Virgin Research!
By Harish Bijoor
Market Research is too important a subject to be left to the Market Research people. A statement enough to get me on the hit list of many an MR man, woman and child in the great Indian marketplace for Market Research!
There is for sure a case to involve the “all and sundry” in the process of understanding the process. A need for a thorough overhaul of sorts. A thorough shake-up of the traditional paradigm. Market Research in India has remained somnolent for far too long. Too static. Too traditional. And too bound by the manual of marketing research, carved in stone.
The times have changed. People, habits, usages, mind-sets, culture, icons, marketing men and women, markets, consumers, non-consumers, retailers, wholesalers, intermediaries of other kinds, and literally every constituent in the marketing chain of events has changed. Nothing indeed is the way it was. Why then must MR be the way it was? Time to change. Time for a radical kick-up of the tried and tested ways!
Sample-based research, Intrusive research, the omni-present Questionnaire, the Omniscient Focus group and the Omnipotent Dipstick of every hue and variety, are testimonies of the life gone by.
But all of a sudden, the nifty marketer is jolted. Much of what he saw and read in those bound MR reports are not happening the way they were meant to. Micro tests are not predicting properly, Usage and Attitude trends tapped in the traditional way aren’t working, and life in the fast lane of Marketing is getting unpredictable, despite the back-up of reams and reams of consumer insight, gathered the painstaking way.
The 2X2 matrices, the trend lines, those very impressive nuts and bolts are just not impressive enough. Time to sit up and think why.
The consumer seems to live and breathe a more dynamic mind, mood and language than the one represented in well-crafted PowerPoint presentations made off high-end laptops!
All that apart, I make out a case on the methodology of market research itself. I make a strong case to say that briefing a market researcher on the product and its consumption patterns, the target segment, the demographics to check and stuff of this kind itself is a technique that is passé. Let us floss over this process completely.
A brief is meant to be really brief. When you market research your way through a category of a Lux or a laxative in the market, investigate with the eye and mind of a newborn child. Investigate a category not based on the bias of a brief. Probe not deeper into the category by reading up all that is available on the category. Probe into a territory of research as a newborn. Probe with the eagerness and undiluted enthusiasm of a child on the prowl. Virgin research! Shall we call it that?
An approach such as this is needed to jolt the complacent from their cocoons of contentment. Market Research is getting too easy. Is it getting quite like the territory of the Consultant? The guy who picks the mind of this and that to arrive at a theory that is but a poll of executive opinion? Can market research afford to be just that?
How many can really stand up and say that the bias of the client does not find its way into the end-diagnostics that are presented by a whole host of MR practitioners across the country? If you want to challenge this, the best way is Virgin research. Just take a three line brief from the client. Read less of the written stuff. Read less of the syndicated material on the category you investigate. Surf the Net even less to get this view and that opinion.
Go forth into the market knowing nothing that can cloud the insight you will gain from the market. Make your methodology that much more open-ended, that much more explorative, and that much more reliable. Base it less on the bias of the category and the bias of the client.
Be prepared as well to present to the client findings that might just not jell with the sophistry of category understanding, which is the prerogative of the client. Be prepared to feign ignorance of the basics that the client assumes you must know. This is no longer an embarrassment. The true-blue client will see this as strength, in times to come.
But give the client that much more of understanding. Understanding that does not necessarily toe the line of expectation. Instead, understanding and consumer insight that is that much more pure and unaffected. Understanding that may well nigh be complementary to what the client already has.
Is this how market research of the future will be done?
I hope so. Hope so! Hope so! Hope so!
The author is CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Branding in the Outdoors
Brands Run Out-of-Home
By Harish Bijoor
Have you caught the tail of a new trend in town? Have you as yet spotted the best of brands running into the terrain of out-of-home consumption? Running for cover from the melt-down in the in-home segment of consumption!
Lipton Yellow Label has painted many a town and city yellow! A whole corner of the stretch of territory near Mumbai's Juhu beach is all but he colour yellow! Many a restaurant, many a bus stop, and many a signage potential is today all yellow! Lipton seems to run out of home and focus on consumption that is outdoor while sister Brooke Bond seems to focus on what is happening inside the home!
Peek keenly at the new Horlicks commercial! Peek keenly at the development of the Café(including the Nescafe Café) of every hue in the great Indian marketplace. Brands, hitherto pretty content with in-home consumption seem to want to be out there in the great outdoors! Amidst the happening people of a happening Indian marketplace!
