Myth & Realty of CRM in India

A corporation must strategize its engagements plan with the customer in order to have a healthy top line over longer period. A corporation must attempt to create an engaging dialogue with target consumers and stimulate their engagement with the brand.

Reams of literature exist that stresses the need for focusing on the Consumer engagement & Delight in order to have financial profit from the enterprise. But what is the reality of the real market in India? How many consumer durables companies have a customer complaint/feedback button on their website? In the FMCG domain the scenario is no different. The E2E or B2B markets have different mechanisms to deal with negative feedback. No durable or FMCG company in India has a formulated Customer Grievance policy that could be set in motion in case of negative feedback & assist the executive to remedy the hurt/loss. What does it mean? All that ‘marketing talk’ on customer comes first are mere sham or myth? Check any company budget templates and try search the allocation &appropriation for complain redress?  Where is the marketing in India? 

Another important misunderstanding about marketing in Indian context is about the relationship between Consumer engagement & consumer satisfaction. As per wiki,” Customer engagement has been discussed widely online; hundreds of pages have been written, published, read and commented upon. Numerous high-profile conferences, seminars and roundtables have either had CE as a primary theme or included papers on the topic. 

Customer engagement marketing places conversions into a longer term, more strategic context and is premised on the understanding that a simple focus on maximizing conversions can, in some circumstances, decrease the likelihood of repeat conversions (Customer engagement interview with Richard Sedley). CE aims at long-term engagement, encouraging customer loyalty and advocacy through word-of-mouth.”

Customer Engagement in services is more critical than in the products because of the nature & ownership issues. Most Marketing managers focus more on satisfying the customers at the primary product level without strategizing the process of engagements. In a scenario of less importance to marketing in the deficit markets of India/ China nature most companies are confused in allocation of resources between Engagements & Satisfaction. Such a situation would mean the once you have a strategically great product, price & promotion you need not factor in the issues of engagements.

I have researched the problems with my client organizations and the market at large. The service companies must have a defined engagements policy that could maintain the consumer trust resulting in financial success for the corporation. Some of my recommendations are:

1.    Engaging consumer in pre, sale & post sale needs strategic stance.

2.    A satisfied customer can forget you so needs reminder

3.    A bad situation can be converted into a gain with the help of quality engagement.

4.    An engaged customer has more value than the satisfied only.

5.    Quantity & quality of the communication must be calibrated with a bias for quantity in deficit markets like India

India needs to dismantle Bania-Brahmin caste system for sake of skills.

So long as Hindu society treats white collar Brahmins as the highest caste its impossible to inculcate and build world class blue collar skills among Hindus, direly needed for the economic development. Would you like to become someone who is looked down upon in society?

Government has realized that fast economic development is not possible without inculcating critical skills in the people of India. Economic growth based entirely on the capital has limited leverage on the growth . On the other hand innovations based on skills rather than the capital could have a major catalytic impact on the long term sustainable growth of economy. Skills don't follow the capital, its the other way round.

CK Prahalad & Gary Hemel introduced the concept of Core Competencies into Management literature. Michael Porter,strategy stalwart, advised many governments to persuade them to build a Competitive Advantage for their economies and companies. Though India can invite FDI for various industry but importing skilled managers with innovative creative minds is almost next to impossible due to domestic socio-economic conditions. 

Just imagine that you have a choice to become a doctor or a fashion designer, and the society you live in accords more respect to a doctor, would you prefer the later route? Besides livelihood people work hard to earn respect of society around them. Can you say I bought a Ferrari by selling contraband? People are identified by their profession and skills so skills are important part of what a person is? Isn’t it?

Presence of large number people having knowledge of English language available at low cost provided  competitive advantage to India in the BPO sector for couple of decades. China took few years to scale up their assembly & manufacturing on the basis of manual skills present in the Chinese people. Indians, Hindus particularly, on the other hand don’t seem to have any significant manual skills needed for achieving success in manufacturing space.

Another conundrum prevalent in India is presence of huge number of professionally educated youth that the India Inc find as unemployable due to lack of skills.  Who would believe that some undergraduate colleges in Delhi, don't accept students without almost 100 percent marks. How could students score such high marks? And how the teachers establish the fact that someone deserves 90 percent plus marks? Is it for real or just another mythological tale from an incredible India, the most mysterious country on the face of Earth.

In the real world a genius drops out of formal education system to blaze a trail. Steve jobs didn't like the taste of fruits served to him in college, so he left the formal system to cultivate his own Macintosh Apple.  Naturally why in the world someone with 100 percent marks in 12 the year of education be need to seek admission in some formal college? S/he could pretty much be on her/his own. But in India, innocent young people go around flashing their 'percentage prize' like a designer accessory, simultaneously, pray to god for mercy to help them get admission in a branded college. So the education in India is all about marks alone.

