TEAM MEMBERS

● Ayush Bansal (21PGP051)

● Abhishek Kumar Pandey (21PGP012)
● Amruta Nema (21PGP030)
● Nilisha Deshbhratar (21PGP064);
● Abhijeet Kumar Singh , (21PGP005)
● Anand TM (21PGP031)
Interviewer: Ayush Bansal (21PGP051)

Interviewee: Mr. Hitesh Jain (Currently Working with Delhivery)

· How do you perceive Marketing?

Marketing as a discipline involves all the action a company undertakes to draw in customers and
maintain relationships with them. Networking with potential or past clients is part of the work
too, and may include writing thankyou mails, returning calls and emails quickly, and meeting
with clients for coffee or a meal. At its most basic level, marketing seeks to match a company’s
products and services to customers who want access to those products. Matching products to
customers ultimately ensures profitability.

. What are the major success factors of marketing according to you?

Well as per my knowledge there are 3 major success factors for marketing.Segmentation, for
marketing to work properly we need to segment the society into customers with different needs.
Targeting, after we have made different sectors of society, we need to target that sector to whom
we can provide maximum value according to their needs.Positioning, we need to position our
company or say brand in the market. For every company this is an important step. We don’t just
step into the market with the aim for profit, instead first we step our foot in the market and then
grow from thereon.

● How does your company Implement marketing?

Deciding what customers to target and selecting positioning strategies for each target moves the
planning process to the strategy implementation and marketing management stages. My
Company considers the design of an effective marketing organization, the implementation, and
control strategy, and the use of information systems for the planning and management of
marketing strategies.

● Learnings

From this whole insightful conversation with Mr. Hitesh, I have learned that marketing is
regarding consumer value creation. The main expectation of marketing is that to provide value to
the consumer for this marketing use various strategies like segmentation, targeting, positioning
etc. We make different segment of customer base into various sectors according to their needs
than we target a specific sector to whom we can provide the maximum value and then we try to
position our brand or company in that sector or market so that we can get ahold of that market
and ultimately make profits while providing value to our consumers.
Interviewer: Abhishek Kumar Pandey (21PGP012)

Interviewee: Mr. Shubham Kain(Currently working with Ultratech - Area Sales Manager )

● What is marketing according to you?

The major goal and the key factor is to communicate the message to the end customer. Here, in
cement manufacturing, the consumer is not the customer. Marketing is a way to talk about the
work you are doing and how it fulfils their needs and demands. Marketing is about forming an
image about the company in their minds. And after that you offer your product to them and that
comes under sale.

● What are the success factors of marketing ?

Clarity: The first and foremost thing is clarity about the message you are giving. People don’t
like a talking machine who keeps bombarding information about their company and about a
product. They want us to care about them about their beliefs, their standpoint and they want
assurance that we completely understand their situation and feelings.

Trust: It doesn’t matter what you market and how different the product is from others. They
have a lot of choices to make on a daily basis and they prefer someone who they can trust in a
longer term. It is not like they won’t change their minds after that but initially they prefer to have
a trustable person/company.

● How does Ultratech market its product?

Here, the consumers are not the major customers. Our customers are Masons and dealers who in
reality make the choice of choosing a cement for a person by suggesting it to the homeowner.
Because the owner doesn’t really pay attention to this thing.

● Above the line: Tv advertisements, Newspaper ads, big budget campaigns, IPL
sponsorship. It is done to build a national image of the brand and to show from where the
brand is coming, so that people start noticing and trusting them.Company focuses on the
name of the brand and its impact rather than what is the product they are launching. Like
Apple, it gives full page ads without giving any information about its product.

Ultratech focuses on serious advertisements, like the “IRAADON ME JAAN DAAL DE “

advertisement by Ultratech. While Pidilite has always come up with catchy jingles. The
advertisements are highly creative but they have an element of fun in them. The reason is
“Home” is a dream for people and they will trust someone who is also serious about his work.
So, understanding what the customer believes and what his mindset is most important.

