A volatile and uncertain world with rapid changes in the economic scenario and swift swings in consumer demand poses new challenges for marketers, said Ajoy Shah, Deputy General Manager (training) at JK Tyre.
Shah, a veteran marketer, was addressing students of the Master’s programmes in International Business and Human Resources and Organisational Development of the Faculty of Commerce, Delhi School of Economics in the city on Saturday.
Shah’s talk, on the ‘Challenges for New Age Marketing’, was part of a series organised under the aegis of the BL Club, a campus initiative of
Pointing out that challenges could arise from any direction, Shah said that companies – and marketers – have to be prepared to re-calibrate their business plans within a short period of time.
Anticipate demand
Pointing out that modern companies operate in a ‘VUCA’ world – a term originally coined by the US Army and an acronym for ‘volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous’ – Shah said that marketers today need to anticipate demand shifts rather than react to them.
Listing the key issues faced by marketers today, he said consumers were becoming increasingly tougher to influence, and with an active Internet and social media “the truth about anything is getting harder to hide.”
Shah peppered his talk with a number of examples. Pointing out that one company’s innovation could drastically change the scenario for others, he explained how the introduction of the Tata Ace, a light, four-wheel intra-city goods carrier by Tata, not only drastically reshaped the light commercial vehicle market but made many companies recast their logistics plans for last mile connectivity and forced tyre-makers to compress the product development cycle to develop tyres for the new class of vehicle.
He also warned against complacency. Customers constantly raised the bar on expectations, he said, adding that “today’s customer satisfaction is tomorrow’s hygiene.”
Earlier, Sourav Das, DGM, Corporate Affairs of Cairn India, which is partnering in the BL Club programme, spoke about Cairn’s role in the energy ecosystem of the country, and the challenges posed by rising energy demand and surging prices.