Saturday, January 10, 2015

Why Indian B2B Manufacturers will be out of business in near future?

Indian B2B manufacturers for long have been focused on promoting products rather than solutions. With the advent of technology the market is fast becoming a buyer’s domain than SELLERs. The focus of B2B manufacturers, whether in digital marketing campaigns or participation in exhibitions or cold calling is PRODUCT oriented. Most of these organizations spend huge amount of time in strategizing on how to launch products in market and not on learning about customer requirements.

This article tries to highlight aspects which are least focused by B2B Organizations and solutions for the same.

Problem: Number of stakeholders involved in buying cycle: The biggest different between B2B and B2C is the number of stakeholders involved in buying decision process. In B2B scenario people from purchase, quality control, research and quality assurance are involved, while in B2C its mostly impulsive buying. Most B2B buyers often conduct prior reference checks happen at all levels. This also lengthens the sales cycle as B2B manufactures have to ensure all the stakeholders agree to the solution and it has been documented.
Solution: Develop engagement strategy for stakeholders: Indian B2B manufacturers have to develop engagement strategy to solve problems faced by stakeholders rather than promoting products. Also have to focus on customer support, since most buying decisions are based on prior reference checks, having robust customer support can help to help to build word – of – mouth marketing.   

Problem: Informed Buyers: Most buyers are well informed about B2B Manufacturing Company, before floating enquiry for product. Most buyers often conduct prior research about the B2B Manufacturer, its clients, range of products and background reference checks from clients. The sales team is most often unaware about this research.
Solution: It is important for sales team to constantly engage with stakeholders, since this would help them to be a part of the research process and influence buying decisions. The engagement can work on two simultaneous levels regular discussion meetings to understand any issues they face in their current production and content marketing on social media for regular online chats.

Problem: Investing without researching: It has been observed most B2B manufacturers invest without venturing in research for launching new category of products, advertising or marketing. Most decisions are based on gut instinct and experience, which often results in losses. Research for most B2B organizations is just focusing in Google results, which is often influenced due to SEO.
Solution: Research has to be conducted from established agencies with proper focus on expected outcome and what decisions will be taken based on the outcome. There are different types of research agencies who work on collaborative report to reduce the cost of research for a single company. This same should be applicable when venturing for advertising or launching a new office.
Problem: Rise of social search engines: Last 10 years have seen immense growth in social media, search engine, smart phones and internet. All this has fueled profound implication on how a company strategizes its marketing and communications. Internationally most B2B manufacturers have embraced social media, but in India, they haven’t even begun. For B2B manufacturers, having website and accounts on Indiamart and Tradeindia is end of the story for digital marketing. And strategy is focused on getting enquiries for products not on engagement. The digital transformation resulted in buyers’ market, rather than sellers, now the buyer decides what they want, how they want, when they want and their terms.
Solution: To succeed in buyers’ market B2B manufacturers have to research and redefine their strategy. The strategy should focus on engagement online as well as offline, to influence the buying decisions. Campaigns can be focused on training the stakeholders on how to solve issues related to problems arising in production, product demo sessions, regular newsletters informing on new developments in technology and research, regular webcasts on social media websites, ensuring presence in media, etc. Involving customer support team for regular site visits, not just when the client requires, even when they don’t require helps to build confidence and trust for word – of – mouth marketing.

Problem: Technology: Indian B2B companies’ dependability technology is mediocre, except for investment for managing finance through Tally; they hardly invest to create a robust platform for observing sales trends. When most companies, especially their clients shifted to SAP or ERP, these companies hardly spend on implementing technology. The sales team still drafts quotations using excel or word and keep track on follow – ups using spreadsheet. With cloud model of CRM the biggest fear of Indian B2B manufacturers is that data will be hacked or stolen.
Solution: B2B manufacturers have to venture in technology in all aspects of business processes. It is a need of the hour for B2B organizations to implement CRM for managing sales cycle and ERP for other internal departments. Having a robust technology will help in getting analytics and trend of finance and purchase, while CRM would offer insights for sales and marketing team. Having cloud model of CRM is better than having no CRM as tracking of sales data is much easier.

Indian B2B Manufacturing companies have to invest in business process re – engineering to re define their vision. Lack of vision has been the biggest drawback for growth.

