Marketing Strategy : Is Time on Your Side ?

Renowned marketing guru Dr Philip Kotler calls this era as the era of experience economy. Consumers live in an experiential world where,rather than products, the quest is for experience. The level of experience factor in consumption varies from urban to rural markets but marketers has to accept the fact that consumer's penchant for experience will only increase as years goes by.

Time is the most critical component in an experiential world. Experience is about time spent with a physical product/service. So for marketers, Time has become a part of the product. The importance of TIME as a part of the product package is practiced in services marketing for long. But although we learn that in theory , seldom Time is treated with importance it deserves.

The beauty of experience economy is that it treats physical products ( goods) in the same league as services. Even while purchasing a physical product, consumers will look for experience. The experience while purchasing physical products happens while the product is purchased ( at the store) and also when it is consumed.

The TIME component of a physical product varies across categories.The importance of TIME in the marketing of a soap will be less compared to marketing an automobile.

Although large established service firms take the TIME factor seriously, it is the small business owners that are left clueless about TIME. Sometimes businesses views TIME in their perspective rather than customer's perspective.

A tailor that misses the date of delivery of a suit, a taxi that arrives late, a courier that delivers late , a soap variant that is not available at the store when advertisements are running , are all examples where marketers fail to understand TIME as a component of the product.Historically , time is viewed as an input for business. For consumers , Time forms a part of the cost.

Does it make sense for marketers to view time as a part of the product so that they could use the time to create positive experience ?

When time is considered as a part of the product, the whole marketing mix elements come into play. There will be conscious thoughts about adding value to the time spent with the consumer.

For a marketer of physical product, TIME is about reaching the consumer. This is a period when speed matters most . How fast a product reaches the channel and to consumer's home is an important determinant of a product's success. Domino's used TIME as the key differentiator with its " 30 minutes home delivery " proposition. It is a classic example where TIME added value to the physical product.

For a business, treating TIME as a part of the product opens new opportunities to create an experience.

• Sometimes consumers have to wait inorder to avail a service/product. In such cases, marketers should be able to add value to the waiting time of the consumers. The waiting time is the time spent with the marketer. Hence it is the responsibility of marketer to make an impression on consumer during that waiting period. If the consumer is waiting at the company premises ( like showrooms, clinics) then he should be treated in a manner where he enjoys the time spent with the firm. In cases where he is waiting for the product at his home, such time should be adequately rewards. For example, during the launch of Nano,Tata Motors announced that it will pay an interest on the booking amount for Tata Nano since the actual delivery of the car will be made only after a few months.
• Another strategy is to reduce the waiting time so that the perceived value of the product/service goes up.
• In cases where such value cannot be provided, marketers should be able to set only reasonable expectations with regard to the time factor.
• For a marketer of physical product, the time is about speed . TIME translates to - How fast the new products are launched, the stocks are replenished, product improvements made, information passed to the consumers and after -sales services are performed.

Marketing Strategy : Customer Orientation Vs Competitor Orientation

Should Your Marketing Strategy Be

Customer Oriented or Competitor Oriented

Originally published here in Adclubbombay.com

Although many marketing literature propounds the dictum “Customer is the King”, it is seldom practiced in its fullest sense. Marketers would love to put customers at the center of their business strategy but the intense competitive environment forces them to think beyond the customer and move towards the competitors.

There is a dilemma in the marketers mind with the choice of whether the firm’s principal orientation should be towards customer or competitors. Conventional wisdom say that firms should be oriented more towards customers than competitor. Peter Drucker famously said “The purpose of business is to create customers “. When a firm is customer oriented, the entire business is centered on customer needs and satisfaction.

According to academic literature, there are three components of market orientation (1) Customer Orientation (2) Competitor Orientation (3) Inter-functional coordination. Customer Orientation is where the firm spends its resources on gathering information about customer needs and behavior. Competitor orientation is where the firm directs its resources to gathering information about competitor behavior and activities. The firm’s strategies will then be based on the information gathered through any of these orientations. (Source: Narver, John C. and Stanley F. Slater. 1990. "The Effect of a Market Orientation on Business Profitability." Journal of Marketing 54 (October):20-35.)

