Making it Big in the World of Sales

The most beautiful thing about learning is that, “Nobody can take it away from you and that it is a constant ongoing process, not bound or restricted by the four walls of a classroom”. Curiosity and observation are the drivers of this incredible process of learning. This was the crux of the guest lecture delivered at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon, on 31^st August, 2019. Our beloved Jaguars were as always invigorated by the opportunity to learn more, as Ms. Aayushi Singh, National Key Accounts Manager (Modern Trade) – Hector Beverages, and Mr. Deepak Pandey, with more than 10-years of experience with Nestlé took the stage. With a razor-sharp agenda in mind, Ms. Aayushi and Mr. Deepak addressed the Jaguars to intimate and educate them about the intricacies of the adrenaline-rush filled field of “Sales”. They dived deep into the workings and career opportunities within this field.

Ms. Aayushi Singh, handles Business for the following Modern Trade Chains – Walmart, Future Group, Easy Day, Vishal Mega Mart, DMart, ABRL, Reliance Retail, Spencer’s, GPIL and Tesco (Star Bazaar) in Hector Beverages. She has worked as a brand manager with Paper Boat as well. She is an MBA graduate from FORE School of Management.

Mr. Deepak Pandey, carries expertise in Digital Transformation of Energy Management and Automation in Homes, Buildings, Data Centers, Infrastructure and Industries. He has also worked in Nestlé for over 11 years in various profiles like Sales Officer, Sales Executive, Sr. Area Manager and Senior Key Account Manager. He is an MBA graduate from IIFT, New Delhi.

Mr. Deepak kicked off a session of learning with his experience with Nestlé and explaining the importance of sales as a career option by citing examples of Suresh Narayanan – Chairman & Managing Director, Nestlé India. He used numerous examples to drive home the importance of accepting the company you work for and how passion comes into picture. He then dedicated a lot of time to explain B2B and B2C sales, revealing the spider’s web and attempting to clear these two terms for our “Primed for Placements”, Jaguars. The reaction that followed was evidence enough to say, “Mission Accomplished”. He, then moved on to Sales Automation, where he explained how Sales Automation is the upcoming field for all the techies interested in sales. He explained how Sales Automation is vital for the companies and how costs are taken care of along with the advancement of technology. He strongly emphasized the importance of visibility in the sales process which can be achieved through Sales Automation. By touching upon the road ahead for sales he passed the mic over to Ms. Aayushi.

Ms. Aayushi, an extremely energetic, driven and passionate individual, was extremely relatable to the Jaguars as she had very recently begun her own journey in Sales and thus, she tried keeping the topic general, simple and yet quite insightful. Extracting a round of laughter from the crowd, Ms. Aayushi started off with a question, “How many of us are actually interested in Sales?” She went on to explain the qualities companies look for in a candidate seeking a career in Sales. She explained different challenges faced by her as she was a woman in a man’s world, choosing sales as her career. Everyone right from her family to her friends and colleagues tried to talk her out of this idea, but she came out on top and “sold” her ideas to them using her negotiation skills and thus proving she is well equipped for the same. She stressed upon how sales, the ultimate reason for the existence of a company is important and even people working in other domains should understand it as Sales is the only department that has multiple touch points to the end customer and this helps in developing strategies. She elaborated how sales as a career has changed her way of thinking and shaped her personal life for the better. Ending her talk with two of her go-to motivational videos, she opened the session for questions from the audience. A barrage of questions and answers followed, post which the Jaguars thanked the guests for their guidance, insights and their valuable time.

Written by:

Ms. Jaswinder Kaur, PGDM and Mr. Indrajeet Vadgama, PGDM Class of 2020 “Jaguars”

Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon

#instascam – Of Fake Accounts and False Prophets

Mechanics of the Scam:

Influencer marketing is big business today. A study by Swedish e-commerce start-up A Good Company, and HypeAuditor, shows that Indian Instagram influencers have over 16 million fake followers, the third-highest after the US and Brazil ^[1]. Several influencers use these bogus accounts to boost their vanity metrics such as “likes” and overall engagement.