Every Vending machine out there in the great Indian marketplace, every new Mall that is breeding a whole new "Mall-dude" who just about hangs out, moving from mall to mall, and indeed every new range of Pret wear seems to brand the out-of-home category with pretty much focus!
Out of home is in! Out of home branding is the new buzzword sweeping Indian shores. Brands that stubbornly remain indoors through their positioning and segmentation strategies are in for a jolt!
Consider the facts. The Indian population is a young population. Life expectation is longer than before. Income standards are up. Except for a year of aberration, the Indian monsoon has largely behaved! Good monsoons mean a good crop. Large parts of the rural economy is a non tax-paying economy. Good rains spell good crops and good crops in turn spell a good amount of disposable income!
The metro is a happening place. We have 5 big ones and a whole host of 29 one million plus population towns that are buzzing with activity. The man works. The woman works as well. Double income is a norm in many a home of these 34 big urban agglomerations. People work hard. They party hard as well. Entertainment is big business. Eating out is a bigger fad still! Time is at a premium and anything that saves time and adds to the joys of daily living is a big hit!
The average Indian is spending a lot more time out of home than before. 8 hours at work, 2 hours on travel and 2 hours of outdoor entertainment and eating out, gobbles up half his day. And that's a lot of time spent out of home! The brand in his life has to appeal to his senses more out-of-home than when in home. In any case he is sleeping most of the time when in home alongwith a two-hour tryst with the television! The Indian in the metro is largely on the go. Man, woman and child alike!
The brand of today and tomorrow has to spend a great bit of quality and quantity time with the consumer in his avatar as an entity 'on-the-go'! The brand that will make an impact on the consumer of the new day and age we find ourselves living in, will be the brand that adopts a lifestyle that is as clonal as its consumer's! The successful brand of the future is therefore going to be the brand that will jump off the idiot box and jump right into the lives of the consumer on the prowl in the great Indian marketplace.
The buzz: Out of home! Out of home in every realm that marketing impinges on the consumer. Out of home advertising, branding and distribution included! Does not matter if your commercial brand offering is that of a hand-phone or a hairdressing solution! Out of home is chic! Out of home is the latest brand Pret wear!
Take a peek at the positioning stances brands are adopting, and will progressively embrace more and more as the on-the-go generation establishes its credentials in Marketing India. Brands will want to shake up their hitherto traditional imagery which confined them to a lifestyle that was largely indoors. A coffee was all about being served indoors by the neatly decked-up wife to the hard-working husband on his proverbial office-return. The imagery was all about the wife who worked and moped at home and a husband who did the same in a crummy office situation.
How long can you keep beating this imagery to death and beyond? The innovative brands of the day tweaked this image on norms that were psychographic and represented a small reality but a big aspiration. The very same brand had the woman of the house coming in from work as well, and the hubby of house rolling up his sleeves to bring her a cup of tea or coffee or whatever! This was fun. This was different. This gave the woman of the house many a positive cue. The marketer was waking up and recognising a new woman. A new India altogether. And the marketer in question was not too scared of alienating his traditional segment of consumers. But this was still within the home!
Brands in contemporary India are fast understanding the new consumer who is more outdoors than indoor. Brands are treading cautiously out of home for a change. A good way to begin is by looking at what is offered as dominant imagery in the advertising of the day. Time to shake up the in-home scenes with zing from a life spent outdoors! Many a brand is today attempting what Nestle first attempted in India with their brand that did not click. Dolca soluble coffee! Nescafe took this ahead with its complete outdoors imagery through its flagship brand Nescafe! It was not only outdoors with an aspirational (but never fulfilled) lifestyle of river-rafting and pole-vaulting, but it was International as well! It was all about Paris, Milan and blonde-heads on the go!
Look keenly at the dominant visuals of a Lipton Yellow Label imagery. Look with focus at what GSK's Horlicks aims to achieve with its all new zingy commercial that offers nutrition on the go! The rendition is outdoors, young, with-it, peppy and all about health and vitality that is fun! Nutrition is fun! And bulk of it is outdoors!
Brands will progressively step outdoors in their positioning imagery requirements. And this will morph into the market segmentation exercise as well! If the average Indian is spending that much more time out-of-home, might as well segment him and his requirements by doing a time-slot analysis that take us through a branding time and motion study!
Positioning, for a change, will therefore lead and segmentation exercises will follow. And following all this will be the physical distribution requirements brands will want to explore! This is a big one!