Customer orientation helps firms with a clear in-depth understanding of consumer which results in a focused marketing effort. Research has confirmed that customer orientation helps firms to increase performance and enhance customer satisfaction.

Too much customer orientation also can be dangerous. There is a chance of marketers becoming blinded by their current focus thus oblivious of the changes brought about by the competitors. There are critics who argue that customers may stifle innovation in companies because customers may not be able to explicitly state their expectations or anticipate future needs. Customers are often resistant to change and this forces the highly customer focused firms to maintain the status quo thus refraining from game changing innovations.

The firms who are skewed towards competitor orientation are blamed for launching me-too products in an effort to fight competition. Too much focus on competitor often forces firms to invest in understanding customers or anticipate their needs better. Too many resources will be spent on competitive activities which may restrict investment on breakthrough innovations. Competitor oriented firms are more open to the changing trend in the market. Since their actions are more directed by the actions of the competitor, there is less chance of lethargy in marketing activities.

Firms must understand that there is a trade-off between these two orientations. Firms will have to lose something if they chose either of the two orientations. The ideal option is to balance both the orientation. It is easy to advocate that firms should have both customer and competitor orientation but with a limited resources in-terms of men and money, firms will find tough to have best of both worlds.

Companies must realize that the choice of customer / competitor orientation is dependent on the environment in which firms operate. There are external and internal factors that will decide the orientation of the company. For example, there are organizations like Zappos.com which is totally customer oriented. The customer orientation run deep within the organization’s DNA and the entire firm is structured around the customer.

Competitor orientation is more preferable in markets which are growing very fast. In fast growing markets, firms should invest in gathering more data about competitors which will enable them to develop innovations at lower costs.

Customer orientation is preferable in more uncertain markets. When the markets are changing very fast, firms can focus on customers which will enable them to change their marketing strategies quickly in accordance with changing customer needs. Also firms that deal with complex markets need to focus on investing in customers rather than competitors.

The choice of customer vs. competitor orientation is ultimately depended on the top management’s world view. The choice is important because there are only limited resources available with the managers to spend on either of these orientations.

Firms can strike a balance between these orientations if they can focus on the following guidelines.

• Invest in a robust market intelligence mechanism in the marketing department. The mechanism can be internal or outsourced, but the emphasis will be on information gathering and dissemination. When a mechanism exists, depending on the market environment, organization can decide on the type of information that should be gathered.
• Encourage free flow of information within the organization. Market orientation tends to be ineffective if the organization is bureaucratic. Hence firms should ensure that important market information is passed to various levels quickly.

Marketing Strategy : How to Profile Your Customers

How to Profile Your Customers

Originally published here in Adclubbombay.com

Knowing one’s customer is a prerequisite for successful marketing practice. Customer profiling is the collection valuable information about customers which will help in better targeting and marketing strategies. Although every marketer knows about the importance of customer profiling, it is surprising to see how little effort has been taken in this regard.

The main reason cited by marketers, especially those dealing with FMCG and consumer durable products, for this lack of customer profiling is the sheer size of the customer base. For a mass marketer, profiling the large segment of consumers is not viable economic proposition. The problem starts when marketers see their customers as a large segment and not seeing them as a collection of individuals. It is true that a mass marketer cannot profile individuals but treating the entire segment as one without understanding individual profiles can make decision making less effective.

Profiling helps the marketer in better targeting, better communication and also provides a thorough understanding about his/her buying behaviour. The more information a marketer has about the customer, more efficient will be his marketing activities. Customer profiling can be done at an individual level or at segment level. In practice, most of the mass marketers and B2C marketers tend to profile customers at the segment level and the B2B marketers focus on individual profiling. B2C marketers find it difficult to profile individual customers because of the large number of customers.