Though more students obtain significantly higher marks today than a decade ago but employers are complaining about poor quality of training & absence of skills in the fresh youth. How could rise in marks be indirectly proportional to skill creation in India? Govt of India has already committed itself to skill creation in India. In this direction, India signed an MOU with the US govt for setting up of community colleges in India during the recent visit of Secretary John kerry. High marks are like Himalayan peaks, very attractive but difficult to scale.

But the deluge of high marks in India is leading to more chaos on the ground than presenting a pretty picture on the canvas of economic development & industrialization of India.The absence of skills in not limited to technical & professional sector alone. India is not producing great quality managers, actors, academicians, writers, administrators and politicians.  So the education system is unable to improve on existing quality and take it to next higher level. How can India become a global power with low quality human resources?

Its time India wakes up and take steps to upgrade the quality of its citizens through formal & non-formal education. Hindus must open their hearts and minds and demolish the caste system once for all and stop that look down upon those who have world class skills. White collar brahmanism is keeping India poor and week.

Snack food marketing: Nutrition, Taste, Health and/or pleasure segments

We eat to live. Well most of us definitely do. Hence the food must make us healthy and increase our life span. As consumers are becoming more demanding the food companies have to work overtime to convince the buyers to depend on them for offering nutrition combined with pleasure. Therefore food companies are taking fatty foods off the shelves and replacing them with the healthier foods. 

You may segment the food along four benefits; Nutrition, Taste, Health and Pleasure. What are the alternatives with the Cola majors like Pepsi & Coke? Would they be able to sustain a strategic attack on their consumption? Could they survive by asking consumers to go for cola drinks for pure pleasure? Or could they pass off as the tastier water available? They would find it very scary to go for a pleasure tag. Certainly they would never imagine killing their market by hawking Cola as a health drink. How the future is going to play out is a million dollar question.

Snack food market in India is dominated by the unorganized sector. But the future may be different. The organized retail revolution unleashed in India would change the contours in no time. Most retailers have or are in the process of launching their own snack food brands. The local small snack food players would be edged out from the market and would remain in business as vendors of the large stores. The evolution of biotechnology would also upgrade the snack food portfolio.

The sweet snack food segment dominated by biscuits is experiencing real tremors with entry of new competition from within and global market. Players in biscuit market are planning to launch biscuits as a healthy snack food. We are all convinced with cereals and dalia etc as a healthy food. But a snack is a snack. How can you force fit a biscuit to pass of as a health food? Surely a snack food product positioned on health benefit segmentation is in nothing but a horrendous idea. Hope no snack food player would like to present their products on the lines of Chawanprass or some Churan. If they do how would the packaging look like? Would it look like a health product, a medicine or some happy pleasurable packaging? 

How many snack food players have we got in the Punjab region? Not many! Why is it so when there is huge market available in the region? When you shop for a snacks all you see if Fritolay, Haldiram, and 2-3 local players. We know that being a developing country that has recently come out of a total regulatory regime, our entrepreneurs are more comfortable with production than being adept in marketing their produce. 

Every big small town in the region has 1-2 famous snack food player. How we all miss the great retail effort undertook by Lovely Sweets from Jalandhar. Gopal from Patiala has also flexed its muscles but have not taken a real shot at becoming an established player. Dhoda sweets may have shifted base to Ludhiana but their product line is woeful short.Cremica has opened up into this domain but they seem to be satisfied with organic growth only. 

When would we see a snack food brand leveraging the worldwide appeal of PUNJABI DHABHA and SHER-E-PUNJAB? Is someone listening 

Do the MBA grads lack aptitude for management?

Despite large quantity of MBAs coming out of various institutes & b-schools the industry generally bemoans the shortfall in supply of skilled professionals. Why do an MBA lack the industry relevant skills to enhance their employ- ability quotient? Reasons are many fold encompassing syllabus, non-availability of teachers, lack of exposure and a general absence of aptitude.

The students who join the MBA & PGP courses are not to the only ones to be blamed; it is the manner in which the course curriculum is delivered to them. 

Firstly MBA cannot be taught in group settings alone as it is against the basic principle of adult learning. Students coming from different backgrounds must be taught separately. The lack of exposure of the teachers to the business & trade complicates the matter further. Therefore the teacher ends up teaching MBA students as if they were doing some accountancy or economics studies. Lecture after lecture continue without learning about the industry and business domain.

How could a student study the marketing of passengers’ vehicles without knowing the name of major players and the product mix? Umpteen numbers of teachers discuss Coca Cola Pepsi etc in the classrooms without knowing the turnover of these companies. We, the teachers, must bring industry knowledge into the classroom if we wish to produce a student that could be employed in some industry.

The Boy

University Gold Medal for Journalism & Mass Comm 

Lecturer in English at ASM, near Sangrur

Industries Dept Punjab, Chandigarh

he changed the boy for ever. 