If the Indian consumer is that much more outdoors than indoors, there is certainly a whole big requirement to offer him the brand at every one of his locations outdoor. Time to whip the brand out of the somnolence of its traditional distribution system. The alimentary canal system of distribution (from company to C&F to redistribution stockist, to wholesaler/retailer to final consumer) is not enough then! Time to offer the brand in question at arms length and desire's length distance in every one of those out of home locations he will spend more and more of his time.
If your brand is that zingy brand of water, this is the way you would go! In the beginning it came out of taps. In came the brand and bottled it for the consumer. The bottle reached the consumer through the alimentary canal which occupies 98 per cent plus of all Indian distribution. The consumer is now on the go. You need to reach the bottle to him wherever he desires to take a swig of water. It could be on a bus, it could be at a mall through a vending machine. It could be in a cinema theatre through paper-cup options, it could be in an office through a bulk decantation method. It could be in a Café through a branded initiative, it cold be in a hotel through the mini-bar service. And this list is not as exhaustive as it can be!
Very simply put, explore very move your target consumer makes in a day outdoors. Do not expect him to carry his favourite brand of water with him on the go. Give him what he wants through every distribution possibility there is. Track his every move and let it be available whenever he just might desire it!
In this new era of outdoor life, the brand and the product need to be ubiquitous. If you can't jolt yourself to do it, your competitor will! The future is tense!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Harish Bijoor
Have you caught the tail of a new trend in town? Have you as yet spotted the best of brands running into the terrain of out-of-home consumption? Running for cover from the melt-down in the in-home segment of consumption!
Lipton Yellow Label has painted many a town and city yellow! A whole corner of the stretch of territory near Mumbai's Juhu beach is all but he colour yellow! Many a restaurant, many a bus stop, and many a signage potential is today all yellow! Lipton seems to run out of home and focus on consumption that is outdoor while sister Brooke Bond seems to focus on what is happening inside the home!
Peek keenly at the new Horlicks commercial! Peek keenly at the development of the Café(including the Nescafe Café) of every hue in the great Indian marketplace. Brands, hitherto pretty content with in-home consumption seem to want to be out there in the great outdoors! Amidst the happening people of a happening Indian marketplace!
Every Vending machine out there in the great Indian marketplace, every new Mall that is breeding a whole new "Mall-dude" who just about hangs out, moving from mall to mall, and indeed every new range of Pret wear seems to brand the out-of-home category with pretty much focus!
Out of home is in! Out of home branding is the new buzzword sweeping Indian shores. Brands that stubbornly remain indoors through their positioning and segmentation strategies are in for a jolt!
Consider the facts. The Indian population is a young population. Life expectation is longer than before. Income standards are up. Except for a year of aberration, the Indian monsoon has largely behaved! Good monsoons mean a good crop. Large parts of the rural economy is a non tax-paying economy. Good rains spell good crops and good crops in turn spell a good amount of disposable income!
The metro is a happening place. We have 5 big ones and a whole host of 29 one million plus population towns that are buzzing with activity. The man works. The woman works as well. Double income is a norm in many a home of these 34 big urban agglomerations. People work hard. They party hard as well. Entertainment is big business. Eating out is a bigger fad still! Time is at a premium and anything that saves time and adds to the joys of daily living is a big hit!
The average Indian is spending a lot more time out of home than before. 8 hours at work, 2 hours on travel and 2 hours of outdoor entertainment and eating out, gobbles up half his day. And that's a lot of time spent out of home! The brand in his life has to appeal to his senses more out-of-home than when in home. In any case he is sleeping most of the time when in home alongwith a two-hour tryst with the television! The Indian in the metro is largely on the go. Man, woman and child alike!
The brand of today and tomorrow has to spend a great bit of quality and quantity time with the consumer in his avatar as an entity 'on-the-go'! The brand that will make an impact on the consumer of the new day and age we find ourselves living in, will be the brand that adopts a lifestyle that is as clonal as its consumer's! The successful brand of the future is therefore going to be the brand that will jump off the idiot box and jump right into the lives of the consumer on the prowl in the great Indian marketplace.
The buzz: Out of home! Out of home in every realm that marketing impinges on the consumer. Out of home advertising, branding and distribution included! Does not matter if your commercial brand offering is that of a hand-phone or a hairdressing solution! Out of home is chic! Out of home is the latest brand Pret wear!