Customer profiling starts with the identification of target customers. Before profiling, marketers should have clarity about their prospective customer. This is a critical step for start-ups and those businesses that are entering new markets. The critical question that a marketer should address at this stage is “Who is our customer? “. Many businesses tend to view this question narrowly. It is important for marketers to understand the different customer- roles in a buying situation. For example, in the case of a Television purchase, every member of the family will have a role to play in the whole purchase process.

According to Professor Philip Kotler, there are five customer roles in a purchase process

Initiator – The person who first suggest the idea of buying a product.

Influencer- One who influences the purchase decision through his suggestion or advice.

Decider- Who decides on the purchase and also any purchase decisions like where, what and how to buy.

Buyer – Who makes the actual purchase?

User- The person who consumers or uses the product.

While profiling the customer, it is important to profile those members of the purchasing unit who takes up these roles.

The next step in the profiling process is to decide on the information that is to be collected. Marketers can collect general date like demographic data which are often available in the public domain. These data help in proper segmentation and also in determining the market potential. Along with these data, it is important for marketers to collect personal data about their target customers. These data are difficult to capture and requires investment of people and financial resources. These data involves the media habits, hobbies, psychographics, purchase patterns, attitudes etc. In the book “Customer Equity “ , Robert C Blattberg, Gary Getz & Jacquelyn S Thomas , identifies six major categories of customer profile data. They are

Customer Sales Potential: Refer to the potential sales volume from the customers.

Customer Characteristics: Refers to the data related to customers like demography, income etc

Summary Customer Equity Measures: The value that the customer brings into the company

Organisational charts and Key persons: Applicable to business customers.

Influencers and specifies: The key roles customers play in the buying process.

Customer Attitudes: The qualitative data about the customers.

Once the information requirements are finalized, marketers should decide on the collection of the data. It is very difficult to collect the personal data of the consumers. Hence marketers should adopt data collection techniques which are more qualitative in nature. It is important for marketers to take a long term view about collecting such data because of the cost involved. The data pertaining to the attitudes and purchase patterns should be collected on a continuous basis in order to make it relevant.

Data once collected should be effectively utilized in the decision making process. Technology has enabled companies to collect all sorts of data. Many managers feel overwhelmed by the quantum of information collected. It is important for firms doing customer profiling to have a mechanism to make relevant data available to the decision makers.

In this era of high competition, customer profiling can prove to be the winning edge for marketers. One factor that determines whether a company is customer oriented or not is how the firm effectively uses customer profiling in their decision making process.

Marketing Strategy : How to Craft Your Brand's Vision

How to Craft Your Brand's Vision

Originally Published here in Adclubbombay.com

Creating a vision for the brand is the most important primary step in the brand management process. Brand Vision can be defined as the long term strategic position that the brand will take in the market as well as in the consumer mind-space. Brand vision offers a strategic intent which will act as a long term goal for the brand.

Creating brand vision is a strategic process which requires the involvement of top management. The vision dictates the future course of action for the brand with regard to its growth and future course of action.

Most of the time marketers are faced with critical decisions regarding the future growth path for the brand. There is a dilemma whether the brand should be extended to cater to new opportunities in the market or to be focused on the current category. Some times marketers tend to extend the brand too much that the entire brand equity gets diluted. Without the guidance of a clear vision, brands tend to lose focus and extend into unchartered unrelated categories. Lack of vision also creates the problem of discontinuity for the brand’s strategies. There are chances that the brand compromises its equity for the sake of short-term growth unless guided by a long-term vision.

Having a brand vision will help marketers make decisions regarding the growth of the brand. The vision also helps marketers to tap into opportunities which are in line with the vision and reject others that contradict the vision. Vision helps the brand to create a brand charter which will act as a rule book for the managers. It will also help the managers to shape the brand strategies during the time of crisis.

Brand vision also helps to develop consistency with regard to brand communication. The messages derived from the brand vision will be consistent across all media. Even when the advertising & creative agencies change, the brand message will remain constant. In the absence of brand vision, the communication messages will not be connected by a common thread.