And brands bite – the study estimates that the fraud has cost marketers $750 million globally. Marketing firm Mediakix predicts that influencer marketing on Instagram could reach $2 billion by the end of 2019. “Influencers” on Instagram and other social media enjoy a wide outreach and leverage this to strike deals with brands and earn sponsorships, pushing products and services to their fake fan base. Many of these influencers try to game the system and make easy money by coaxing brands into thinking they have a larger following than they actually do; they buy followers, likes and even engineer comments on their posts. Companies end up paying a fortune to these influencers for collaboration and in the form of free give-aways to non-existent persons. It is quite easy to buy fake engagement and fake followers online for anyone who knows where to look.

A Cat and Mouse game:

Unfortunately, there is no single fool-proof workaround for this. As much as social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. work to identify fake users, the shady services that sell fake social media engagement always find ways to stay one step ahead. In his great “Manipulating” series on YouTube, Destin Sandlin explains how these social media websites are at war with fake news and fake engagement ^[2]. You could once spot fake following by checking social media analytics websites such as Social Blade and look for unusual spikes in follower count, given that there has been no major external event that may to the spike ^[3]. However, services that provide fake engagement have gotten smarter. They allow you to gain followers in a slow, consistent, steady fashion that seems organic to the algorithms of social media websites.

So what can be done about it?

Technology companies have dedicated a vast amount of resources to solve this problem using AI-driven algorithms to terminate fake accounts. However, there are certain elementary methods to identify if an account is fake, apart from the ones mentioned earlier.

One of the ways is to analyse the comments. Comments posted by bots or the influencers themselves usually follow a common theme in terms of vocabulary and sentence structure. So if you look for patterns in them, you will usually find overwhelming polarized content and limited writing variety.

Another method is to check the profiles of some of the commenters. If they are overwhelmingly empty accounts with poor post frequency, skewed following-to-followers ratio (fake accounts usually follow a large no. of accounts to engage but have low follower count), or just don’t seem to have any personalized content, there is a very good chance the influencers are buying engagement and scamming companies out of their money.

In Conclusion:

Methods to spot fake profiles are certainly not fool-proof and can be quite cumbersome, but they can still provide a fair idea about an influencer’s account. Skepticism could be helpful to marketers so that they can take a calculated risk if they’ve got Influencer Marketing on their minds. They should be cognizant of the fact that any random “influencer” may not have their best interests at heart. Nevertheless, influencer culture is here to stay, whether we like it or not. While large corporates may not [need to] invest in this, struggling start-ups and local brands may still try to walk this road as a cost-effective means to create awareness among masses, instead of expensive mainstream advertising.

Written by: Anant Gupta – PGDM “Apache” Class of 2021

Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon

[1]: https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/social/indian-instagram-influencers-have-over-16-million-fake-followers-says-new-study-5830303/

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUiYglgGbos&list=PLOY__sF3NWC1rqjRh_KVftNj0j4slUd3Z

[3]: https://socialblade.com/

Marketing – A Science or an Art? Deep Insights by Mr. Julius Augustine: Vice President, Kantar

Great Lakes Institute of Management leaves no stone unturned in ensuring that students are not only introduced academic concepts, but also real world scenarios at a very early stage. They get the opportunity to meet achievers who have contributed to the industry at large and learn a great deal from them. The Spartans – the PGPM Batch at Great Lakes, Gurgaon, this year – had the privilege of interacting with Mr. Julius Augustine, the Vice President of Kantar. Mr. Augustine was here with a platter of marketing concepts and the students were all set to gain a broader picture of their theoretical learning.

Mr. Julius started off his career as a Senior Research Executive at Mudra Communications where he performed customized research for brands such as Rasna, HLL, P&G, and Reliance Industries. He then joined ORG-MARG (now AC Nielsen) and spearheaded the Client Servicing portfolio for Media clients.  He has also served as the Associate Vice President for Hansa Research Group wherein, he was responsible for Business Development and Client Servicing. He then served as the Associate Director & Country Manager for Acorn Marketing & Research Consultants in Kuala Lumpur. Mr Julius has serviced clients such as Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance, ICICI Bank, Reliance Communications, Fame Adlabs, Piaggio, etc. Presently, Mr. Augustine is heading the Coca-Cola India and Havells accounts at Kantar, working towards Brand Communication, and Creative & Media Consulting.

