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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