Friday, January 9, 2015

Digital Media Influence on Indian Consumer Buying Behavior

India has over one billion people with 120 dialects & languages. Three-fourths of the population lives in rural areas, contributing one-third of the national income. India ranks third, in terms of internet penetration in the world, while social media growth is by 37.4 percent. The e-commerce market is expected to grow from $11 billion in FY14 to $20 billion FY15. India is one of the most lucrative markets even though the per capita income is low, but has huge market for costly products. A recent development in India’s consumerism is the emergence of the rural market for several basic consumer goods.


Characteristics Of Indian CB 
“Indian consumers are noted for the high degree of value orientation; due to this Indians are labeled as one of the most discerning consumers in the world.” 
Even, luxury brands have to design a unique pricing strategy in order to get a foothold in the Indian market.

“Indian consumers have a high degree of family orientation.” 
Brands with identities that support family values tend to be popular and accepted easily

“Indian consumers are also associated with values of nurturing, care and affection.” 
Product which communicate above feelings and emotions gel with the Indian consumers.

Influence of Internet / Social Media / Ecommerce 
With the advent of eCommerce portals like Flip-kart, Amazon, Snap-deal, etc the buying behavior of Indian consumers has increased, as they meet shopping requirements of Indian consumers. 
Some of the facilities offered, which lead to growth of eCommerce in India are:
  • EMI options
  • Cash on Delivery
  • Huge discounts to buy online
  • Cheaper than brick – and –mortar stores
  • Increase in usage of internet through smart phones
  • Social reviews
But the major game changer being able to reach to rural India, since they already have disposable income, but no stores (Brick – N – Mortar) selling luxury branded products. With ecommerce and smart phones with internet, they are now able to order brands which they wish to wear, without traveling to city to buy those brands.

Different Segments of Indian Consumers

Socialites Consumer 
Socialites belong to the upper class. They prefer to shop in specialty stores, go to clubs on weekends, and spend a good amount on luxury goods. They are also brand and fashion conscious and would mostly shop at luxury malls, fashion designers boutiques or abroad.

Conservative Class of Consumers 
The Conservatives belong to the middle class; they are true reflection of Indian culture. 
Slow in decision making and seek a lot of information before making any purchase. Most often they look for durability and functionality of the product, but at the same time are also images conscious.

Working Woman 
This segment is the one, which has seen a tremendous growth in the late nineties and has opened the floodgates for the Indian retailers. Working women have disposable incomes and have their own buying decisions for products which appeal to them

Rural Consumer 
The Indian rural market has been growing at 3-4% per annum, adding more than 1 million new consumers every year and now accounts for close to 50% of the volume consumption of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) in India. The market size of the fast moving consumer goods sector is projected to more than double to US$ 23.25 billion by 2010 from the present US$ 11.16 billion.

Over the years, as a result of the increasing literacy in the country, exposure to the west, satellite television, smart phones, Bollywood movies, social media and newspapers there has been significant increase of consumer awareness among rural Indians. This awareness has made the Indian consumers seek more and more reliable sources for purchases such as organized retail chains that have a corporate background and where the accountability is more pronounced

The Indian consumers are price sensitive and prefer to buy value for money products. Here are few influences on the Indian consumer buying behavior, which a marketer should know.

Ecommerce Marketing 
Indian eCommerce industry is set to become a $0.5 trillion business in the next 10 years. With the sudden rise of eCommerce, most brand and cost conscious consumers are turning towards portals for buying or comparing product price with brick – N – Mortar stores. Currently the products Indian consumers are buying through online are smart phones, clothes, books, low value white goods, stationery, electronics, educational material and lately e Learning courses.

Celebrity Influence 
In India, celebrities are regularly used as brand ambassadors in marketing communication by marketers to lend personality to their products, increase trust factor and promote the brand. Celebrity endorsements work to a great extent for all class of consumers in India, as Bollywood and cricket plays a huge role in INDIAN life-cycle.

Quality Oriented Outlets 
Indian consumers looking for quality choose expensive brands as they feel that price is an indicator of quality. Most products in India have long shelf life, even after break down, they get it repaired. Most consumers ensure that products / brands have a service outlet in their nearby area for future break down repairs. If a product / brand don’t have any service centres, it is difficult to sell to INDIAN BUYERS.