Take a peek at the positioning stances brands are adopting, and will progressively embrace more and more as the on-the-go generation establishes its credentials in Marketing India. Brands will want to shake up their hitherto traditional imagery which confined them to a lifestyle that was largely indoors. A coffee was all about being served indoors by the neatly decked-up wife to the hard-working husband on his proverbial office-return. The imagery was all about the wife who worked and moped at home and a husband who did the same in a crummy office situation.
How long can you keep beating this imagery to death and beyond? The innovative brands of the day tweaked this image on norms that were psychographic and represented a small reality but a big aspiration. The very same brand had the woman of the house coming in from work as well, and the hubby of house rolling up his sleeves to bring her a cup of tea or coffee or whatever! This was fun. This was different. This gave the woman of the house many a positive cue. The marketer was waking up and recognising a new woman. A new India altogether. And the marketer in question was not too scared of alienating his traditional segment of consumers. But this was still within the home!
Brands in contemporary India are fast understanding the new consumer who is more outdoors than indoor. Brands are treading cautiously out of home for a change. A good way to begin is by looking at what is offered as dominant imagery in the advertising of the day. Time to shake up the in-home scenes with zing from a life spent outdoors! Many a brand is today attempting what Nestle first attempted in India with their brand that did not click. Dolca soluble coffee! Nescafe took this ahead with its complete outdoors imagery through its flagship brand Nescafe! It was not only outdoors with an aspirational (but never fulfilled) lifestyle of river-rafting and pole-vaulting, but it was International as well! It was all about Paris, Milan and blonde-heads on the go!
Look keenly at the dominant visuals of a Lipton Yellow Label imagery. Look with focus at what GSK's Horlicks aims to achieve with its all new zingy commercial that offers nutrition on the go! The rendition is outdoors, young, with-it, peppy and all about health and vitality that is fun! Nutrition is fun! And bulk of it is outdoors!
Brands will progressively step outdoors in their positioning imagery requirements. And this will morph into the market segmentation exercise as well! If the average Indian is spending that much more time out-of-home, might as well segment him and his requirements by doing a time-slot analysis that take us through a branding time and motion study!
Positioning, for a change, will therefore lead and segmentation exercises will follow. And following all this will be the physical distribution requirements brands will want to explore! This is a big one!
If the Indian consumer is that much more outdoors than indoors, there is certainly a whole big requirement to offer him the brand at every one of his locations outdoor. Time to whip the brand out of the somnolence of its traditional distribution system. The alimentary canal system of distribution (from company to C&F to redistribution stockist, to wholesaler/retailer to final consumer) is not enough then! Time to offer the brand in question at arms length and desire's length distance in every one of those out of home locations he will spend more and more of his time.
If your brand is that zingy brand of water, this is the way you would go! In the beginning it came out of taps. In came the brand and bottled it for the consumer. The bottle reached the consumer through the alimentary canal which occupies 98 per cent plus of all Indian distribution. The consumer is now on the go. You need to reach the bottle to him wherever he desires to take a swig of water. It could be on a bus, it could be at a mall through a vending machine. It could be in a cinema theatre through paper-cup options, it could be in an office through a bulk decantation method. It could be in a Café through a branded initiative, it cold be in a hotel through the mini-bar service. And this list is not as exhaustive as it can be!
Very simply put, explore very move your target consumer makes in a day outdoors. Do not expect him to carry his favourite brand of water with him on the go. Give him what he wants through every distribution possibility there is. Track his every move and let it be available whenever he just might desire it!
In this new era of outdoor life, the brand and the product need to be ubiquitous. If you can't jolt yourself to do it, your competitor will! The future is tense!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, January 2, 2009
Brand Knowledge Management
Brand Knowledge Management…from the market!
By Harish Bijoor
I stepped into the world of brands very early in life. At age 21, I was a Group Management Trainee at large with a company that boasted of the largest direct-distribution network in the country, with 2450 salesmen running as many company depots selling tea, coffee, spices and condoms to the remotest nooks and crannies of this country that is India.
One thing I picked up from day one in the markets was this nugget of wisdom that said that nothing could replace market knowledge. Not even an MBA degree from the best of Institutes in the country or outside! Everything there was to learn about markets and consumers had to be learnt from the great Indian marketplace. There was no definitive book that would teach it, nor was there a ‘gyan-guru’ who could tell it all the way it was.
