Panel Discussion: Changing Opportunities and Challenges in Marketing Management

Today we live our lives much different from what we lived even a hundred years back. It is amazing that within a hundred years, which is a short period in the history of mankind, so many things have changed, right from the way we transit, communicate, entertain and even wage our wars. Yesterday’s luxuries are becoming today’s necessities. As our needs increase so do marketers’ opportunities. But there are also challenges. We have still not been able to find cures for many diseases, been not able to control ecological damage or provide food and safe water for every one on this planet.

Can you imagine, with all our technology, we are still not able to trace the Malaysian Airlines flight MH-370, which disappeared from our sights?

Let’s look at the topic from the point of view of holistic marketing, with its four elements, namely Integrated Marketing, Internal marketing, Performance marketing and Relationship marketing

In the realm of Integrated marketing, let’s look at the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for marketers

Opportunities – presented by Raghuraman

Integrated Marketing

Products & Services

Opportunities exist in the area of Wearables, 3D printing, Augmented reality, Security systems, alternative energy development, Healthcare diagnostics and delivery systems, Education tools and gaming tools

Communication

Growing influence of social media, Digitization of media (cost advantage, career option for new comers) event marketing (IPL, Kabbadi league, Football league), Sports marketing, Sports management

Channels

On-line payment systems, delivery systems, e-commerce, downloadables

Internal Marketing

Marketing thinker David Aaker speaks about the need for Marketing to foster cooperation and communication- by eliminating product and country silo culture. It’s important to eliminate functional silos.

Performance marketing

David Aaker says that it is important to create brands with energy. e.g. Dove, Apple, or to associate the brands with something that signifies energy.

Ethics: Marketers today have a great opportunity to differentiate themselves by being ethical, be it in the usage of raw material, treatment of people and animals and by encouraging gender diversity at the workplace.

Environment: Also, adopting eco-friendly/paper-less offices, and by contributing to the community development as a whole. The challenge here is the cost of such measures.

Relationship Marketing

Opportunities provided by tools like Big Data Analytics, it is possible to tune offerings to even individual customers in the B2C space today, personalization customization and cross-selling opportunities

Challenges- presented by Rema Viswanathan

Integrated Marketing

Products & Services

David Aaker says that Marketing needs to lead in substantial or transformational innovation.  Other challenges lie in technology convergence, integrating with legacy systems, development of cheap sustainable alternative energy, connectivity, rural reach, language requirements and media compatibility.

Communication

Generating awareness, driving traffic and lead generation and piracy.

Channels

Supply chain systems-resources, last mile delivery, data security problem, conflict between on-line and off-line retailers.

Internal Marketing

Eliminating product and country culture silos is a big challenge.

Performance marketing

With increasing competition, it’s getting difficult to differentiate brands. The challenge lies in keeping costs down while adopting ethical and environment conscious measures in marketing.

Relationship Marketing

Companies see personalization as a high priority, but the extent of tactics and testing is limited. Disparate data sources is another challenge.