Freebies 
Indian consumer’s buying behavior is influenced by freebies, discounts, one – on – free, 40% discount, etc. Freebies are consumer products given free of charge as gifts to purchases of selected products above a certain value. Freebies generally comprise tooth paste, soaps, detergent, cooking oil, cash back, USB, headphones, speakers, mobile covers, etc.

Changing Trends in Indian Consumer Behavior

Bulk Purchasing 
Urbanization is taking place in India at a dramatic pace and is influencing the life style and buying behavior of the consumers. Bulk purchases from hyper stores seems to be the trend these days with purchasing becoming more of a once-a-week affair, rather than frequent visits to the neighborhood store.

Trendy Lifestyles 
The current urban middle and upper class Indian consumer buying behaviour to a large extent has western influence. The Indian consumer has become much more open-minded and experimental in his/her perspective towards western trends. Most international Brands have presence in India and have gained wide consumer acceptance.

Buyers’ Market In The Making 
Post India’s economic liberalization, policies were initiated in 1991 for opening of market, many new product offerings have entered the Indian market and product variety has also increased manifold. Indian consumers have always preferred foreign goods and with liberalization, they have a choice vis-à-vis local products. 
The sellers’ market is slowly moving towards becoming the buyers’ market.

Social Media + Internet Influence 
Social media has played a spoilt sport, now people buy to get LIKE. Often, users check reviews on social media prior to purchase decision, even prefer movie review from friends rather than film critics. With lowest broadband connectivity, most Indians are turning towards smart phones with internet, often checking new offers and products on mobile app.

Consumer Spending Behavior 
Possibly the most challenging concept in the marketing is to understand the buyer behavior. The attitude of Indian consumers has undergone a major transformation over the last few years.  The Indian consumer today wants to lead a life full of luxury and comfort. Wants to live in present and does not believe in savings for the future.  
Consumers now have the power of information at their fingertips, enabling them to compare and shop wide range of goods and services anytime, anywhere. 
Lately, this trend has accelerated, as mobile apps have been playing larger trans-formative role to consumer fingertips.

Monday, January 5, 2015

Health sector needs booster shot



Below is story I read in TOI, Mumbai edition on last friday. The story was written by Malathy Iyer a journalist who has covered Health related issues for a very long time. The story gives interesting insightes on how Swine Flu helped the rich and poor come together for treatments.

Swine flu has been the biggest leveler in recent times. Breach Candy resident Chetan Shah, for the first time in his 34 years, stepped into a public hospital in August. He wouldn’t have ventured inside Kasturba Hospital if he didn’t need to check his H1N1 status after traveling to the US. The novelty factor associated with swine flu brought slumwallahs together with the owners of swanky cars as they lined up outside testing centres. Suddenly, little-known civic hospitals—Mahatma Phule Hospital in Vikhroli or S K Patil Nursing Home in Malad—were known across the city as they became swine flu testing centres.

Maharashtra has had many positives on the health front in the past five years. From the management of avian flu to swine flu and bettering maternal/infant mortality rates to ensuring better vaccination coverage, the state’s efforts have been lauded. Public health expert Dr R Potdar said,“There is political will to spend on health. Every year, the government has been increasing expenditure on health.’’
At present, public health officials have been basking in praises heaped on them by the WHO for taking radical decisions like closing down schools for 10 days and disbursing Tamiflu on suspicion of H1N1. But is the public health machinery in tune with the health needs of the Great Indian Middle-Class? Not at all, admits a senior doctor in a public hospital. Over 70% of Indians go to the private sector instead of government facilities.
Shah confessed he wouldn’t want to be admitted to a public hospital. “The staff appear earnest and efficient, but the systemic apathy is there for all to see,’’ he said. The unclean beds are only part of the problem. There is the scare of bed bugs, and rats and strays. There is always a doctor on call, but s/he is too overworked. Not surpsrisingly then, relatives have taken the law into their ownhands. The government introduced a special legislation protecting doctors and medical infrastructure, but stray incidents still continue.
Medicines are in short supply and there is a long queue for a CT/MRI scan. Even in Mumbai’s premier teaching hospitals, such as KEM and JJ, the waiting list is too long for anyone’s comfort.
A former WHO official, Dr Chandra Gulati, said in Maharashtra, more than in other states, the difference between India and Bharat is stark. In the context of the swine fu epidemic, he said, “Do primary health centres have doctors for people to come in for a check-up? The state government promised to operate PHCs 24*7, but health activists say given the shoratage of doctors, many PHCs still operate only on alternate days.
Potdar said while many health programmes are running concurrently, there is no integration at the user level. The women and child welfare department’s struggle with malnutrion is far removed from the public health department’s efforts to improve infant mortality. “All health workers are bogged by the demands of the Pulse Polio programme,’’ he added.
Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA), a network of health NGOs, has prepared a manifesto with demands ranging from healthcare for all to better women and child schemes. “The new government should enact a State Health Act so that every citizen has the right to comprehensive, quality healthcare at public expense in relevant health institutions,’’ said Dr Anant Phadke of JSA. He said the state government should ensure that charity-run hospitals reserve 20% of their beds for the needy. “The government should also plan and implement the National Urban Health Mission, which has provisions to cover the most vulnerable sections of the urban population on the streets, the homeless people, people living in temporary settlements and slums,” he added.

