Relevance - Old marketing principles in today's markets

Scores of products and services are being launched every day, and as expected, not all are successful. Invariably we blame it on time of launch, marketing budget, lack of support from internal departments, competition…seems like endless list (of excuses).

I believe all failures, or not so successful ventures are opportunities for self-introspection. An honest try would likely to reveal more likely reasons than self-pity excuses.

The immediate topic that comes to my mind is “Enterprise vs. Consumer”. The market (or the people who are considered as “Pandits”) is quick to tag any product as “Enterprise” or “Consumer”. Sometimes, I do agree, the product is tagged as per need, like high end servers, industrialized / heavy duty cleaning systems, heavy machineries…all targeted towards commercial enterprises. Any exception will be a “true” exception and will be an outlier, with no concerted effort to woo that customer. Similarly, you have many products (in fact, most of the products) which are produced for masses and within masses categories of masses.

What essentially it reveals is that companies’ first need to define the market segment that they want to serve, then narrow down to specifics within that category, and finally making an all-out effort to educate targeted group to influence their decision to buy the given product / service. Nothing new, it’s an old age practice of marketing; Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning.

What is surprising is that every organization, their people, know about it, have access to this information, hire professionals, who live these practices, and yet when it comes to failure, we try to put the blame on external factors. Sometime reason could be other than STP; however, those rarely would be in above sighted reasons; rather I’m sure those could be traced back to some other fundamental principles.

Coming back to STP, and Enterprise vs. Consumer topic, it is evident success has been achieved wherever the “needs” have been addressed in a focused manner. A generic product / service may address multiple segments at the same time; however, will not be able to command either the premium or emotional attachment because it would fail to address all needs, especially the critical ones; which, otherwise will be required to further the interests.

For example, Carrier invented a/c but are they the leader in a/c market; rather I should ask in which segment of a/c market? Similarly Xerox, the pioneer in photocopying, and at one point in time photocopy and Xerox were used as synonym. One can’t ask for a better branding than that as need is mapped to a brand, and that speaks volumes about the brand equity and image of that company. What is the state of affairs now?

Apple’s iPod, iPad and iPhone had been successful products. Some say, it is a hardware marvel, some say it is the software, some others would say it is the friendly user interface, rather it is the User Experience, what has made it successful. However, is it a success in every segment of “Consumer” market? Why is it not an “Enterprise” product? As per my understanding, it is successful, because it addresses the needs of its targeted segment. It provides all those services that are wanted or desired by that segment.

Once a leadership, or a monopoly position does not guarantee success or unlimited access to “created” profit sanctuaries forever, as otherwise others would not have got a chance over Carrier, Xerox, Nintendo, Walkman etc. Others got to follow and will follow. So what’s next?

Sell the same product in other markets; market expansion, age old formulae, and easier said than done. You apply other marketing strategies to retain the position. Well, haven’t they heard of “Blue Ocean”, “White Spaces”, why others are interested in “Red Ocean” only?

Ah! They have heard but they are not interested in pursuing those because it seems unlimited; however, the fact is those are finite, and there will be overlap, and we would be left with no choice but to compete for the same pie. May be the intensity would vary.

A new entrant will find it difficult to penetrate the market, if the existing product is a specific target product. It is not generalized and as I mentioned above, because of “experience” has created an emotional appeal. But this “appeal” is not forever, the company has to keep preserving that with even better experience through refinements to align more towards needs of that segment. Once nearing saturation, refine or create the product / service for other segments.

Remember, stripping of features, and selling that at lower price, to address other segment may give you short term gains; however, there is no guarantee that it will not hurt your interests in other segments. Because, if that had not been the case, then Honda wouldn’t have Acura, Toyota would not have Lexus, Nissan would not have Infiniti…

If you fail with Consumer market itself when you define your segment a little too broadly, why do you feel it would be a success when it is targeted across Enterprise and Consumer markets?

With monopoly you may be able to delay the onset of competition; however, you can’t eradicate that threat, unless you are reinventing ways to keep your customers attached to your products / services. That I believe can happen only if you are focused, you are not thinning out your resources, rather channeling those to serve vital few.

