The Hindu Business Line : In reiteration ...

WITH this piece, the Value Spiral column is 40-instalments-old. We set out with the objective of looking at the debates on strategy, especially of marketing and more generally of the organisation as whole. We wanted to make a lively and different sort of intervention. Whether this has been achieved or not is for the readers, and not the author, to say. However, one could usefully summarise at this point the insights that have governed the new competition that has been sweeping the economy for over a decade now. This new competition is not just more of the same. It is not a logical extrapolation of what used to take place in the previous decades. Nor is it simply a question of facing more global brands, but rather facing the compulsions of looking at newer ways, looking at the place of careers, jobs, the work place and indeed the role of the firm itself. When all else is tradable, buyable or imitable, the cry from the businessman's heart goes up: "Where do we seek that elusive differential?" Here, then, is a broad sweep over some of the ways of thinking and seeing things differently which this column has championed over the past two years.

There is no such thing as an uncompetitive consumer market, as almost every category competes for the consumer's attention and wallet share.

While there may be vast disparities in the income levels of the country as a whole, most of the socio-cultural segments are large enough to be mini-markets in themselves.

Even the much talked about difference between the urban and the rural user, in the case of many products, is only a temporary phenomenon, and the gaps are closing. The basis of difference is only purchasing power, not the power to dream.

Usage of products in different sections of society do vary, and that demands a thorough and insightful understanding. These differences are a function of not merely the status of the individual consumer but also the stage of her evolution in a wide-ranging spectrum. Nonetheless, there is a heightened expectation of styling and exterior looks in almost every product field - and, for the marketer, the idea that lower-priced products can look ordinary is a risky and dangerous mode of thinking.

India is a mosaic of markets (and therefore tastes, habits, consumption patterns) and this heterogeneity can never be entirely overcome. Modes of communication will have to take this into account.

Linear assumptions about the growth of usage or consumption or increased volumes are likely to be flawed. Consumer behaviour is a complex network of influences and best understood with the help of some systems thinking and complexity theories than statistical regression and linear equations. Multiple causation amongst interlinked forces is the very common and essential nature of market evolution.

In the end, it is better to understand market behaviour as the aggregate of individual decision-making - and this makes the predictability of markets more complex than simple economic laws would have us believe. One good reason for this is that the marketing and other environmental (including media) stimuli themselves are changing while we are in the process of reading the responses; this is especially so since India is an emerging market and therefore most categories are in a stage of growth in the life cycle. This means that newer and first-time consumers and buyers are entering the market place every day.

All products are, therefore, in some sense in a state of perpetual launch. Continuous change in product appearance and performance as well as the total value equation is thus a must for any brand's survival.

Branding has come of age in the last few years. This calls for a sophisticated understanding of brands as something "designed by the marketer but built over time by the consumer" in the latter's mind. It is also a multi-level process - of which TV commercials and hoardings, which clearly give one the advantage of top-of-mind recall, are only the visible tip of the iceberg and by no means all.

The manager must be a creative learner. He must be willing to experiment and able to learn from mistakes and, what is more, expect to do so as part of his job. Simulations and design of experiments would be the new statistical tools more widely used than before.

Fear of new product failures, which are definitely on the increase, can kill initiative. Errors of judgment, however, are by definition inevitable in an imperfectly understood field, where traditional solutions do not hold much promise, or are of decreasing power with each passing day.

Organisations must, therefore, gear themselves to build a creativity-friendly culture, and managerial style. Few companies can escape this imperative. People, much touted in corporate speeches as the greatest asset, must be nurtured as a genuine competitive advantage; this can seldom happen in a machine-bureaucracy.

The tasks of the CEO become clearly two-fold and equally focused between building brands and building people (and therefore the right or appropriate culture). All available research evidence suggests that the two may not indeed be unrelated, despite the traditional management habit of thinking of disciplines in different organisational boxes. Corporations all over the world are coming round to the view that in this context, leadership is an inevitable element of succeeding in turbulent times; and that such leadership must subsume values and morality as well as innovation besides thought-leadership.

(The author has been a student and observer of markets, people and organisations for over 35 years.)

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