Brand vision also motivates the employees to perform better. Employees feel motivated and inspired when they are aware of the brand vision. More importantly, employees should feel that they are contributing to the realization of that vision.

Typically brand vision statements should be simple and easy to remember. The golden rule is that every employee should be able to remember the brand vision especially in the case of a corporate brand or service brand.

While drafting the brand vision, the marketers has to keep the following facts into mind

Think Big

While drafting a brand vision, marketers need to have big plans for the brand. The vision should not restrict to the category or even the industry. Instead the brand vision should aim at addressing some critical issues faced by the consumer. The vision should inspire both the consumers and employees alike.

Encourage growth

Brand vision should encourage the growth of the brand beyond product categories. The marketers should be looking at a 10 year time horizon while drafting the brand vision. The marketers should be asking the following questions while drafting the vision.

1. In 10 years, what will be the position of the brand in the industry/category?
2. What is the core need that this brand is going to satisfy?
3. Is that need sustainable over a period of time?
4. What needs do this brand satisfy in future?
5. Will the vision of the brand appeal to the consumers?
6. Does the brand vision excite the employees?
7. Does the vision encourage growth and pursuit of opportunities?
8. Is the vision easy to understand and communicate?

Synergy with corporate strategy

It is important for the brand to maintain synergy with the corporate strategy. That is why the top management should play a key role to in drafting the vision. When the brand’s vision is aligned with corporate vision, a sustained investment and support can be ensured for the brand’s growth.

Customer Focus

Brand visions should be created with customer as the focal point. Many a time brands focus too much on the product rather than the customer need. Having a strong focus on customer will help brands to create visions which are practical. Customers will also be able to relate to the brand vision since the vision is created with the customer in mind.

Periodic Revision

Although brand vision is crafted for a long term, it is important for the marketers to revise the vision from time to time. Brands operate in a dynamic environment. There are chances that the brand’s vision may become irrelevant for the consumers in the changed environment. Hence visions need to be revised in line with the changing consumer environment.

Marketing Q&A : Frame of Reference and Points of Parity

A Marketing Practice reader asks this very pertinent question " What is frame of reference and points of parity and their role in branding ?"

Frame of reference is the framework used by the consumers to make sense of the product in question. Humans understand and remember new things by linking it to existing (known) objects. Frame of reference is that evaluative criterion which is used by consumers to make a better understanding of the product/services. Frame of reference also explains the context in which consumers tend to evaluate /place the product. For example , the frame of reference used to evaluate Frooti is that it is a mango drink. Coca Cola = Cola, Ace = Mini Truck, Dettol = Antiseptic etc. If Frooti launches an Apple Drink, the consumers will find it difficult to accept the product since it is out of the frame of reference used to evaluate/understand Frooti

Since consumers use a frame of reference in understanding a product, the concept has a very important place in the positioning of the product. Positioning is defined as the act of designing the company's offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market ( Kotler). The first task of the marketer is to identify the frame of reference used by the target market in evaluating the product/service. Once the frame of reference is identified, the marketer will position the product in line with the frame of reference. In case of products that lack a frame of reference, marketers should create a frame of reference for the consumers.

The concept of Points of Parity helps marketers to place the product in line with the consumer's frame of reference. Points of parity are those associations that are not necessarily unique to the brand but may in fact be shared with other brands. There are two forms of Points of Parity - Category POP and Competitive POP. Category POP are those associations that consumers view as being necessary to be a legitimate and credible offering with a certain product or service category.Competitive POP are those associations designed to negate competitor's Points of Parity ( Kevin Keller).

In simple terms , when a product is launched, the marketer should tell the customer about the category in which the product belongs ( category POP). This task is important for products which belong to a new category. For example , hand sanitizer is a new category and consumers are not aware of such a category. So when a brand is being launched in such a new category, brand managers should first establish a category POP. For that , the consumers should be made aware of such a category. Right now marketers are using infomercials to educate the consumers about hand sanitizer, its advantages and uses. Once the frame of reference is established ,then the brand should be placed in the category. Usually marketers use packaging, product form and labels to establish category points of parity.