The session was extensively insightful for the upcoming Management Professionals, as it was fascinating to walk through topics such as Market Safety, Market Research, Segmentation, Micro-Management, Customer Retention, and Branding. What made the session more engaging was hearing about his experiences with organizations such as Coca-Cola, Swiggy, Amazon, and other high performing organizations.

Mr. Augustine took the students through the age-old debate of marketing being an art or science, while we drew parallels of marketing with religion as leveraged by marketers, and how segmentation of groups for market development is prevalent within the demographics of India. To quote Mr. Augustine, “Marketing is the antithesis of Religion, you need to desire religion and hence you need to market religion.”

While addressing the importance of good advertisements that please masses in general, he made sure the students learnt to appreciate the aesthetics of acceptability – the underlying art of marketing. He explained how, during the content creation for an advertisement, facial detectors track reactions of the people to whom the content is being showcased. He displayed and described the example of the latest Coca-Cola advertisement, emphasizing on how the first draft of any advertisement is decided by the face value of recognizable people, along with brand recognition. He gave the students the real world picture of Branding, and the underlying Market Research and Psychology behind branding a product.

He addressed a lot of questions from the students as well, especially on topics such as Market Expansion, Market Growth, and Market Intelligence. What made this part the most impactful was the fact that he shared and linked these to all his experiences pertaining to each of the wide sectors and companies he has been associated with. The students were left awestruck by his humility despite being an industry leader, motivator, and an inspiration.

He ended the session by stating “Be a researcher and never be bored,” and every Spartan could resonate with his words.

Compiled by Devyani Sormare, Somil Tyagi and Sunrita Sarkar

PGPM 2020 “Spartans”

Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon.

Social Media: Perfect Communication Channel for Startups

Social media has emerged as an integral part of our daily lives. As of April 2018, the active social media users are more than 3.3 billion. This number is staggering and qualifies to be a world in itself. When fabricating a startup, you have to go where your group of onlookers are and engage with them keeping in mind the end goal to develop your business plan. Today, the place to run advertisements is web-based platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and the sky is the limit. These social channels act as a bridge between the individuals and brands. They have turned into a vital component to increase exposure, raise brand mindfulness, create leads and boost client transformation rates. This is particularly critical for startups that are working with little spending plans, in an ever-increasing competitive entrepreneurial market. This information-driven advertising approach helps you direct your focus on individuals rapidly so they can be acquainted with the startup offerings at the click of a mouse. Social media hands over an opportunity of easy access for customers and to get a genuine feedback from its potential client in a shorter traverse of time. We can explore different avenues regarding our internet-based content to catch the essence of the offering among clients of various demographics. In order to integrate social media marketing with other communication channel and to have a competitive edge, startups ought to maximize the online presence by working on an effective social media strategy.

Stitch a plan that works for your need:

Turning to long-range social networking as a method for business advancement doesn’t just mean being available on the web. In actuality, this is a confounded procedure and, accordingly, it requires completing an exhaustive research and building an arrangement that will keep you on course. Startups have to build a strategy that fits well for their business offering. Something that works for one startup would not necessarily work for others. Identify the unique value proposition, the point of parity and disparity of the business with its competitors should be thought out before formulating a road map of implementation.

Target audience segmentation:

To construct a content for your audience, we have to distinguish their identity. Startups need to segment their potential client to get hold of the purchaser persona. By surveying your audience’s experience data such as their occupations, hobbies, interests, training, and additionally, some fundamental statistic factors such as age range, sexual orientation, and wage, could have the capacity to effectively focus on your gathering of people, convey true client experience and stitch deals.

Identify the correct social media marketing channel:

When online networking showcasing plan is figured, a startup needs to distinguish the web-based life stage they have to fabricate their presence. Every internet-based platform is one of a kind in their group of onlookers focusing on and has diverse reasons, new companies need to recognize the channel that fits their need. Focus on the channel that would contact the correct group of onlookers for your business like for B2C business, Facebook and Twitter could be the correct channel however for B2B LinkedIn could be the ideal place.

