it for mutual benefits wherein the cost is distributed and shared. This is one type of scheme few companies have come up with. Few other have collaborated with the micro loan or the micro finance companies to reach the audience. For example German giant METRO, has reached nook and corner of the state of Andhra Pradesh by creating their retail distribution lines with the mom and pop stores (kirana stores) in the rural areas with the help of SKS finance (the much talked about micro finance company recenlty in news). Few others are trying to hold upon the "we finance" you buy schemes.

The companies are trying their best to make the best use of these type of markets and have figured out that there lies a great potential and prospective market which is still untapped in the rural areas of the world mostly focusing upon the rural segment. That’s why its said as – “Poor- the untapped market”. 

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

Do Your Home Work Properly before you Start!!!!

What is easier for any company?

 A. To  conquer 1% of the huge, well established Market

                        “Or”

 B.     To conquer 100% of a completely new market

The majority of answers would go in favour of “A”; majority of the already established companies and the soon to be launched types feel that, it is easy to conquer 1% of the huge-well established markets. They think this on the basis of different factors clubbed together. Firstly the expenditure to get into an already available market or business would be comparatively less when compared to the option B. The risk involved is also comparatively very minimal.

But the main question is do these companies which tries and enter an already available market with an already available product/service do better or the one who gets into the new line of innovative business?

Take example of Apple; i-Pod to i- Phone to i –Pads to what not -A complete innovative product portfolio.  That’s the company who followed the road less travelled and made its mark on the world. It is rightly said that there are three apples which changed the world:

• -          One that Eve ate,
• -          One that Newton saw Following and
• -          One which Steve Jobs Co-Founded

Let us now consider example of automobile two wheeler manufacturing case in India to check to project that why it is not easy to get 1% space in already available market and industry.

When Bajaj had launched its Scooter named Bajaj Chetak; it was a huge success. Following the wind, Lohia Motors Limited was formed and started producing LML scooters. But what happened, today we don’t find the company at all.

Same thing happened when bugging on its success in the American Market, Kellogg entered India to cater to the needs of Indian citizens with a new variant called “Kellogg Basmati” which flopped miserably. Even after years of its arrival; Kellogg has not been able to cater to 1% of total Indian audience. The main problem with Kellogg was their unpreparedness. They thought that there is a great potential in India for ready to eat breakfast items after observing the huge demand for the Idlis, Chapatis and all which cater as the breakfast item to majority of Indians. But what was wrong with this insight? The answer is that Kellogg forgot to understand that “Indian unlike Americans likes to start their day with warm milk or warm food stuff and Kellogg Cornflakes was on contrast a cool milk based breakfast. If Kellogg has done this study then they should have done well.

Now let us examine the opposite of what we were talking about. Samsung has entered an available established market just like LML and Kellogg’s did but it succeeded. Likely, there were many new start-ups which created many unique products but failed miserably.

So the crest of the talk is that it doesn’t really matter whether you enter an already established market with available product or you try something innovative and create a new market. The only thing that matters is “Do your Homework Properly before you enter any market”. Companies have to do a proper research before entering a market or launching a new product.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

MBA & the Ganga Belief.....

MBA- Master of Business Administartion, PGDM - Post Graduate Diploma in Management are few of the courses under the academic domain of Business management which are hugely popular today. If we consider the growth of this domain of studies, it is surpassing any other masters course like M.Tech, MCA, M.Com and many more.

In India, the belief with which one joins this intellectual course is as same as the belief a person has with the river Ganga (the Holy river according to Hinduism). Like the belief with the River Ganga states "one dip in Ganga and all your sins will wash away"; likewise majority of the students who joins this course thinks that they just have to enroll for the course and their life is all settled.

The centuries long belief with Ganga has been misinterpreted. The real and apt interpretation according to mythology : "One who takes a dip in the river Ganga will do it because he/she accepts that they have done some sins and they will struggle hard to make sure that they wont do it ever again in their life". So the person who goes to Ganga have a goal that he/she will do good deeds and be pure. But in reality people have tailored this belief according to their convenience saying that "one dip in Ganga and you are sinless".

Same is the case with the MBA/PGDM course, people think this course to be an ATM machine, you insert you card (Fee) from one end and you get the cash (Great Placement) from the other end. But students forgets to understand that they need to work hard, understand the business scenario, groom themselves and so on. In this dream that just by having admission they will get placed well stops their growth and finally they end up getting jobs which otherwise an uneducated fellow may also deliver.

