The King!!!

“Customer is King, Customer is god, and Customer is not a moron”. Don’t worry friends; I am not going to discuss the same thing again and again. I am going to share my story of searching King Feeling and hankering of ruling the place.

The desire of becoming a king takes place in my mind during one of my lecture at AICAR Business School, when faculty passes the standard statement that we should treat “customers as king”. The statement remains in my mind and I start searching the marketers who can possibly treat me as a King.

I visit many places spending time and money with only one fancy of becoming King. From pizza hut to local pizza vendor, superstore to kiranastore, I drink Pepsi; I drink Coke. Buy Levis, Arrow and jockey. I search, search and search…. at crossword, at landmark, pantaloon and Westside. I used vodaphone, I used Airtel but everywhere the one thing is missing, the king feeling, of ruling the place for at least few minutes. I was very disappointed with everything, The King feeling is not allowing me to think anything else. Wherever I go I start behaving as if I am the King of that Place, and start commanding. But everywhere people treat me as a customer. I was a more valuable customer or less valuable customer but I am just a customer not the “King”.

After all these, one very fine day waiting for my friend at Cafe Coffee Day and having Iced Eskimos, thinking of my professor, thinking of kotler, Gandhiji, and possibly all those who told and believe that “Customer Is King”. And does this Practice actually follow by marketers, and finally I came to a conclusion that “Customers are not King”

Yes, Customers are not King. But then someone has to be King, someone has to take decision, someone has to command. So, the question is who will be the new king?

Marketers, Yes marketers are the “Real King”. I know you all are thinking that it is not possible. But once you complete reading this, you may change your views.

So…..Understand the responsibilities of King. He has to look after his empire and his people. If we choose marketer as a king of his empire then he has no limitation on fulfilling the demand of the customers (People), King has power to go out of the way and help the customers(If King desires to do so).

While in first case when customers are King, Marketers are just normal villager, who tries to satisfy King’s demand but King has never-ending demands and can’t be fulfill by any normal villager.

Now take this assumption and put it one step ahead how will king built his empire. He needs soldiers, farmers, traders, advisors etc. In short he needs society to increase his power compare to other emperor. Therefore if HUL is one FMCG king, he has to be more powerful then the other FMCG kings otherwise, ITC or any other FMCG king will come and take over his empire (Customers).

If my assumption is true, then king must need army to save his empire. So, there are certain numbers of loyal customers who spread the good things about company to others and help his emperor in conquering (Bringing new customers) other empire. Similarly there are different criteria for different type of customers. There are customers who purchases very rarely are the normal villagers i.e.: farmers, labours etc, there are customers who are very rich and buy your products very often are the key customers can be classified as traders in the village. Now, King also needs people to love and live with him; those are the employees of his organisation can be classified as queen, prince, princess or other royal family members.

Now, this is what I believe and I hope at least some of you have changed your views after reading it. So please share your valuable thoughts.

The Terrorist Way

We have always criticised terrorists. Nobody would suggest us to become a terrorist. We have always looked upon them as bad boys. But what if we look terrorism as a profession? I know it’s difficult to believe. But for terrorists it’s their profession to harm the society. Besides their skills and the unmatched modus operandi, it is very sad to look at their professionalism in “anti-social” activities. This idea cropped up in my mind after the Ahmedabad Bomb blast and has made a stronger mark by consecutive one in Delhi.

I know it sounds creepy. But to support this idea, I also have some thoughts which I want to share. You may not agree with me, but, it’s true.

Think about their perfection. It is better than the six sigma companies. What about their M&A with competitors like police or may be politicians? They neither need financial advisors nor investment bankers for it. Then who manages their accounts? Do they use tally? Do they know MIS? How can they make all these things so simple? Why don’t they need consultants? Who teaches time management to them? Are they management students? How can they manage such a complicated task so easily? Where do they learn all these management concepts from?