● Below the line: Ultratech or any other company focuses more here. Our 70% of the
marketing budget goes here. These include free product sampling, any small event
sponsorship and majorly for a manufacturing company, the marketing consists of having
good relations with dealers and masons. We take care of them by giving incentives to
dealers, having an annual meetup of dealers and masons of nearby territory so that they
also get to know each other. BTL has less scope of innovation and creativity, However, It
plays a major part in marketing to build a strong relationship among various parts of the
chain ( B2B )
● Learnings

The Major learning I had about marketing is that it is about communicating your message to
potential customers. How a person sees you determines how much interest they will have in you
or your product so it becomes imperative to build an image of who you are.Also, sensing the
needs of consumers and adjusting your behaviour accordingly is a key element of marketing.
Ultraetch is investing heavily in creating and maintaining its relationships with masons and
dealers, this shows that what impacts most for a business is the granular level of marketing you
do and how you take care of those people already you have.

AMRUTA NEMA (21PGP030)

Name: Sudhir Nema

Designation: Chief Development & Quality Officer at Britannia Industries Limited

● Can you begin with a brief about your work experience?

I have worked as general manager and Director at PepsiCo India (Frito Lay Division) and
currently I am working as Chief Development & Quality officer at Britannia Industries Limited.

· What according to you are the success factors in marketing?

Branding is the most significant factor affecting marketing schemes. How is the brand recalling,
how powerful the brand is or what is the brand health. The awareness of a brand also affects its
marketing. For example some brands like Cadbury, Lays these have powerful branding and one
of the marketing tasks is to further improve the brand health metrics.

· What are the Brand Health Metrics that you mentioned earlier?

Brand health is an umbrella term for metrics that shows you how well your brand is doing. These
metrics include Net promoter score, brand reputation, unprompted brand recall, prompted brand
recall, purchase intent, and brand equity.

● What are some other factors affecting a marketing scheme?

So another important factor is market shares, a higher market share usually means greater sales,
lesser effort to sell more and a strong hurdle to entry for other competitors and a company's
marketing efforts have a direct impact on their sales and market share.

Another factor is reach which is important for both sales and marketing

Market reach tells you your potential audience, a portion of which has the opportunity to turn
into new customers.

For example, if you want to buy a commercial spot on television, the market reach is the number
of people who might watch that channel when your ad airs. If you're advertising in a magazine,
the market reach is the number of people who will buy the magazine.

· What role does advertising play in marketing of a product?

One of the important roles of advertising is to create awareness of the product or services such as
brand name and price.

Aspects like the number of people you reached with your ads, how much time people spent
looking at your ads, what is the recall factor of the advertisement are vital.

· You emphasized mainly on established brands so what are the factors affecting
marketing for new brands?
Most important for new brands is how they connect to the consumer or how they create a
consumer pull. First three years are crucial for a brand to see where it stands among its other
competitors.

Some fastest growing brands are Reliance Jio which is heavily inclined towards advertising and
brand promotion or Patanjali which emphasized on “Made in India” products and positioned
itself for “Natural Products available at affordable prices”.

· What is the marketing strategy of Britannia?

Britannia is chiefly famous for traditional marketing strategies. Being an old established
company, it relies on radio messaging and TV advertisements to draw its customers. Britannia
has not only focused on the new generation but also has focused on elderly people with various
products.

The Brand has done a campaign for Gooday biscuit in which they feature Bollywood actor
Deepika Padukone in which she urges people to focus on the goal and chase the real deal, and
this message has been simply conveyed as “Khushiyon ki zidd Karo”.

· Key learning:

One of my key lessons from the conversation is that branding is one of the most significant
factors affecting marketing schemes. The awareness of a brand particularly affects its marketing.
A higher market share usually means greater sales and the company's marketing efforts have a
direct impact on their sales and market share thus they have mutual dependence. Most important
for newer brands is how they connect to the consumer or how they create a consumer pull.

Interviewer: Nilisha Deshbhratar (21PGP064);

Interviewee: Mr. Harshal Bhandari (Owner of Ceramic shops)

· What are some of the success factors for marketing?

It depends on what kind of products we are marketing. For me customer requirements is of

utmost importance and we always take their needs into consideration. Another important thing is
that I make sure all my employees have knowledge about every product in our shop so that they
can help the customer pick the best product according to their requirements. I make sure that my
customers are satisfied with our services so that they come back to us whenever they need
another product and also recommend us to other people which will help us with our marketing .
 ● What is your marketing strategy?