As I grew up from being a novice Group Management Trainee to be a slightly less-novice Deputy Sales Manager, another bit of Nirvana dawned on me pretty early in life. At age 23, I was convinced there was no permanent way of learning about the consumer. The consumer was an ever-changing entity. Heraclitus was right. The only permanent thing in life is change! If I had to understand the consumer and stay with her wants, needs, desires and aspirations as my cue to success in the world of marketing, I had to hold her hand right through. I had to keep my finger on her pulse right through. And held her hand, I did! To the chagrin of many!
To my utter delight, my early years of hard and detailed market-working to understand markets in the early days, and my subsequent many years of continuous “finger on the pulse of consumer” orientation, had me running fast and running ahead of many a marketing man, woman and child in corporate organization.
Living on frugal market-lunches that comprised green chillies and “Jolada Rotti” in Bidar and Rice Conjee and lime pickle in Behrampore had paid off. Two seminal pieces of truth became a part of my marketing psyche.
1.There is no better way of knowing a market than being in it. Living in it like a consumer out there, the way he does, every day of his life.
2.Keeping your finger on the pulse of the consumer is important. The consumer changes. As she does, you need to be the first to spot the change and take advantage of it…….in sheer marketing terms, of course!
The brand and its future depend on just two basics. The first is the market. The second is the disposition of the consumer it aims to attract into its consumption and continued patronage. Knowing both, and knowing it well and right through is the way to cutting edge leadership in the domain of branding.
There are essentially two tools to use to get where the action in branding lies. Active market working on a continuous basis was a tool to use to get right there at the cutting edge brand leadership precipice. And Market Research as a tool to keep a continuous feel of the pulse of the consumer was the second tool to use.
Market working was a way to research the market first-hand. Market Research through intermediaries was a way to research the consumer, albeit second hand!
Let me take a peek at Market working for brands, the way an organization must attempt in these tough and tumultuous days of parri-passu branding and lack of distinctive appeals that shake the market and the consumer to cascade revenue and traffic into your brand at hand.
.
The One Big One: Turning turtle the knowledge management process!
Knowledge management within brand organizations is pretty hierarchical. The selling system, which is possibly the richest repository of market and consumer knowledge, is the least respected of them all. The system of compartmentalizing selling in one silo and branding in another is a paradigm to destroy.
The salesman occupies the lowest rung in organization. He is incidentally the richest in terms of market understanding. He is the front-face, the foot soldier of organization who has been there and done that. He is the least empowered one to act as well. The most knowledgeable entity in organization is the one that contributes least to the branding process.
The market knowledge management process in organization is run in a filtered upward cascade manner. The 100 per cent knowledgeable salesman reports into a Supervisor who is about 70 per cent as knowledgeable as the salesman. The 70 per cent knowledgeable supervisor reports into a Manager who is possibly 40 per cent market-knowledge linked. He in turn reports to a General Manager who has long forgotten markets and is possibly a 20 per cent knowledge-link. And over to the Vice-president of organization then. A 10 or even a 5 per cent entity at hand! And finally to the CEO! The decision maker! The final decision maker is the least connected with the market! A worry to tackle!
One more disease in this hierarchy then! The most knowledgeable of them all, the salesman reports in a trend and an idea to his boss the supervisor. The supervisor adds his filter to the idea and cascades it upwards to his boss, selectively, based on his “judgment and old market knowledge”. His boss the Manager does a similar thing. Every level cascades the trend and idea upwards, applying judgmental filters that are often too wrong. Often too old as well!
By the time the trend and the idea reach the top man of organization, it is not alive at all. It is but a thought that has been ruined by the successive archaic filters that leave nothing that is original in thought. Nothing to act upon at all as well!
There is indeed no substitute to active market working in the brand building process. There is a need to turn turtle the knowledge harvesting process. Time to get the CEO of organization to work those seven days a month in the market the way a salesman does. Time to get the “decision-maker” and “knowledge-holder” to fuse into one entity rather than splintered across different folks at different levels.
If the friendly decision-besotted CEO of organization is worried about these seven days in the market with 'Mirchi-bajjis' and Rice Conjee for company, time to cascade the brand decision making prowess to the salesperson of organization! The choice is yours! But do bit the bullet, dear CEO!
The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com
By Harish Bijoor
I stepped into the world of brands very early in life. At age 21, I was a Group Management Trainee at large with a company that boasted of the largest direct-distribution network in the country, with 2450 salesmen running as many company depots selling tea, coffee, spices and condoms to the remotest nooks and crannies of this country that is India.