Competitor POP is where marketers tell the consumers that their brand have all the properties/qualities of their competing brands. For example Lifebuoy soap will establish competitive POP with Dettol soap by claiming that it has germ killing qualities and vice versa.

These strategies will fail if the marketers did not understand the frame of reference used by consumers in evaluating the product. This lack of understanding can lead to positioning failures that eventually lead to product failure.

Marketing Strategy : Four Pillars Of Customer Focus

The Four Pillars of Customer Focus

Originally Published Here at Adclubbombay.com

Customer focus is one of the most used jargons in the marketing lexicon. Despite being accepted as an important strategy, many firms have not yet been capable of delivering exceptional customer service and focus in their operations.

Customer focus is a choice and the choice has to be made at the highest management level. Being customer focused is an expensive proposition. It is resource intensive and needs hands-on management from senior leadership of the company. More than money, customer focused strategy depend on human resource. The investment needed for maintaining customer focus is the time and dedication of all management levels towards the goal of service excellence. Most of the firms which aspire to be customer focused fail because of the lack of involvement of top management in customer-related activities.

Most companies invest their resources in creating processes and automating customer touch points. After this investment, the management leaves the customer management to these insensitive machines and algorithms. The entire process will be a waste unless there is a human element in it.

For any organisation who aspire to be customer-centric should start by building a strong foundation .Without a strong foundation, customer centric activities will lack in their effectiveness.

Customer knowledge, Culture, Human Resources and Conflict resolution are the four pillars of a customer focused organisational strategy.

Customer Knowledge

Customer profiling is the first step towards building customer focus. This is one of the most difficult phases in the quest towards customer focus. The depth of customer focus in a company is directly proportional to the depth of the customer information collected. The effectiveness of all customer-related promotions will depend on the extent to which the collected information is being used at the customer touch points.

For example in a business to business environment, firms are sitting on a huge pile of customer information. The information from the past interactions with the customer, the information from the past sales data are all available with the company. How well this information is available to the sales force will determine the effectiveness of any customer related campaign run by the company. While most firms collect customer information, this information are seldom updated or distributed to the concerned personnel.

Another important task for the managers is to identify the customer group that the organisation should focus on. It is near impossible for organisations to satisfy every customer. Some customers may be unprofitable for the company to serve. The management should be able to take informed decision on the customer groups which it will have to focus on. Once these groups are identified, firms must orient its organisation to deliver exceptional service to these customers.

Customer-Centric Organisational Culture

The second most important pillar of customer focused organisational strategy is the culture. Customer-centric organisational culture is where the entire organization is tuned to deliver exceptional service to the customer. Customers become the centre around which the organization is built.

The Chief Executive becomes the Chief Customer Officer. Every process and actions of the firm is prepared with customer in mind. Although this proposition may sound theoretical, companies like Marriott, P&G and FedEx have built their business around a customer focused strategy.

Human Resource

People form the third pillar of a customer focused organisation. The employees are the vital interface between the customer and the company. Customer focused organisations invest huge resources in developing a team of highly trained customer- care executives.

It is critical for organisation to understand the importance of front-line employees who deal directly with the customers. These employees represent the face of the organisation. There has to be clear role clarity for employees who interact with the customers. Customers always prefer a single contact point with the selling organisations. Customer focused organisations thrive because their entire organisation is created to optimize customer touch points. The customer –care executives are given enough authority and responsibilities to deal with customer requirements. Cases which are beyond their authority are escalated to higher levels.

Conflict Resolution.

Handling customer conflicts is the litmus test of the effectiveness of any customer-centric organisation. When there are no conflicts or complaints, customer management is not a daunting task.

The real depth of customer focus is revealed when there is a complaint or a conflict. As customers, we all have faced situations where our complaints go unresolved. A recent survey conducted on mobile phone users revealed that unresolved complaint was one of the major reasons for customer churning in Post-paid customer segment.

