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

.

"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

In India - The Customer is a Queen......

Ever since I heard the term Marketing, I have been said that in any Business "Customer is a King", but I feel in developing countries and Under developed countries it would be more appropriate if we use the concept in a little different way stating that "Customer is not King, actually the Customer is QUEEN". That is what I am going to talk through out this post today as to why I think the customer is Queen irrespective of customers being both male and female.

I request you to kindly note that I am writing this post with respect to the Developing and Under developed Nations.

Let us consider a country like India, If we carefully observe here most of the buying activities are done by the feminine gender majority of whom being house wives or who are learning home science. There may be majority of you who would not agree to this fact on the basis that if we consider the hard or capital goods, the purchasing is done by the male gender or the man of the family, but there is a little addition to it. Yes, the purchase in terms of capital and expensive goods is done by the man of the house but in developing countries this decision is made by the women sitting at home, the man just executes the process of buying.

I still remember that when my Grand Father or Grand Uncles used to buy Gold, Vehicles or houses they used to consult their wife, mother and sisters about which brand to buy and all. Till date many of my home decisions on buying is taken by my mother and that's the same case with majority of friends.

Just go around and see how women buy at a vegetable market or a Clothes Bazaar in your city or locality and you will find that it is really a tiresome task to influence women to buy. They want to have even the minute bargain as possible, which if not provided at their comfort will result in product switching. Therefore it becomes really tough for the marketers to design and execute strategies in such kind of environment.

Let me quote something really very funny and important for all of you who might be thinking that lets us now develop strategies to influence women to buy :

The quote goes like this : "God Created Earth and slept well, then God created Man and slept well, finally God created Women, there after neither he slept well nor the man"

Therefore see the market from the point of view of "Customer is Queen", I have starting seeing , I hope you do.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

Is Democracy a Weeping Boy ?

The Title of this post today may sound lil awkward because it sounds like an incomplete sentence and to many it doesn't sound as a sentence. I heard this sentence when I was watching the discussion on one of my favorite masterpiece of work by Raghav Bahl (Founder TV 18 CNN IBN) titled "SUPER POWER" - A Race Between Chinese Hare and Indian Tortoise.

This sentence at first was really tough for me to understand, but as I investigated deep into that discussion, I came out with many thoughts of mine with relation to Democracy and how people from different walks of life use it to hide their inefficiency. We find a lot of influencing personalities saying that in a democratic country like India this cannot be done, that cannot be achieved and we cannot do this etc. This is referred to as Democracy being a Weeping Boy here in this post today.

India is considered to be the worlds largest democracy. It is also referred to as the spiritual hub of the world. All this good tags which tag along the brand named India are actually is being used in contrast as a excuse for things not being proper or not being done in Indian Sub-Continent.

Where ever you go and ask for a change, people say the same thing that in India it cannot be done. If we just keep weeping about it and starts protecting ourselves by this shield of Democracy, I guess we are making fool of our selves not others. Democracy is the biggest weapon and the biggest blessing India has ever got. Let us utilise it and try bring a great change in the way we function.

Finally I leave it onto you: Is Democracy a Weeping Boy or a Divine Gift?