I would also like to discuss the fact that an MBA student from an average college struggles more than a student from IVY League college to get placed due to several reasons. The reason for this thinking of mine is : a student who gets admission in a Top B-school have to just focus on studies and assignments but a student from average B-School have to  push themselves harder to get placed. The learning which one acquires in struggling is far much better than one which is bought through a brand name of the school.

I really appreciate what the lead character of Mr. Chetan Bhagats recent novel titled "Revolution 2020" says. He says "If you are in the top 20 Percent of the entrance exam rank holders then you are seen as a guy with intellectual brains,;if you don't belong to that league of 20 Percent, then you are seen as a good for nothing fellow". I think this loop hole in the education system has to be drastically change, the approving authority like AICTE , Ministry of HRD etc should not provide grants to the incapable institutions. 

Regards,
Rohit Tiwari

The "NO" Factor is better than the "YES" Factor

ENGLISH in India is taught in a very funny way. Firstly the child is made to learn the alphabets and then is made to by heart sentences and so on. But the two words "YES" & "NO" are cutely and hilariously used by each and every one during their child hood. In India you will not be surprised to see each and every student who is admitted in an English Medium school saying "Yes Teacher/Miss" or "No Teacher/Miss". Till the child remains a child he/she remains brave enough to use this both words whenever possible but as he/she grows the first word surpasses the next word (Yes surpasses No).  Once the child enters the world of business, he starts saying yes for everything in order to make career, close a sale deal, impress the boss, impress the person and so on.  But often he/she forgets to use the most important word "NO".

In marketing the most important word according to me is NO. Every marketer should learn to say this word. You may be puzzled now thinking why this fellow named Rohit Tiwari is suggesting to say "NO"? ; For which my answer is :

If you cannot say a NO to your customer and cant explain him why you cannot do what he wants then you are selling the product on a wrong platform which may yield result for a while (short term) but in long term once the customer gets to know about the false promise made with a "Yes" added to it at the point of sale, then you loose on two things :

1. The trust of your existing customer (the sufferer) &

2. the most important; the power of "word of Mouth" advertising


One of my favorite author Robin Sharma quotes: 
 "Every time you say yes to something that is unimportant, you say no to something that is important. “Yes men” never create anything great. There’s great value in getting good at saying no." 


Likewise every time you say a "YES" to customer and bluff him/her you misses a long term opportunity. 


Now the question arises "Why should an employee think of the long term benefit of a company, he can leave whenever he wants once his short term goals are achieved"? 
This question is apt for majority of the employees. Everyone thinks of achieving short term targets/goals integrated with them by the company, but let us not forget that the customer is buying a product from you and once you cheat him you loose your contact for ever. On other hand if you be truthful to him, irrespective of which competitor you join later, the customer will buy whatever you sell. So retain your prospective customers by telling them all "NO's" and all "YES" but tell them a NO at least.


Regards,
Rohit Tiwari

I am a Human and I am a Glocalist

I had a great Sunday this weekend followed by an equally great Monday. In fact, if one connects the dots of what happens in his/her daily life, then every experience becomes a great one. Let me tell us the reason for keeping the title of today’s post as “I am a Human and I am a Globalist”. A few hours back, I was watching one of a master piece of bollywood industry titled “My name is Khan” in which the legendary Shahrukh Khan says: ‘my name is Khan and I am not a terrorist’. So that’s what gave me an idea of keeping this title.

As mentioned in the very first sentence of this post, that Sunday was followed by an equally good Monday; is because the Sunday Evening was spent on reading about few articles from here and there on the Global Trade & Business and on Monday I found myself bombarded with questions by few of my peers on the same topic. This is where I say we have to connect the dots in this precious life and understand that life is beautiful.

Actually on Monday, one of my friends had gone for an interview at a very famos financial institution and the question asked to him was “What’s your take on the Global Trade and how can Marketers influence the Global Trade?”

After the interview my friend called me and we discussed about the interview he had (we always do discuss this sought of things as we belong to the same brand of B-school “Auroras”). My friend had just completed his PGDM with Finance as specialization and I was amazed that he was the only one in that interview who was appreciated for a perfect answer to the question asked by the interviewer out of the herds of students from different B-schools in the city.