Customer focused organisations have a robust complaint handling mechanism backed by strong process and also sufficient budgets. These organisations have a system where complaints or conflicts are addressed within a stipulated time frame. The unresolved complaints are escalated to higher levels of management and necessary actions are taken at each levels of management for proper remedial actions.

Marketing Strategy : How to Engage Customers to Create Brand Equity

Engage Customers to Create Brand Equity

Originally Published here at adclubbombay.com

Engagement means creating involvement. Customer engagement means the effort taken by the brand to develop an involvement between customers and the brand beyond regular purchase and use.

Traditional marketing practices seldom encourage active involvement of customers. The marketers often are satisfied with the regular purchase of the product by the customers and the level of engagement with the customers is limited to handling queries, handling complaints and loyalty programs.

The new economy has necessitated marketers to think beyond the typical purchase/sales orientation to a more pro-active customer engagement orientation. The web 2.0 and the rising popularity of social media have created a new cost effective platform for marketers to build and maintain customer engagement programs.

Take the example of ZooZoo- the characters created by Vodafone to promote its Value Added Services. With in a short span of time, ZooZoo was all over the social media and the Facebook fan count reached 2, 75000 at the time this article is being written. Using ZooZoo, Vodafone has created a new way of connecting and engaging with the target audience.

Create a culture of engagement.

It is not easy to create effective customer engagement. The first and foremost requirement for effective customer engagement is to orient the company culture towards a customer orientation. Customers can be demanding and more so when the company takes an initiative to reach out. Hence marketers should venture into creating active engagement only after the entire firm develops an orientation towards customers.

Make it easier for customers to connect.

An important requisite for active customer engagement is to make the process easier for consumers to reach the company. Active consumer engagement cannot work effectively in an outsourced environment. Hence the marketing department should be able to create and sustain a robust mechanism to respond to the consumers.

The web has made it easier for marketers to keep tab on consumers’ demands. But in a country like India, one should account for millions of consumers who cannot access such a channel. While creating such engagement channels, the brand has to create a robust process to ensure that it responds to the consumer immediately. An unanswered query or a complaint can create negativity and can be detrimental to the brand’s equity.

Have a vision

Brand managers should have a clear vision about the outcome and purpose of customer engagement. The critical question is “what is the expected outcome of this engagement?”

The outcomes of a customer engagement program need not be based on purchase or sales. There can be qualitative objectives also for such an engagement. How ever brands will reap the benefits of loyalty and repeat purchases from the consumers who are actively engaged with it.

When the consumers are actively engaged with the brand, one need not search too far for new product ideas. Highly involved consumers will be a vital information source for obtaining feedback and product improvement ideas.

Move to a higher ladder.

Once the platform is identified and target audience chosen, the brand should have something to say to the consumer. The brand can engage the customer in many ways. Typically during engagement, brands will assume the role of an expert offering advice to consumers on problems. The task for the marketer is to find the areas in which the brand should engage with its consumers. For example, through Gang of Girls website, Sunsilk is providing tips and advice on hair care which is the subject where the brand is an expert. The advantage of such an engagement is that the brand has more control over the conversation.

While identifying the area of engagement, the brand should be able to ladder up to a more abstract need rather than restricting itself into a category need. This will appeal to a larger audience and thus take the brand’s reach farther. Tata Tea created a highly successful engagement based on the theme “ Jagore “ inspiring many youths to register themselves as voters in the recent general elections. But the challenge for the brand is to take this engagement further since the elections are over.

Another way of engagement is where the brand provides a platform through which the consumers engage with each other. The brand acts as a facilitator rather than the expert. Consumer driven brand communities are the results of such an engagement. These engagements are more powerful than the brand driven engagements because the underlying cause for such engagements arises out of passion rather than profit.