When I first set up my shop, I did not get customers for a long time, so I focused on providing
the best service to the few customers that came to us. Eventually, they became my regular
customers. It is necessary to understand what a customer is looking for when they walk into the
shop and provide them with products that best fit their specifications.

● You have recently started the business of selling and setting up solar panels. So what
made you decide to go for this business and how is it panning out?

Once I started my shop,I began noticing that people in my district need solar panels and for that
they travel hours to the city to buy them as there were no shops nearby providing the panels. So I
figured if I started selling these, people would buy them from me as it would be more convenient
for them and that is why I decided to go for this.

● What are some of the issues that you faced while marketing them and how did you
overcome it?

Like I earlier said, you cannot expect a large amount of customers the first day you start your
business. It was very difficult initially because people already had trusted shops from where they
procured these panels, so it was a task to gain their trust. I started with small projects. I incurred
losses in the beginning but I was okay with it because I knew that once word spreads out about
the quality of panels and services we were providing, it would cover up for the losses.

● Which success factor of marketing according to you is the most important for your
industry?

A necessity for marketing in this industry is to focus on retention of relationships. Adding

in simple technology to make sure that your current customer base are communicated
 with at an optimal rate and in a targeted manner, will increase the number of times they
purchase from you. A slight increase here can provide you with substantial increases in
revenue and profitability.

LEARNING:

From the conversation I had with Mr. Harshal, my key learning is that customer requirements are
very important in marketing. It is necessary to connect to the consumers, understand their needs
and market your products accordingly. The products should be made catering to the needs of the
customers so that the manufactured products are relevant for the intended buyers.

Abhijeet Kumar Singh , 21PGP005

About Interviewee –

Harshita Priyadarshini is an IIM Kozhikode graduate of PGP 2020 BATCH and she is
currently working in GE Healthcare as a Marketing Manager. She has previously worked at ITC
as a Marketing Intern as well.

Abhijeet : Hi Harshita, To start things off can you tell me what are your job roles involve as
Marketing Manager in GE Healthcare?

Harshita : My primary job is to take care of marketing for the Molecular Imaging business of
GE Healthcare, which comprises PET-CT Scans, Gamma Cameras and Cyclotrons. My role
comprises of development of marketing assets and tools which can be leveraged by the company
as well as its customers in the long run. Here by customer, I mean Doctors whom we are
providing these systems and equipment to. Also, I need to provide support to the Product team,
Sales team and Customers as well when the deal is closed. I also act as a liaison between the
product and sales team, taking care of the on-field requirements and communicating them to the
product team.
The marketing needs of customers tend to vary, I take leads from the customer on how they want
to market their facility. Every facility has different marketing requirements as it can be a nursing
home or a private diagnostic or a tertiary care facility or a multi-speciality hospital. The
marketing support that I am providing needs to be customised as per their requirements.

Abhijeet : This sounds interesting, before I pick your brains more on this I also want to
understand what made you choose marketing over other domains after your MBA?

Harshita : Before an MBA I did not have any work experience. My love for marketing started
with FMCG brands because when you do your MBA, you tend to read a lot of case studies of
these brands. All I could dream about was working for one of these brands, which tend to have a
tangible impact on the day-to-day life of its customers. I am invested in the idea that I want to
work for a company that impacts its customer on a day-to-day level. This was a very nascent
opinion, as I studied more, I got to know that there are different avenues in marketing as well i.e.
B2B, B2C , EB2B. At GE Health Care, I have a role that provides me with the opportunity to
work with both businesses and customers.

Abhijeet : What are the key things you do to make sure of getting successful marketing
outcomes?

Harshita : My target customers are mostly Doctors, and my customers in turn have their
customers which are patients. I have to prepare very specific marketing collaterals for my
customers, which I have explained earlier that they can have very different sets of requirements.
Hospitals like MAX or APOLLO have Metropolitan customers while Nursing homes in Tier 2 or
3 cities have target customers, who may stay in villages. I need to be clear about the marketing
requirement of the target customers of my customers. The briefs that make for my customers
needs to be customised as per their needs. They may want it in a local language or a specific
colour.