Sangh Parivaar or Gandhi-Nehru Parivaar- India has a choice

India was given independence by the British much ahead of the scheduled date of 1948. Shocked? Why the British left India in hurry than enjoy the benefits of ruling such a vast country? Well the British ruled many parts of India for almost 300 years. But the Raj was not allowed to rule Punjab by the native Sikhs for a long time & the famed empire ruled Punjab for the least times as compared to India.  Dogs and ordinary native Indians were forbidden to venture into areas that the British kept for their exclusive use. Point is the British had a low opinion about intellect & lifestyle of the natives that find expression in many a statement of the Raj politicians who doubted the ability of Indians to rule such a vast land. The Indians too agreed with the British view on the low intellect & poor competence of the natives by accepting the partition of India.

Pakistan was carved out of India in 1947 as the Islamic republic and remaining parts of India under Gandhi-Nehru persuaded the locals to pursue a ‘secular’ dream. The Sikhs who ruled Punjab when the British ruled Delhi also decided to walk on the path of secularism, rightly so as the Sikh religion is based on the core principle of universal ‘Brotherhood’. Pakistan that relished the dream of a religion based state has since been divided, unlike India which has survived intact. The truncated India, also called Bharat to appease the Hindutva lobby of Sangh parivaar, went on to pursue a hallowed tough path of ‘Secularism’ and has survived till today. But can India avoid another 1947, or Pakistan 1971, in the wake of Hindutva goal to make it a Hindu state? Can the sangh-parivaar or the politics of Hindu appeasement keep India united, through persuasion or by force? Many scholars are afraid that the truncated India is facing another 1947 moment.

Will India complete a century of self rule and remain a republic in current form till 2047? Your guess is as good as mine.  It depends upon the competence & performance of the majority natives. India that sacrificed a major part of its territory to the pursuit of religion based state to Pakistan is gasping for breath & struggling to keep the monster of Hindu aspirations and keep walking on the path of secular modern state.  Since Hindus form an overwhelming majority so the Hindu vote bank is most sought after group for the political parties to appease in order to grab the power. When was the first time that the President of USA reminded India of its Article 25? Barack Obama was on his second visit to India and had so much confidence in the strength of secular India that he called PM of India Dr Manmohan Singh as his idol while was on a visit to the Germany after his first visit to India.  Does the Hindu Media in India shared with Indians why the POTUS had to change his mind so drastically about India?

The Hindu supremacist RSS also known as the Sangh- parivaar have penetrated deep into most institution of India including the press & judiciary. Therefore it’s not uncommon to see the respect and acceptability given to the Hindutva ideology of sangh parivaar in truncated India that had decided to be a secular country not very long ago. It’s not the Hindutva lobby alone that dream of a religion/culture based state, Punjab also experienced the horrors when a political movement for the genuine rights of Punjab was turned into a struggle for the Sikh state of Khalistan during 80s. Escapism won’t help the Hindus, they have to decide if they want Hindutva based Bharat or work for a secular India. Both are 180 degrees apart antithetical to each other.

How stupid, don't you know your great-grand-Dad?

North India is often riled for its penchant for flouting wealth and the family name to influence others while making a point about an individual's power & glory in the society. Don't you know who my father is? Well have you ever heard someone say,"I am not interested to know the name of your father, but do tell me who was your great-grand- father?"A two minute silence may follow.

How many people in the so called tradition bound 'Sanatan' society of India can tell the name of family beyond Dada Dadi & Nana Nani? Almost none may not be able to write a ten sentences long essay on their par-Dadda or par-Daddi ji. Do you think its inconsequential to know mambo jumbo about your family that has no bearing on the present? Come on, how can you swear to god about family values of India and still don't value the memory of your ancestors? Take a walk in any street in India to meet with many a Swamy roaming around to remind you about the Hindu DNA of your ancestors. Jokes apart, a society that forgets its past is condemned to repeat their blunders, So better be careful and take a peep into your past and carefully connect the dots backwards to know your future.

Lets get back to the present moment & dispel the disbelief about your grasp on it. How many can write the story of your parents, where were they born and how they lived before you arrived in their lives and the later period? Many can write an longer essay on cow, than her real mother. Same for the father. Therefore you need to seize the moment and sit down to write a long story of your family that you could leave behind for your great grand children. Facebook will not lead to redemption on this account. Like other SM sites, facebook has a limited life span. Therefore if you are interested to help your great grand kids to know you better then scribble all your memories on a piece of paper for the posterity.

Let me make few suggestion about how to go about this arduous task. To begin with ask your father mother to narrate their story to you, Record it. This may take more couple of sittings depending upon the journey s/he have been through. Once your have a draft story then make a plan to visit the locations associated with their past with the intent to take pics of school, university, house & jail where ever they have spent sometime. Try meet as many people as possible to dig out the other version of the incidents narrated by your parents. Such inquest may lead to better understanding of your loved ones. Finally, sit down wearing an editor's hat to create a collage that gives a near true picture of the life of your father or mother. Don't worry about the grammar so long as you paint the story in an interesting manner. 

Finally you could give no bigger gift to your parents than their own story, in form of a book, which they had forgotten in the struggle to make life better for you. Its good to know your great grand dad, and better to write the story of your mother father for the sake of their great grand kids. Some tradition excite all of us always.