Marketing in modern business

All these days when the slowdown has hit various organizations including the few huge giants across different sectors of the economy, most of the organizations are trying to come up with an antidote that could treat 'Recession'. Organizations today are mostly striving to survive in the market rather than just making profits. Cutting down costs, downsizing, ignoring CSR's, e.t.c are few of the tricks most of the organizations are trying to play.

Organizations basically are into the business of buying and selling of either a product or a service in the market. One of the major functions of any business is Marketing of its products/services. Marketing is no longer the conventional theory where it was synonymous to 'selling'. It is a complex function now. We all know the 4 p's and 7 p's of marketing, we all know Porter's model and we all have read the great Sir Phillip Kottler as well. Yet we are not able to make out one logical thing, Innovation. Innovation is the antidote required to revive this slowdown and fly against the storm. The market today is full with players providing the same kind of Services or the product what other organizations are providing, what is new in us is the question that matters. Why will a customer purchase a 'Samsung' and not a 'Nokia'? this is the question we should ask and think upon literally. The simple answer is Innovation. If we keep providing the same and in the same way to our customers, the customers are one day going to get bored of what we are providing and will shift to something new and preferable. In terms of marketing, first we need to look into the needs of customers and then we need to act accordingly and should make sure the customer is not just satisfied, he is delighted. It is an old saying that 5 fingers cannot be the same. But in today's scenario, if the fingers are our customers are the fingers, each of them should be delighted equally.

Lets take a couple of examples.

Linc pens were about to die in the market. The competition in the 'Pen' market was so high that even major players like 'ADD' thought to diversify. Linc pens did a huge market research and tried to look into what is it that the customer needs from a pen? The findings were very difficult to interpret but after long hours of hard work, they came up with a new product- The pen was common just with a slight bend at its nib. The pen was a huge success in the market. Actually the customers basically needed comfort and ease while writing. Many a times the ink would dry and so they were looking for a pen which could avoid these issues. Linc pens came up with a product which actually complied to all the issues of its customers. This is the innovation in marketing i am talking about.

In Japan, recently, the watermelon sellers were worried. Actually the trucks that used to carry the water melons had the capacity to carry 9 tonnes of water melons whereas, due to the shape of the water melons the trucks used to carry only 6 tonnes. This was a loss on the side of the company. They, collaboration with some Japanese horticulturists, developed Square shaped water melons grown organically. This was not only the solution to the problem of the company, the customers were indeed more delighted to see a square watermelon, it was something new when compared to the mundane round water melon. The company was now able to transport 9 tonnes of water melons at once and the sales were also high.

These times of recession is the best time to reinvigorate the general practices of Marketing. Marketing is complex but, if handled properly, it accounts for huge revenue as well. A marketer in these times of slowdown has to be Innovative yet Simple.

Thank you,

Ashutosh Arun.