It is all about action

Successful engagement arises out of action. Brands venturing into creating customer engagement must devise ways to create and maintain a higher energy level among the consumers. The engagement plan should have activities, contests, debates, meet ups, webinars, sharing, exchanges, tweets etc to keep up the energy level. This means that there is going to be a substantial investment on the part of the brand to keep the momentum going. The investment is more on the human side rather than monetary investment. Technology has enabled companies to keep these engagement costs minimal. But there has to be a dedicated team who will keep the activity levels high so that there is never a dull moment.

Marketing Strategy :Do You Know Your Customers ?

What Marketers Should Know About Customers

Originally published here in Adclubbombay.com

The dictum “Understand your consumers “has often become a cliché. It is not a new idea but it is the most forgotten idea. When sales are growing at tremendous pace and when the production is struggling to meet the demand from the market, consumer is pushed to the backyard. During periods of economic boom companies focus is on expansion, diversification, new offices, mergers and acquisitions. But then suddenly out of the blue, everything comes to a grinding halt. Growth stopped, inventory piled up and consumers stopped crowding the stores. Now is the time to bring back the consumer to the centre of your business strategy.

It is said that the seeds of disaster is sowed during the time of growth and optimism. Take the case of realty sector. This is the sector which was most affected by the current slowdown. When the industry was growing at a scorching pace, every one forgot the consumer. Prices were skyrocketing not because of real consumer demand but because of speculation. Many players cared little to understand whether the consumer is actually buying or is it a mere speculation that is driving the price. When the realisation came that real consumers are not buying, everything came to a standstill.

This current slowdown in the economy is a lesson for all marketers to go back to common sense. The common sense that consumer is the centre of business. The purpose of business is to create consumers. And to do that one should know the consumers.

Who is your customer?

Although this question sounds too basic and simplistic, it is surprising to know that many businesses do not have a basic definition of their customers. The era of mass marketing where the marketer treats the entire market as a homogeneous group is over. The market has moved drastically into different segments.

Consumer’s knowledge about offerings has also changed. This new set of empowered knowledgeable consumer has warranted that companies be more empathetic to the needs and wants of the consumers.

Marketers should have a thorough understanding about the consumer. The first step is to clearly define the consumer. The definition of consumer should be exhaustive and not be limited to a mere demographic picture. The mental, physical, emotional and social dimension of the consumer should be clearly stated by the marketer.

What does the consumer need?

Once the customer definition is clear, the next task is to map the needs of the consumer. This is not a static process because consumer needs and priorities keep changing. Hence there has to be a continuous mechanism through which these changes are absorbed into the learning systems of the company. In an advertising agency perspective, increasingly companies are cutting their media expenses. That does not mean that the need for promotions has died. When advertisers look for new cheaper methods for promotions, agencies should be in a position to help them. This can happen only if the agencies have a better understanding of the consumer’s changing needs.

Understand Customer’s customer

In the remarkable book “What the customer wants you to know “, management guru Ram Charan says “The most important thing to understand about your customer is her customers”.

The customer’s customer principle has wide application in business marketing. For an advertising agency, the customer’s customer is the consumer. For a business firm, it will be the customer of the client. If a marketer wants to clearly understand the customer needs, he has to first identify the customer’s customer and customer’s competitor. While many consumer firms clearly map their customers and competitors, business markets fail to understand the significance of this understanding. Because if the customer’s customer stops buying products, then your customer will stop buying from you.

From market driven to market-driving

Consumers will not be able to tell you exactly what they want. But a deep understanding about their life and their behaviour will give valuable inputs about new product ideas. Market –driving strategy is the strategy where the company shapes the consumer needs and wants through break through products and technologies. Hence it is important for marketers to go beyond what the consumer is saying.

Market Driven strategies are the conventional reactive strategies. Companies react to the changing marketing conditions using various marketing mix elements. The focus is on satisfying the obvious stated needs of the consumers. Market Driving strategies are aimed at creating original products and shaping consumer needs. The needs may be hidden and marketers should have the guts to tap those hidden needs.