Learn about your competitors:

Before beginning with social media content creation effort, one should explore their competitors. Begin with distinguishing them by picking the organizations working in the similar space. Consider their advertising technique, content marketing strategy and customize your online presence accordingly. Additionally, keep an eye on the social media campaigns being run by the competitors and work on formulating a marketing strategy to counter the competition.

Knowledge about the end goal:

Make a long-haul objective to be accomplished through social media marketing to accomplish exceptional yield on investment of your time and money. For some producing Facebook likes or Twitter retweets and followers could be the objective yet for others, their frameworks would be centered around creating more prominent activity volume, web referrals, exceptional client target and high conversion rates. Conceptualize about the objective and plan of your road ahead customized to achieve the final goal.

Focus on content creation:

Content is the core of social media advertising. The more engaging and slanting substance one can make, more would be the traffic volume. Substance ought to be influenced creative to connect with the gathering of people to make the buzz about the contributions and to influence them to share content over various profiles. Additionally, content should be in sync with the motto of the startup and should highlight the unique selling proposition about the offerings. They should make utilization of the most recent happenings and inclining points and draw in the crowd by associating the substance with it.

Real-time feedback tracking:

The most ideal approach to benefit as much as possible from your web-based presence is to gather moment criticism by checking your clients’ exchanges. Along these lines, you will have the capacity to discover how your intended interest group feels about your product and utilize the opinions valuable to enhance your approach. In particular, internet-based life enables you to furnish your customers with the continuous service and immediate feedback. On the other hand, you can likewise screen the audience’s feelings about your latest released product and recognize any potential client encounter issues and settle them on time.

Happy Marketing!

Author: Kumar Shreesh

PGPM, Class of 2019, Great Lakes, Gurgaon

Breathing Life into a Brand

GREAT LAKES GUEST LECTURE SERIES – Mr AVIK CHATTOPADHYAY

Co-FOUNDER – EXPEREAL INDIA

27^th July 2018:

Fridays at Great Lakes, Gurgaon, generally mean a session with a seasoned industry expert. Dressed in our formal best, armed with laptops and notepads, the Great Lakes’ PGDM batches, Aztecs and Jaguars, were ready to welcome Mr Avik Chattopadhyay for an interactive session focused on Branding. Being a marketing enthusiast, I was eagerly looking forward to this session.

Mr Avik Chattopadhyay: He is the founder of a brand consultancy firm, Expereal India. The firm deals with building strategy for several brands. He possesses extensive experience of more than a decade in Branding for the automobile industry and has previously worked with giants like Volkswagen, Maruti Suzuki, Apollo Tyres, Peugeot, to name a few, in leadership roles.

The interactive session majorly focused on the characteristics of a brand that keeps it relevant in the long run. Mr Chattopadhyay explained that at the heart of each and every brand, lie some core values and characteristics which derive its purpose and are in-sync with the hearts of the consumers. If a brand cannot connect with its audience, it is eventually and inevitably going to phase out.

He further added that the idea of a brand is applicable to everything, from products and services to organizations, teams and even individuals. In order to substantiate his words, he offered examples of prolific standings like that of the Nalanda University – standing for knowledge, the Pyramids – standing for their engineering marvel, and the Himalayas – standing for both tranquillity and as a symbol of challenge. While these can be perceived as products from a marketing perspective, there are individuals like Elon Musk, Christopher Nolan and Steve Jobs who are nothing short of a brand in themselves.

He explained that in today’s context, a brand is something that is highly misunderstood and many a time is just equated to a bunch of tangibles like a logo, slogan, advertising or maybe a Facebook page. A brand in its entirety is way more than that and is reflected by “what it stands for.” It is something that is promised and delivered consistently.

Having worked with some of the most reputable brands – Maruti Suzuki and Apollo Tyres – he then took the students for a Case Study ride to showcase how these two companies came out from a series of troubles and bad market standing and how they were able to turn around the brand image to what it stands for today.