On discussing with him I found that my friend answered the question in two sentences: “Dear Sir, We are in the age where there is nothing called Local or Global, we have gone far away from it and we are in the world which is GLOCAL (Global +Local). So everyone whether it is a Marketer, politician, diplomat or a lay man, everyone has to have a GLOCAL vision and every one influences the World around”

After the discussion, I was drilling upon the deep unutilized resources in my brain and was trying to connect the dots between what I have been studying throughout my life during my schooling to graduation to post graduation. My friends answer was one of the best one I ever heard from him and to my surprise he said that he read about it on my blog and my notes on various sites and modified it while answering.

Then I started thinking that: is it enough to have a specialization in one subject in today’s world and look at the world from Finance angle if you are a finance expert, marketing angle if you are a marketing expert, political angel if you are a politician and so on?

The answer for this would be a straight NO. Every one, has to be a Glocalist today and that should be a school of thought for everyone in today’s age of new wave technology. That means a person today should not be just realist – who looks at the world from the angle of poser and geopolitical advantage; should not be just an environmentalist – who looks at the world from the prism of environment and measures to save it; should not be just a technologists – who believs that they are the founder of the modern world; should not be just a financial analyst or a marketer or a business man. Today we need people to be GLOCALIST – who are globally empowered even though their base is Local. That is one who understands the different views of global trade even though they is located in their local geographical location.

And what do we do to become a GLOCALIST? The answer is simple; we have to become a GENERALIST. A Jack of all trades is what is required by any industry today. And to create this generalist, the responsibility lies upon the universities and the educational institutions. The dominant trends within Universities and the think tanks is ever – narrower specializations and that’s what is requires to change drastically to create a new set of individuals who can be termed as GLOCAL.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

The term “SUPER” and the Globalization

Had a great day yesterday devoted totally towards upgrading my knowledge on the subject of Globalization. While trying to browse and peek about the books on this subject, I came across a great piece of work by Thomas. L. Friedman (the distinguished writer of “The World is flat”). This book which caught my attention was titled as “The Lexus and the Olive Tree”. In this master piece on the subject of Globalization, Friedman has very carefully and convincingly portrayed how the term Globalization evolved after the world war and how the system of globalization differs from the era of “The Cold War” which prevailed before and during the world war.

I wanted to share something very interesting from the sea of knowledge I gained after reading this book. Friedman says that today’s world is governed by three major forces:

· The Super Powers

· The Super Markets

· The Super Individuals

These terms sounds very creative and they actually have something very important related to the term Globalization and the modern world. Let me explain you what the author meant by this words:

Ø The Super Powers refers to those countries/nation which have a great influence on the worldly trades and systems. For Instance USA after the World War emerged as the Super Power and it continues to dominate the world’s trade.

Look at the situation today. For long the World bank Chief had been an American National (which was as a part of protocol), but today the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have opposed saying that the chief should be selected on the basis of potential not on the basis of nationality. Therefore in a global world the trade is influenced by the acts of the Global Super Powers.

Ø The Super Markets refers to the World’s important Stock markets which has the capabilities of influencing the global trade. For example: the stock markets of USA, China, Europe, India and many such important nations. If any of this stock markets collapse, it will influence the global investments. For instance, when the Thai Currency - Baht was fluctuated the world market got influenced and the economic instability was seen in countries like Russia and Brazil because of the collapse in Thailand’s Stock Market.

Ø The Super Individuals refers to the individuals who can influence mass majority. For example a millionaire named Osama Bin Laden moved USA by his terrorist attacks. An individual in India named Anna Hazare started a great movement against corruption which did impact the Indian stock markets. Obama’s visit to India recently saw a great move in Indian stock market.

One will never understand the term globalization or the front page of morning financial newspapers unless one see it as a complex interaction between this three actors : Super power bumping up at super power, Super market influencing the super powers, super markets and super individual influencing the super power and vice verse.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

Barketing is not the right Marketing

Here I am once again with a typical title for my posting – “Barketing is not the right Marketing”. What do I mean by this? What is Barketing? How this term is related to Marketing? And many such questions are the goals for this post to answer today.

Barketing according to me: is a relationship between a dog’s barking and the subject of Marketing.

Today’s marketing strategies have become more of a Barketing one’s which are annoying, irritating and one sided message. The customers are bombarded with so many not so interesting messages about the product and the service of a brand through advertisements (indoor and outdoor). Like a dog which continuously goes on barking for seeking attention of its prospects (the guardians), many companies are following the same process in which they are continuously talking all those goodie goodie things about their products and services to the customers by means of advertisements and promotional activities.