One thing I picked up from day one in the markets was this nugget of wisdom that said that nothing could replace market knowledge. Not even an MBA degree from the best of Institutes in the country or outside! Everything there was to learn about markets and consumers had to be learnt from the great Indian marketplace. There was no definitive book that would teach it, nor was there a ‘gyan-guru’ who could tell it all the way it was.
As I grew up from being a novice Group Management Trainee to be a slightly less-novice Deputy Sales Manager, another bit of Nirvana dawned on me pretty early in life. At age 23, I was convinced there was no permanent way of learning about the consumer. The consumer was an ever-changing entity. Heraclitus was right. The only permanent thing in life is change! If I had to understand the consumer and stay with her wants, needs, desires and aspirations as my cue to success in the world of marketing, I had to hold her hand right through. I had to keep my finger on her pulse right through. And held her hand, I did! To the chagrin of many!
To my utter delight, my early years of hard and detailed market-working to understand markets in the early days, and my subsequent many years of continuous “finger on the pulse of consumer” orientation, had me running fast and running ahead of many a marketing man, woman and child in corporate organization.
Living on frugal market-lunches that comprised green chillies and “Jolada Rotti” in Bidar and Rice Conjee and lime pickle in Behrampore had paid off. Two seminal pieces of truth became a part of my marketing psyche.
1.There is no better way of knowing a market than being in it. Living in it like a consumer out there, the way he does, every day of his life.
2.Keeping your finger on the pulse of the consumer is important. The consumer changes. As she does, you need to be the first to spot the change and take advantage of it…….in sheer marketing terms, of course!
The brand and its future depend on just two basics. The first is the market. The second is the disposition of the consumer it aims to attract into its consumption and continued patronage. Knowing both, and knowing it well and right through is the way to cutting edge leadership in the domain of branding.
There are essentially two tools to use to get where the action in branding lies. Active market working on a continuous basis was a tool to use to get right there at the cutting edge brand leadership precipice. And Market Research as a tool to keep a continuous feel of the pulse of the consumer was the second tool to use.
Market working was a way to research the market first-hand. Market Research through intermediaries was a way to research the consumer, albeit second hand!
Let me take a peek at Market working for brands, the way an organization must attempt in these tough and tumultuous days of parri-passu branding and lack of distinctive appeals that shake the market and the consumer to cascade revenue and traffic into your brand at hand.
.
The One Big One: Turning turtle the knowledge management process!
Knowledge management within brand organizations is pretty hierarchical. The selling system, which is possibly the richest repository of market and consumer knowledge, is the least respected of them all. The system of compartmentalizing selling in one silo and branding in another is a paradigm to destroy.
The salesman occupies the lowest rung in organization. He is incidentally the richest in terms of market understanding. He is the front-face, the foot soldier of organization who has been there and done that. He is the least empowered one to act as well. The most knowledgeable entity in organization is the one that contributes least to the branding process.
The market knowledge management process in organization is run in a filtered upward cascade manner. The 100 per cent knowledgeable salesman reports into a Supervisor who is about 70 per cent as knowledgeable as the salesman. The 70 per cent knowledgeable supervisor reports into a Manager who is possibly 40 per cent market-knowledge linked. He in turn reports to a General Manager who has long forgotten markets and is possibly a 20 per cent knowledge-link. And over to the Vice-president of organization then. A 10 or even a 5 per cent entity at hand! And finally to the CEO! The decision maker! The final decision maker is the least connected with the market! A worry to tackle!
One more disease in this hierarchy then! The most knowledgeable of them all, the salesman reports in a trend and an idea to his boss the supervisor. The supervisor adds his filter to the idea and cascades it upwards to his boss, selectively, based on his “judgment and old market knowledge”. His boss the Manager does a similar thing. Every level cascades the trend and idea upwards, applying judgmental filters that are often too wrong. Often too old as well!
By the time the trend and the idea reach the top man of organization, it is not alive at all. It is but a thought that has been ruined by the successive archaic filters that leave nothing that is original in thought. Nothing to act upon at all as well!
There is indeed no substitute to active market working in the brand building process. There is a need to turn turtle the knowledge harvesting process. Time to get the CEO of organization to work those seven days a month in the market the way a salesman does. Time to get the “decision-maker” and “knowledge-holder” to fuse into one entity rather than splintered across different folks at different levels.
If the friendly decision-besotted CEO of organization is worried about these seven days in the market with 'Mirchi-bajjis' and Rice Conjee for company, time to cascade the brand decision making prowess to the salesperson of organization! The choice is yours! But do bit the bullet, dear CEO!
The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com
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