In the case of Maruti Suzuki, he described the worst couple of years in the company’s timeline i.e. from 2000 to mid-2002 and how that was a major motivation to introduce a product which entirely revolutionised the Indian automobile market. The product was Maruti Suzuki Swift. While Swift was built for a newer target market and was designed as per it, the entire project remained true to the brand idea of Maruti Suzuki, which is – democratization of mobility.

A similar case of Apollo Tyres was discussed. While Maruti Suzuki had a very inside-outside approach to solve its problem, Apollo did just the opposite and succeeded too. He laid out the importance of setting and adhering to benchmarks along with devising a long a term strategy to be truly successful.

The session turned out to be more enlightening than any of us imagined and that was evident by the storm of questions Mr Chattopadhyay received from the knowledge-hungry Great Lakers. To conclude, this was one of the sessions which will be in the memory of everyone who aspires to make a career in Branding.

Author: S SnehanshN

PGDM, Class of 2019, Great Lakes, Gurgaon

Vicks – Generations of Care: Marketing beyond Product Promotion

#TouchOfCare: On March 29th, 2017, a new video advertisement promoting the Vicks brand created a sensation by striking the most sensitive nerve of the Indian population. Created by Publicis Singapore, the video, spanning 3 and a half minutes, tells the story of a young girl Gayatri who is on her way to boarding school. 10 years ago, Gayatri lost her mother to a life-threatening disease and was later adopted by Gauri Sawant. Being thrown out of the house at the age of 18, Gauri has seen her own share of struggles in life before she met Gayatri. Gauri raised Gayatri as her own child, pampering and looking after her all along. Gayatri recalls a memory of being ill and Gauri using Vicks to treat her and spending the night by her side. In a span of 10 years, the two grew closer to each other, surpassing the mother-daughter relationship and becoming best friends. Gauri wants Gayatri to become a doctor. But Gayatri aspires to become a lawyer, for her mother Gauri, a transgender woman.

The ad has received 10 million views on YouTube and has been one of the most touching ads to go viral in recent times. This video has been a part of numerous “Try not to cry” challenges as well. A guaranteed tear-jerker for most who have watched it, the video still continues to be shared on social media more than a year after it was released.

Vicks as a Brand: For generations, Vicks has been a part of nearly every household around the world. It’s an easily available over-the-counter medicine for mild fevers, cold and cough. Vicks VapoRub ointment, along with other products under the brand, basks in the glory of a 96.5 market share in the “VapoRub” segment. What began as an innovative new home remedy christened Vick’s Magic Croup Salve in 1905, by pharmacist Lunsford Richardson and Dr. Joshua Vick, was later rebranded as Vicks VapoRub in 1912. In 1985, American multi-national consumer products manufacturer Procter and Gamble Co. bought the Vicks brand and has been manufacturing and distributing its products worldwide. Vicks VapoRub can be found among the common medicines in a large number of households and even in travel kits of people all around the world.

The Evolution of Vicks VapoRub

“Mother”: With a brand image and a market share as immense as it has, why Vicks need to invest in such an emotionally charged advertisement to grab the attention of the masses? The answer lies in the very heart of Indian values and culture. In a typical Indian family, the father is the head of the family, following a patriarchal family system for centuries. But it’s the mother who breathes life into the family. A mother is someone who has borne intense pain to give birth to her children and raise them. And she continues to do so for the rest of her life even after her children have grown up and are capable of taking care of themselves. She spends sleepless nights when one of her children falls ill. Right from working and earning to doing household chores like cooking, a mother always does everything keeping her children in mind. For a majority of children in India, as well as a fair share of adults, there’s no worry in the world that a mother’s touch and soothing words cannot cure. Through this ad, Vicks and Publicis Singapore emphasize this very sentiment which has been the cornerstone of Indian families for ages. And Vicks VapoRub has been one of the instruments of motherly love as most Indians have a memory of falling ill and their mothers applying Vicks VapoRub on their chest, nose and foreheads before they drift off into a peaceful sleep for the night. And the ad reinforces this role that the product plays. But the story does not end there.