Can you imagine the supply chain or logistic department of our terrorist friends!!! I feel it’s almost at par with FedEx. In fact, even better. And what about HR, wherein, even without taking help of recruitment agency they still manage to find most loyal employees than any other industry. They are always clear with their “Mission and Vision”. They promise exactly what they can perform. I can’t even imagine about their advertisement and PR department, that, without spending even a single penny, they get maximum visibility on all news channels and news papers. “New market development”, the most difficult task for any company. But for them, it’s just a cakewalk. Whether it’s India or China, USA or UK, for them all are the same. They are always ready with their strategy to enter anywhere in the world. From my very first marketing lecture, I have heard that India is the most complicated market to enter. But for them, it is a child’s play.

Can anyone help me to find out their business model? I think they just believe in simplicity. By making their business simple and concentrating on only on one product, they earn maximum satisfaction and the desired reward. With very limited product portfolio, they manage to win any market in any situation.

To solve this mystery of success there is only one solution. We need to go to THE SCHOOL OF TERRORISM, and find out what they teach. Who are the faculties and what kind of books they have in their library? Why are they so smart in defining their core competencies, be it a bomb blast or a hijack? If defining core competency is so easy, then why management schools are wasting so much time to teach these things? To conclude, I just want to say, rather than only fighting with them, it is better to understand how they works. “If we want to kill them, we will have to know them”.

Main Hu Don...

Mumbai ka don kaun ...famous line from the movie Satya which reminds you of the famous character “ Bhikhu-Mahtre AKA Manoj Bajpaee” The character was very famous in his time. We all have used this famous dialogue somewhere or the other but after some days we stopped using it, and many of us have forgotten it also. The other day when I was thinking why Xerox needs to rebrand itself, this different idea came into my mind; I felt that Xerox is like Don. I mean the movie Don, has rebranded itself very well. The shift from Amitabh Bachachan to Shahrukh khan, and the question is why only Sharukh Khan to rebrand it? The answer is that both Amitabh Bachchan as well as Shahrukh Khan are the king of their respective eras. They are the real DON of bollywood; which has been understood and tapped to the fullest by the directors. They even kept in mind the importance of other characters i.e. Kareena Kapoor who is playing a role of Kamini (Helean). The new brand manager of the Don MR.Farhan Akhtar has done this rebranding exercise in such a strong way that people started accepting Sharukh Khan as a real DON.

Well in this movie Actor changed but the product “Don” remained the same, with some fresh look and a new style. The similar exercise is followed by the famous tire brand CEAT who said that “change is unavoidable”, they also felt that after a saturation point change is required to sustain in the market. When the movie DUS was re-launched they had to change their star cast also, because they might have felt that to sustain in the market they need some young actors like, Abhishek Bachchan and Zayad Khan. It may be a case of product life cycle. The director might felt that Salman Khan is now an outdated product for that particular role or he may not be able to attract the target customers as compared to Abhishek Bachchan, which was a good move by the Directors of DUS. Pepsi Co. also followed the same practice when they realized that their target customers are youngsters, so they revamped their tagline from “Oye!Bublly “ to an appealing once “yeh hai youngistan meri jaan”.

Sometime people fail to define their target customers and they adopt wrong strategies, For a Movie like “Thoda pyar thoda magic” target audience should be children, but unfortunately they failed to do so. In our corporate world also the same mistake is done while setting the target customers. Diet coke can be a similar case in context of India. They completely failed in defining the target customers and the result was that they had to face the failure. While in other case the strategic managers like Mr.Aamir Khan who knows his Target audience very rightly, and he has proved it by the movie “Tare Zameen Par” & “Jane Tu Ya Jane Na…”. Mr. Aamir Khan is like our HUL, who knows its buyer very well. Take any product of HUL (Lux, Axe or Surf) before launching these products they know that; who can be their Target audience and their strategies are always according to the target customer.

These are just a few thoughts which came into my mind but, we can actually connect all corporate problems in bollywood context and not only this, we can also find solution in our bollywood estyile…..