When a customer buys our product, I also make sure that they make the optimum use of it and
give their feedback. These machines have a lot of intricate features. To make sure that our new
customers are aware of them, I try and make them interact with our old customers by
establishing a community through engagement programs. I feel this is very important as it is a
very important part of customer relationship management and at the same time for the marketing
of our product. This step ensures good feedbacks and not just monetary revenues.
I also make sure that our product team representatives regularly visit the customer facilities. The
customers need to be totally on board with the product.

These machines are very costly and often a matter of pride for the customers. To incorporate
these, we have installation events as well, where sometimes our CEO also joins. We also try to
get media to cover these events, this increases the footprint for our customers in the long run. In
a way, I am providing visibility to our customers.

I also do the analysis of our competitors, their features and strategies vs ours. One of our
competitors is exiting the market the business altogether. We understand that its existing
customers will need new machines in the coming years. We got on and worked on strategies and
cost-benefit analysis with our product team on how we convert these customers to GE Healthcare
customers. So, I am also working on my strategy and finance skills.

I work with the sales team and business managers to stay updated with the status of leads that we
get. This allows me to understand what is the next quarter is going to look like and what impacts
can a failed lead have and why did that happen etc.

I work with the central marketing team of GE Healthcare where we get an idea about our budgets
and targets.

Abhijeet : Are there any external marketing techniques that you use?

Harshita : On an external basis I work with the nuclear medicine community, these communities
have regular conferences where we try to sponsor their events and connect with them. We
leverage these platforms to market our products, by onboarding speakers from different countries
who can talk about our products. It’s a brilliant way to showcase our products and also to see
what our competitors are doing.

Abhijeet : Okay, great. I got great insights on Marketing from your experiences. Thank you!

Learnings :

This interaction was very insightful, I learnt how we can utilise our community of customers in
increasing consumer satisfaction. This also made me understand that different customers can
have very different marketing requirements even if it is for the same product. I understood the
importance of making a homogenous balance between different teams. I also learnt that
Marketing is not only about advertising, and reaching out to customers. It's very important to
maintain customer relationships and also to always try and look for opportunities.

Anand TM , 21PGP031

About Interviewee –

Mano Venkatesh R- Zonal Sales Manager, Johnson & Johnson

· Brief me about your experience in marketing

I worked in J&J Pharma and the first project given to me was to manage the launch of a tablet
that can relieve from cold. Initially the drug was banned in early 2000s by the FDI along with
other drugs. After modifying the formula, the company came up with an alternative drug similar
to the Vicks product line for which I was supposed to find the market size and formulate the
launch. I basically hired consultants who can do the survey and analyzed the data and came up
with the launch ideas.

· What are the main challenges faced and what do you think are the success
determining factors for a marketing professional?

Whenever a product launch is to be planned, we need to study on how necessary will the
product be for the target group. When your product has not much of novelty involved in it to
have a USP, then it will be a challenging task to reach the target group completely. In my case as
common cold is something that involves self-medication by a large set of population, we had to
think of different strategies to sail through the market.

Another aspect to keep in mind is that never think to outperform the established competitor.
With this kept in mind, the marketing professional’s entire focus will be glued to his product
alone so that its full potential can be marketed. However, it is important to study and analyze the
strategies taken by the competitor. Initially we were thinking of targeting places where our
competitors had already obtained a good market share. But later on, we decided to tap the
potential of the unexplored market.

As market surveys are critical to decide the GTM strategies, it is very crucial to focus on right
kind of sample rather than the amount of sample survived. This enables to identify the Target
group and thereon the market size effectively. In my case as well, we decided to take survey from
two channels- one from the doctors and the other is from the medical store people and we hired
consultants for the same as they had the right kind of contacts and expertise.

· What is your advice to the upcoming marketing professionals in general?

For any marketing professional the broader aim is to increase the market size of a
product/service. It is always good to unlearn whenever you are given a new product as that
brings out an open-minded approach which has time and again proven as a successful attribute.

· Learnings:

While launching a product, choosing the right target group through the right survey is important
and it is also important to focus on the potential the product has rather than thinking to
outperform competitors. Moreover, having an open mindset will enhance the creativity and make
room for new ideas which will be useful in marketing campaigns.