For example: the recently launched advertisements of Vodafone wherein a dog is used to portray the non-stop connectivity, is lame and not to interesting. The school children’s love being shown is not being accepted by the Indian culture which is irritating in nature. Even then this advertisement is continuously being BARKETED to the customers. Vodafone is not the only one; all most all others are continuously throwing the same old stories in their advertisements. People have got bored with Cadbury’s kuch meetha hojaye, because a chocolate can never replace sweets in Indian Tradition (of course it did changed the gifting custom on the festival of Rakhi) but it still cannot be accepted for festivals like Deepavali and Holi.

Therefore there has to be a proper balance between the advertisements and culture and the frequency of such advertisements. That’s where I say “Barketing is not the right Marketing”. Therefore as a marketer should think – “Are we marketing or we just barketing?”.

If the Competition is Barketing you opt for a meow approach. When all the other dogs in the pound are barking, trying to bark louder will only get you noticed for the wrong things. When everyone else is barking you need to do something other than bark. Perhaps you should "meow".

Notice the differences between the TV ads that you don't skip and the ones that bore or annoy you. Make note of those differences and apply those techniques to your own marketing. Do the same thing as you are flipping through a magazine or perusing your mail.

Remember that Marketing is practical, it cannot be learnt from books.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

Business and Fish Market

The Title for this post may sound little awkward and it may not appeal to majority of you, but as a title has to be provided so I have given it a name like "Business and Fish Market". What do I mean by this? its quite simple, I mean a clear understanding of the relationship between the business firms (brands, products, service etc) and the ultimate consumer. Is that relationship like a Water in a river and a fish type or it is something like Fish and the Fisherman one?

The answer can be both. Let me explain what I mean by these two relations mentioned above.

When I say "a water in a river and the Fish relation", I mean that the water represents the company/brand/product/service etc and the fish represents the customer. And when I say "Fish and the Fisherman Relation", the Fisherman represents the company/brand/product/service and the Fish still represents the customer.

Let us elaborate on these relationship and understand which one matters the most in the today's world of new age wave technology.

There are many companies who loose their fortunes because they adopt a relationship like "Fish and the Fisherman" wherein the company hunts for its prospective customers and take them for granted once the deal is closed. These type of companies don't care for the after sales services and the consumer satisfaction. As a result of which the consumer switches to another brand next time he/she wants to buy the same product or avail the service.

On the other hand the companies which follows the relationship like "Water and the Fish", enjoys the frequent footfalls of its customer and also enjoy the word of mouth advantage. Here like the river provides a sustainable environment for the fish to live in, the companies provide a great service and experience for its customer and the customer feels proud of being associated with the product. If the river in this relation gets spoil, it may loose the fish, likely if the companies don't provide a good service, the customer may look at other alternatives and spread a wrong word about your company.

Therefore in the modern era of marketing, the marketers should always try to provide the customers with the best of the service they can and be like a river water which the fish (customer) would never like to leave.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

The Epic Ramayana and the new age Marketing

Ramayana - a hugely followed and worshiped Hindu epic. I have been bought up listening to the story of Ramayana from my grand parents and also I have encountered myself watching it on the television several times.

The story of Ramayana is simple. Rama is the manifestation of God Vishnu and is married to Seeta ( the manifestation of Goddess Laxmi) ; Rama along with his wife and younger brother leaves the worldly pleasures of being a king and opts for a 14 years of loneliness (sanyas) to fullfill the promise of his father. After a while Ravana the king of evils kidnaps Seeta and Rama goes in search of her with the help of the monkey tribe known as "Vanar sena". Finally a war takes place and Ravana is defeated. This is just a summary of the whole Epic, but the story is more interesting than what I have just mentioned.

If I try to connect this story with something that happens in the business world then I can successfully connect this to the Marketing concepts and Competition. Let me put it this way; the company in a market place can treat its product as "Rama" which is striving hard against the competitors product which can be referred as "Ravana" and this Ravana (competitor) is trying to hijack your market (here the market can be compared with Seeta) and the various strategies both these team has are the supporters or the army ( Vaanar sena and Ravan's troop).

If I compare it this way, a question arises in my mind : "if this has to be adopted then both the team company and competitor will always try to think themselves as the Rama (the Hero)". And the answer is "Yes they both can".

But let us not forget that the customers are more wise than the highly educated guys the companies appoint. The customer will definitely find the true Rama and that company will be treated as Rama by the customers which is value based, human oriented, society oriented and last but not the least "welfare oriented".