It is simple, as competitors would be strategizing in attacking your profit sanctuaries, driving up your costs, starting a multipronged attack to divert your resources at multiple places; you should also be busy in serving your targeted segments even better, thereby deepening the emotional attachment, making a counter offensive against your competitors, and safeguarding your profit sanctuaries, if you can’t create new profit sanctuaries.

With this, I want to leave you with two thoughts;

1)      As you must have noticed all arguments point towards validity of STP; it was valid then and it is valid today. If it were true, what is probability of success of a product which is too widely targeted, e.g. across Enterprise and Consumer markets?

2)      Windows, though had variants, was a single product serving Enterprise as well as Consumer market, still it had been a success. Why?

Leadership

Leadership

This is one of those topics, which has been discussed at length, spoken about in past and now, written extensively on, and being the favorite of all senior level trainings.

Even after so much of discussions, I believe everyone has his / her own interpretation of Leadership. May be rightly so. In my opinion like any other specialized skill, this is spoken, discussed, and practiced in a given context.

Integrity, Walk the Talk, Vision, Humility, Boardroom leadership, Networking, Trust, Motivate, Listener…

If you ask anyone about the qualities / attributes of a leader (leaving aside the “Vision”, and “Direction” for the time being), more often than not, you will hear the attributes listed above. Nothing wrong with those, in fact, I also believe those are part of a true leader; however, with minor change.

All these attributes define the human behavioral aspect. Whether a person can be trusted or not, has integrity or not, is he / she arrogant or is humble in his / her approach…these define the fundamental character of a person. Leader or not, these attributes are searched for and liked by all, as these are considered to be “expected attributes” for a good human being. So, essentially, people expect their leaders first to be good human beings and then only they look beyond.

Again, quite obvious, if a person is not a good human being; how can that person be an effective leader? After all he / she has to work with human being only.

That brings me to my other point, i.e. if these are fundamentals for any good human being, how could those not be so for a good / effective leader. If that is so, why “Values” can be any different from these attributes (of course, the above list is not a complete / comprehensive list)? The point that I’m trying to make is, “Values” are fundamental and hence given for a good leader. Those cannot define the leadership style of a person. A person carries the values within him / her, and those ultimately get promoted, and propagated within his / her reach.

It is arguable if those can be changed. I’m of the opinion that these traits are so ingrained in our system that those are difficult to change, let alone the thought of overhauling the same. Therefore, “Value” system is given, unless it is influenced by life changing incidence, which results in a complete overhaul of the system. It is being said that it happened with Valmiki; it happened with Kautilya; however, those incidences are rare.

That is why I segregated these from “Vision” and “Direction”. To me, a person is born with, and live with his / her value system throughout his / her life; with a brief period of childhood, where it could either be molded or influenced by environment.

Vision, Direction and Values

As I mentioned above “Values” we are either born with or are mostly cemented by the time a normal human being reaches the stage of influencing / leading others.

Now, this again is arguable. Some of the people (if not most) may argue that people start showing their leadership qualities when they are young. Children also exhibit these qualities, may be limited by environment, age or audience. True; what I’m considering is leadership what we acknowledge in today’s society, at corporate, social, political. . . country level.

I personally believe that leadership at any level provides “Vision” and “Direction”. The first of these two is something that you can rarely influence or teach. The second one cannot be taught completely; however, it can be influenced and polished over a period of time.

The reason I say so, lies under my understanding that direction is more associated with data, monitoring, interpretation, governance and change. Let me explain this a bit.

A CEO of a company, unit head of a function… what do they all do, or have something in common; if we leave aside the “Vision” for the time being? They all provide “Direction” to their respective areas of influence. Well that was simple; but, how do they provide “Direction”?

Could this be associated with set targets, achieved results, available data, changing course of earlier decisions, mapping back achieved success to targets and changing environment and thereby steering the “influence area” towards envisioned goal and “vision”. I think so.

