The Hindu Business Line : `Value addition is more important'

Speaking on his new formula for marketing, management expert Dr Philip Kotler varied from his popular theory of 4Ps and emphasised on the customer and not the product. The 4Ps of marketing as earlier propounded by Dr Kotler are product, price, promotion and place

Beyond 4Ps

"We have to look beyond the 4Ps. Value addition to the customer is more important than the product itself," he said. Called the CCDV, it stands for creating, communicating and delivering value.

He said that marketing was increasingly becoming financial and technological in nature. "CEOs today want to measure marketing spends in terms of metrics and impact on customers," he said. He said the Internet would change marketing. "It has brought symmetry of operations between buyers and sellers. Marketers must use the Internet for market research," he said.

He said marketers must know more about customers, as it would help understand trends in preferences. "Companies should measure performance based on a marketing scorecard and not a financial scorecard," he said. The focus of a marketing scorecard would be on the number of customers gained or lost and thereby on customer satisfaction. The financial score card is a report of the money made or lost in selling products.

Responding to a question on relevance of global marketing theories in developing nations like India, he emphasised that the best marketing was local in nature and that India must exploit opportunities in areas such as IT, medical facilities, finance, food processing, exporting fabrics and leather items.

Leadership programme

Earlier, he addressed a team from the Cognizant Technology Solutions as part of Cognizant's global leadership programme. Referred to as "Hi 5", the programme will train 70 employees of the organisation globally; about 35 will be from India. Employees in management positions would participate in this 18-month-long basic programme. The company spokesperson said every year about 3 per cent of the company's revenues were spent on training programmes like Hi5.

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