Firms Response to Coronavirus: Care for Your Salespeople

by Rakesh

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

Brand Equity and Invitation Pricing: Strategies of our Times

by Rakesh

( 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

Ethical Sales Leadership? Focus on Emotions

by Rakesh

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

Disrupt with Care: Reflections on Channel conflicts

by Rakesh

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

Marketing Trends for the Future: Implications for Sales Management

by Rakesh

Technology is the buzzword! A quick scan through the academic as well as practitioner literature would build a strong sense to believe that nothing in business is untouched by emerging science and technology. Expectedly, we have coined new terms such as Martech, Sales technology at a narrow functional level and, digital transformation at a broad … Continue reading Marketing Trends for the Future: Implications for Sales Management

A Newspaper in the Morning and a Book at your Bedside can Reduce E(ye)-Waste

by Rakesh

Clearly, the target audience for this article consists of readers who can comfortably claim – “I don’t read newspapers”. At the risk of being labeled a ‘prescriptive and old fashioned’ person, let me start by saying this direct; newspapers and books(THE PRINTED ONES) are good for you. I can think of a few reasons as … Continue reading A Newspaper in the Morning and a Book at your Bedside can Reduce E(ye)-Waste

Hello, Newspapers: When in doubt, rely on the idea of complementarity.

by Rakesh

Several years ago during a business conference, a colleague tossed a simple and very direct question to the CEO. “Considering the growth of digital medium how long newspapers in printed form are going to survive?” he asked. CEO thoughtfully acknowledged the threat and appreciated the concern raised by the colleague and made a prophetic announcement; … Continue reading Hello, Newspapers: When in doubt, rely on the idea of complementarity.