If your company can be as good as Rama was and is in people's belief then no Ravana(competitor) can eat away your market share and stop you from going heights.

Therefore a company should be Value driven not greed driven. In todays world the companies should deliver to the customer and benefit to the society.

Gone are the days when marketers used to think "Whatever is good for business is good for society". Today the thinking should be "Whatever is good for society is good for business". So try to make your company Rama and be value based.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

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"Product Utility Optimization"(PUO) - Do you know what your products can do?

I have been hearing about the term "optimization" fixed up as a tail with many Business words like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Optimization (SMO), Product Design Optimization (PDO). I feel all this terms like SEO, SMO, PDO etc have been taught to me as a student from a companies or a business point of view. Many of the great texts books which are referred as Bibles, Geetas and Quarans projects the concept from the business point of view but they fail to convey it to students from the eyes of the customers. And that according to me has to be addressed; any business management student has to be taught to see the world from the customers point of view so as to get a great career prospect ahead.

Every time I buy or use a heavy, durable and costly product for myself I buy it on the basis of the design it have, the kind of social image it gives me, the kind of style it adds to my look and so on; but never I thought about - "am I gonna utilize this product completely". For instance many of us want to buy i-Phones every time a new model from Apple inc is launched but do we use all those application and features it provides to us?. The answer is a straight "NO" (not atleast in my case). I have been a user of Samsung Galaxy to a Blackberry Curve but I don't find my self using something very different because I don't utilize the huge ocean of apps available in both of this world famous brands.

That is where I thought of saying to myself that a term tailed with "optimization" as the last word should be there which talks about product features being utilized to an optimum level.

I define "Product Utility Optimization"(PUO) as the optimum utilization of all those qualitative and quantitative features of a product so as to get the maximum benefit out of the money you spent on buying that particular product.

For an instance, whenever we buy a packaged drinking water bottle, the PUO(product utility optimization) doesn't just talks about the water but it also refers to the utility one can get by selling the empty plastic bottle in scrap. It thus talks about the qualitative (thirst satisfying) aspect as well as quantitative (money oriented) aspect of the product.

This is what I have tried to design as a new concept for myself. There are several such different concepts which we our self can design as individuals and I hope you will also try to create your own one's soon.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

"Employee Brand" in the Highly Competitive B-School world..

The Best thing about marketing I personally like and appreciate is that it is one of those subjects which do not have a fixed formula to arrive at a solution. The Scope and Limits of Marketing as a subject is not yet defined and will not be.

Most of us are brought up through our Marketing courses talking about Consumer Brands and Consumer patterns. A Consumer brand can be defined as "Brands of products which a consumer prefer to buy at a given point in time". It talks about the favorite brand to which the consumer is loyal. For instance : in the portable music world Apple's I Pod is favorite brand for many music freaks, these freaks are loyal to this brand when it comes to music.

If a Consumer's preference for his/her favorite product can be analysed as a Consumer Brand then there has to be something termed as Employee Brand which talks about the favorite company a person wants to work for. This is what I was thinking about today after a day long of skimming and scanning through texts on "Consumer Behavior".

As I am a restless guy who is just about to complete my Post Graduation in Management, I could try and connect the term "Employee Brand" to my own classmates and myself who are on the edge of getting into a corporate world. Every student has a predefined goals about his/her career, they have their dream companies where they want to work. But what are those factors which influences or drive this attraction towards these companies to call them as dream companies?

Are they family generated?

Are they generated as a result of the individual's immediate environment?

Does the Market drives this attractions?

Does the Education system creates this? and so on.

These were the questions popping into my brain. I tried to understand it by connecting it to Consumer and stimuli concept. Like advertisements, family background, economic position, social status, lifestyle etc influences the consumers preference for a given set of products; likewise many such factors like family background, friends reference, experts opinion, market condition etc influences an individual to select a company as his dream company.

This culture of "Employee Brand" has become a culture in B-schools scenario. A fraction of students when they join the program know exactly where they want to work in future or what they want to do, the other students just get influence by them and follow. Due to this kind of following few companies have become a target of many which are best in their industry. But in this following system, the students loose connection from what is actually having in the business world around, which industries are booming and which are the best companies in these booming industries. I personally think the students should be provided proper guidance about this kind of career opportunity which could help them in selecting the best suitable "Employee Brand" for them.

I find myself lucky enough to have been guided by Dr.Ravi Paturi and Prof. Ajay Kumar in this context at Aurora's.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari