Marketing is for the greater good!
“We have done enough selling, let marketing take over now” – thus suggested the boss in my earlier avatar as a sales manager. He would go on to explain further – when we are dealing with consumer choices and preferences and in various ways that consumers engage with brands, we better be focusing on the … Continue reading Marketing Inertia: Too uncomfortable to act?
All of us who have worked in sales function know the importance (or lack of it) of sales targets. A salesperson without a territory and target could be anyone but a salesperson. No wonder then that the majority of the sales management resources are expended in setting and managing targets! There are exceptions, of course; … Continue reading Sales targets, incentives and performance: Reflections through the lens of sustainable supply chain
Recently, someone sent me a message about the closure of Pune Mirror and change in the periodicity of Mumbai Mirror, from daily to weekly. Much before the Covid hit businesses, the print media has been struggling on two counts; first, there has been delayed thinking and action on the business transformation – a strategy gap … Continue reading Adventures in Marketing: Reflections from my career in Print Media
Today is the 111th birth anniversary of Peter Drucker, the father of management. Long ago, in 1987, when I was a management student, we had a course called Principles of Management which would build on the core management concepts to illustrate the practice of management. I read about Drucker and his classic “Concept of the … Continue reading Remembering Peter Drucker: An Avid Bystander
Last month I needed to see a doctor and searched for the doctor on google. I got the number for his clinic and I called up to learn that the doctor is dong video consultation only. At the appointed time, I made a video call to the doctor and could complete the consultation and received … Continue reading B2B Marketplace and Individual Service Providers: Forward or Reverse Aggregation?
Last evening HBO was screening ‘The Intern’. Robert-De-Niro plays an intern who is well past his career and he is seen helping his boss Jules, tiding over her professional as well as personal crisis situations. A compelling story emphasizing that people can make great contributions irrespective of their positions in an organization.https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2361509/ My own experience … Continue reading Internship from Home: Optimising Your Impact
I have been following the developments in print media business; newspapers are facing distribution problems and more importantly, the courage of foot soldiers ( Circulation sales executives ) and the occupational risk associated with the sales operations. Let’s see how it all started: A section of social media/digital news portals started talking about the possibilities … Continue reading Firms Response to Coronavirus: Care for Your Salespeople
( Pic Courtesy: Book Cover of ‘Marketing to Win’ by Satish Mehta, Pearson) “Market share = share of conversations”; thus read one of the advertisements in The Economic Times celebrating 30 years of Brand Equity, a pullout that comes every Wednesday along with The Economic Times (ET, hereafter), Asia’s largest business newspaper. After all, aren’t … Continue reading Brand Equity and Invitation Pricing: Strategies of our Times
This is my favorite: a sentence frequently used in sales review meetings – “do whatever you need to do but get me the numbers”! Interestingly enough, this sentence gets repeated at all levels of the hierarchy up to the frontline manager. Clearly, an overload of performance orientation and neglect of learning orientation leads to such … Continue reading Ethical Sales Leadership? Focus on Emotions
In the last few months, there has been considerable coverage in business newspapers focusing on the online and offline retailer conflicts. Mostly, these raised an existential concern of the offline retail stores and the grocery stores (in FMCG what we refer to as general trade). Clearly, this issue has triggered strong statements; the commerce minister … Continue reading Disrupt with Care: Reflections on Channel conflicts
Markets and Conversations 