One cannot segregate the monitoring part from “Direction”. The way I interpret monitoring, is set of measures or practices that anyone employs in order to check the compliance / deviation to set target. It is more than mere binary recognition, i.e. whether an event has happened or not. In contrast, it is continuous in nature and it keeps checking the achievement / deviation, and includes deploying of corrective actions either to reduce the negative impact, and / or correct the course.

So, if one cannot monitor, one cannot provide direction. I’m not saying a person has to devise his / her own methods of monitoring, neither am I saying that a person has to do that all by himself / herself; rather, it is the intent, ability and capability to do so.

Now, in this dynamic world, can goals / targets / direction ever be static? Well, if those are changing so it is natural that “Direction” may also change, if not “will”. That is precisely why I linked direction, with “Data”, “Monitoring”, “Governance”, and “Change”. But, monitoring is more of “Managerial” trait / quality than that of a Leader. May be it is, but, if you agree that a Leader has to provide direction, then how can you leave out “monitoring” out of it?

For example, a spiritual leader mentoring / coaching his / her disciples / pupils, a corporate honcho steering unit / company towards a “Vision” and “Goal”, a political leader steering his / her nation towards set direction…you take any example. You will realize that everyone has to translate “Vision” into achievable goals and tollgates. The checkpoints are for them to realize the progress made and devise the “change” as per deviation or achieved result.

May be at least for this trait the line of demarcation between Managerial and Leadership is not that well defined, or maybe there is none.

Now, coming back to our first part of twin traits; the “Vision”. Can this be taught? Bill Gates envisioning desktop in every home, Steve Jobs envisioning “User Experience”, Jack Welch envisioning being number one or two in every space they operate, i.e. Excellence beyond comparison…so on and so forth. No one taught them, and no one could. The “Vision” is something that a person realizes on his / her own, and is based on ones thinking. People may also link it to creative side, may be. I’m not the right person to say anything with regard to that; however, for sure it can’t be taught.

If it can be, how many times have you come across either seminars, classroom sessions, workshops or teaching modules, imparting knowledge on “How to develop Vision” or may be beyond?

The “Vision” is something a person creates out of his / her passion, or by thinking and / or understanding the obvious needs of the organization / society / economy / nation. Otherwise, how would you explain the above given examples. Moreover, it is the “Vision” that separates Leaders from “Me too”; because strategies are defined around vision, and those in turn lead to practices and activities.

Strategic, Operational, Situational, Boardroom Leadership…

Over a period of time, you would have come across various terms, when it comes to Leadership, such as above.

Scrutinize these a little more closely and you would realize those are nothing but classification / specialization within Leadership. That takes me to my next understanding on this topic, i.e. “Like others fields / roles, even Leadership in today’s context has also become specialized”.

What it means is that a “Successful Leader” necessarily does need mean him / her being successful in all other fields / areas. A Leader is successful in defined boundaries, and may lead to average performance, once moved out of that “specialized” field / area.

Therefore, you give any name to it i.e., Strategic, Operational, Situational, Boardroom Leadership, the fact is it has moved towards “division of labor”. A Leader can be either of those; however, it is difficult to find one effective in all of those. Which I believe is pragmatic, as it is humanly impossible to have all those skills in one person and be cognizant of it.

You develop it a little further and you would realize that “Inspirational Leaders”, “Situational Leaders”, “Spiritual Leaders”…the fact is being successful in one area does not automatically guarantee success in other.

Summary

There are two sides, one which can be acquired or polished, one with whom the people are born with and are part of DNA. You can try altering the same; however, it is as difficult (or being successful) a task as changing a person’s DNA.

Mentoring and Coaching at right stage can definitely bring change in a person, and can make him / her ready for a Leadership role; however, can that be done to a person, who has not “exhibited” those skills.

May be my last point of understanding, the mentoring and coaching is provided to people who have already exhibited those skills, i.e. those already possess some of those qualities, if not all. Whether that person has acquired those skills / attributes over a period of time, or had born with it, the fact is when he / she being considered for a Leadership position, he / she already had those.

Lastly, I want to leave you with two thoughts:

1)      How many times we knowingly develop skills to be Leader, and

2)      If Leadership can be taught from grounds up, can anyone pick a child in his / her days, and ensure him / her being a successful Leader?