Discrimination against Transgender Women: India has a population of roughly 4.9 lakh transgender women. Discrimination against them is on the rise. Every day, they are subject to harassment in public, often even of a sexual nature. They are despised and looked down on by “normal” people as an abomination. There have been cases of doctors refusing to examine transgender women or trying to molest them during an examination. Humiliation has become a daily routine in their lives. In recent times, a number of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Institutions such as Sahodari Foundation and The Transgender Welfare Society have taken the bold initiative to stand up for transgender rights and welfare. But a lot more needs to be done so that the discrimination is curbed and transgender women are treated and respected as a member of the society that we all are a part of.

Marketing beyond Product Promotion: With subtle product placement in the video, the Vicks VapoRub ad calls the attention of the vast Indian society towards the concerns of the neglected and harassed transgender women of India. It showcases the capability and calibre of such a woman in raising and taking care of a girl child all by herself through the true story of Gauri Sawant and her daughter Gayatri. The adoption law makes it difficult for a single man or a woman to adopt a child. And it makes it much more difficult for a transgender woman to do so, owing to societal norms and taboos. Gauri Sawant sets an example by fighting all odds in making the right choices in life with pride.

Watch the heart-touching video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zeeVEKaDLM

Author: Bruno Nellissery

PGPM, Class of 2019, Great Lakes, Gurgaon

B2B Marketing – Changing the framework

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Business-to-Business Marketing (B2B Marketing) directly involves the sale of a product/services from a company to another company.

B2B marketing techniques rely on the same fundamentals as consumer marketing, the difference lies in the execution of strategies and techniques. In consumer markets, the decision to purchase a product/service lays not just on the price, but also on its popularity, status and/or any other emotional trigger. While in the case of B2B, purchase decisions are made primarily on the basis of price and profit potential.

Core fundamentals of B2B marketing revolve around building relationships that guarantee lasting customers, which is the primary goal (other than having a larger customer base) for any company irrespective of its size of operations. It is a domain which is less focused upon but is the frontier for any business to grow and sustain in any industry. It has been the focus of many organizations, where the sharpest of business minds had the untapped potential which could be brought to use not just to generate revenues, but for making enormous profits from their business activities.

A lot of focus has been directed and emphasis has been laid upon different horizons surrounding the B2B marketing that ranges from market structures and drivers to growth, customer categorization and buyer types to decision aspects, etc.

The main attraction of B2B marketing lies in the evolution of its framework, i.e. from product oriented approach to a solution based model. The product oriented model is well known as 4Ps of marketing (Product, Price, Promotion and Place) and it has been used by marketers for decades. With the ever evolving technologies and the presence of web services has made the classic principles appear archaic as modern buyers learn almost everything about the business, the 4Ps of marketing are increasingly at odds with the imperative to how B2B marketing functions in this modern age. Hence, retooling the 4Ps has become a necessity for today’s B2B reality.

It is not that the 4Ps have become irrelevant, but there is a dire need to reinterpret them to serve B2B markets. The model shifts the emphasis from Product to Solution, Place to Access, Price to Value and Promotion to Education/Educate, i.e. SAVE.

SAVE

Solution: Instead of marketing the products, the focus needs to be shifted to a solution based approach. Basically, it means selling of benefits instead of just features.

Access: The idea here is not to disseminate the base location, but to create a cross-channel presence that considers a customer’s entire purchasing cycle/process and not just the place to seal the deal.

Customers want the business to be accessible and available as per their time of requirement, suitability, and a mutual assurance that you (the business) have their backs if something goes wrong.

Value: Compelling and convincing communication about the benefits rather than features is something that helps businesses gain pricing power. Thus, value based pricing holds a distinct advantage and has a better approach over competitive pricing.

Education: Educating prospects as to what the solution is and how it meets their unforeseen needs/requirements by interacting with the customers and evaluating their needs. Thus, providing information and advice to create a sense of familiarity and trust even before the purchase is made. In other words, educating prospects about the business solution attracts more than just promoting the product or service.

In a nutshell, the organizations that continue to embrace the fading model of 4Ps, run the potential risk of involving their business into a repetitive and increasingly unproductive competition.

As the customer has more say in the business-customer relation, embracing a framework that would reflect the actual concerns of the customers should possibly help marketers create and provide better value for the people and meet their needs.

Author : Kinshuk Chaturvedi

PGPM Class of 2017, Great Lakes