Steve Jobs is quoted to have said that he does not believe in market research. He famously said that “We just want to make great products “. Here the focus is more on shaping the consumer needs and wants rather than reacting to existing needs. In a market driving strategy, the focus is to create new customers rather than satisfying existing customers. But for that one has to understand the hidden and latent needs of the consumers.

Constant consumer conversation and engagement will help marketers to understand those needs and find means to satisfy those needs profitably.

Remembering Dr Prahalad

Remembering Dr CK Prahalad

Dr C K Prahalad, the renowned Management Guru passed away recently leaving behind a legacy of unmatched management insights and lessons. Dr Prahalad was serving as Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor of Strategy at University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business . A renowned teacher, a prolific author and an accomplished corporate strategist, Dr Prahalad’s contribution to the world of management is incomparable.

What set apart Dr Prahalad from the rest of the academic stalwarts was the practicality of his insights. He was one of the few academicians whose research and insights were tested and verified in the real world of management. His contributions range from breakthrough insights on core competence, strategic intent, co-creation, competitive strategy, bottom of pyramid marketing and innovation.

Core-Competence

Dr Prahalad came into cynosure of management thinking during 1990s after a path breaking article “ The Core Competence of Organisations “ published in Harvard Business Review. Dr Prahalad and Gary Hamel advocated the importance of understanding the importance of core competencies and using the core competencies for growth. The insight that Prahalad and Hamel proposed inspired many firms to direct their energies to build their businesses based on the core –competency rather than go for mindless expansion of business. The idea of core-competence was a revelation for many American firms who were struggling from the onslaught of focused Japanese firms.

Competing for the Future and Strategic Intent

Dr Prahalad and Gary Hamel further expanded the idea of core-competency to competitive strategy where the authors reminded business leaders about the importance of understanding the competitive environment while charting the business strategies.

The concept of strategic intent was another gem of an insight from Prahalad and Hamel. According to the authors, it is important for firms to understand the strategic intent of the competitors while formulating the strategies. Most of the firms are so fixated about the immediate impact of competition that they fail to understand the long-term vision of their competitors. The authors narrate the stories of how Japanese firms outsmarted the western counterparts by incrementally growing within the market. The US firms failed to understand the long-term plans of Japanese firms and thus did not respond against the slow and steady growth and ultimately paid the price of losing market share.

Bottom of Pyramid

Although Dr CK Prahalad brought into light some of the path-breaking management insights, his thoughts on marketing to Bottom of Pyramid remained as the highlight of his life’s work.

Dr CK Prahalad created a huge impact on the way marketers looked at people at the lower income strata. In the path breaking book “ The Fortune at the Bottom of Pyramid “, Dr Prahalad dispelled many myths about the poor and convinced businesses to look at poor people as a profitable market opportunity.

According to Dr.CK, poor live in an expensive high cost sub-economies. Poor does not have access to easy credit. If at all they get access, they pay 50-60 % annual interest and outrageous terms and conditions. Dr CK wants marketers not to perceive that being poor mean using cheap products. These consumers actually pay more for certain services compared to those living in a richer environment. For example, Pre-paid mobile service cards are popular among the poor consumers. Although the denominations of these recharge coupons seems low, the consumers actually pay upfront for the talk time and in most of the cases, they do not get the talk time for the full amount paid.

Another myth about poor that Dr Prahalad wanted to dispel is that consumers at the bottom of pyramid are not willing to pay for innovations. Dr CK argues that poor consumers are willing to pay for those innovations that are relevant to them. But marketers often try to sell to poor consumers those innovations that are relevant only to higher income strata.

Dr Prahalad reflects the importance of marketers to really understand the need of this segment of society, then innovate specific products for them rather than push irrelevant product/services to them. The rich always tried to make decisions for the poor. Poor should be given the choice to purchase products that they need. Let the market decide what these poor people need. The poor consumers spent lot of money on products and services. Marketers should focus on improving poor’s quality of life rather than sell expensive products to them.

The works and insights of Dr CK Prahalad will remain eternal. Business and Management world will miss this thinker and strategist and his invaluable practical insights.

Originally Published here in Adclubbombay.com