Friday, November 11, 2005

Is customer the king?

To continue .....


Looking at the current Indian marketing scenario, I have a feeling that we are moving back in time. Kotler says that in the evolution of marketing ,before the marketing concept became popular, there is a selling concept which states that "customers and businesses, if left alone will ordinarily not buy enough of the organizations products. The organisation must therefore undertake an aggressive selling and promotion effort" ( Kotler Philip, Marketing Management, Pearson Education2003).

In this present scenario, it is true that companies will survive only if there is a super efficient sales force. The reasons are that increasingly every products are being commoditized and there is an increase in the power of retails, information explosion that has given the consumer an unusual power. This has ensured that without an efficient salesforece companies cannot survive.

But is it now an overkill?

Even when companies focus on sales effort, concept like segmentation shouldnot be overlooked. For example, there has been lot of effort on increasing credit card usage in India. Credit card now comes free for life and sales people are just selling creditcards like chocolates .
Is it not wise to look at whether the consumer wants a credit card. Does he like to use one ?
Does he have the ability to pay back?

Recently a news channel showed a mutual fund agent giving discounts to a client from his brokerage. what does that mean?

It simply means that we are not practicing marketing. we are just selling....

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:38 PM

    dear harish
    it is good to think in a different way. what do think is supply side of economics. in fact i also thought it in that terms early. however, all my conclusions were proved wrong. it's just like thining to construct a city without people. everything is for them only. remember world depression of 1930s- when people lost purchaising power. it is important that all marketing people should entertain customers for their existance. they are not the king but superpower. they are the centre stage of all economic activities. kotlor's marketing become invalied if your arguments proved right-so let us save kotlor and marketing and avoid problems for the sake of humanity

    rajagopal

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous6:48 PM

      Mr. Rajagopal has good affinity to Depression 1930. :)

      Delete
  2. Anonymous6:55 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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