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDA5LzEwLzA5I0FyMDEwMDA=&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

Future of Technology for Social Media



Smart phones
Smartphone sales in India are expected to reach 80.57 mn by this year end. Most consumers have migrated from ‘feature phones’ to smartphones for using new features, especially Internet. As Internet usage on mobile has increased tremendously, as India lacks broadband connectivity. This boost in sales of smart phones has also been the offer of EMI options from smartphone makers, even for below '$200 segment', as it plays key role in driving growth of the smartphone market

Wearable technology
Wearable technologies are accessories and devices which have wearable technology with computing capabilities and share vision of interweaving technology into the everyday life. Thus, making technology interaction friction less between humans and digital world.
Types of Wearable Devices & Technology

  • E-textiles 
  • Wearable computer 
  • Activity tracker 
  • Smart watch 
  • Smart glasses 
  • GPS watch 
  • Virtual reality 
  • Computer-mediated reality 
  • Clothing technology 
  • Smart Shirt 
  • Healthcare 
  • Augmented Reality 
  • Watches


Smart watches
Smart Watches are wearable - technology devices that maintain a relatively persistent wireless connection to between mobile device—usually a smart phone and watch—and can receive notifications of incoming calls, texts, instant messages, social-network updates, and more, from that device.

Bracelet
From activity trackers to wristbands that track and notify about all kinds of things – nobody is safe from this new wave of wristbands. In which brands, big and small, want to get their piece of the cake. Both, Bluetooth Smart as well as optical sensors is state of the art for most of these bands.

Smart Glasses
Smart Glasses has been pioneered by GOOGLE, this Glass displays information in a smartphone-like hands-free format. Wearers communicate with the Internet via natural language voice commands.

Apparels
Evolution of technology has enabled textiles to merge with technology to create fashionable, functional and comfortable solutions to meet every day needs; whether in sports & fitness or outdoor & leisure or home care & health care.

Smart paper
Electronic paper & e- paper are part of display technologies that mimic appearance of ordinary ink on paper. But unlike back lit flat panel which emits light, electronic paper reflects light like paper. This makes them comfortable to read, and provide a wider viewing angle than most light-emitting displays. Ideally this e-paper display can be read in direct sunlight without the image appearing to fade.

Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality (VR) is referred to as hypothetical future technology, it is a computer - simulated environment which creates perception of being physically present in a non-physical world or imagined world. Virtual reality can recreate experiences which include virtual taste, sight, smell, sound, touch, etc.

Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. This is a part of virtual reality, which doesn’t require hardware.

What lies in future for us?

Semantic Search Engine
Semantic search uses artificial intelligence in order to understand the searcher’s intent and the meaning of the query rather than searching for keywords, it understands the complete meaning of search phrase. Google is focusing to build natural language processing – the process by which machines can effectively interpret human speech and phrase. This will become a driving force in the advancement of semantic search, leading to accomplishment of search / query with different tools of GOOGLE.

Social Media + AI
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others are beginning to use artificial intelligence techniques to build - deep learning capacities. They have started to process all activities occurring over their networks from conversations, to photo facial recognition, to gaming activity, etc. Deep learning is a sub-field within AI that focuses on training computers to make logic behind undefined and irregular types of data that humans generate, such as when we speak, write, photograph or film. These Learning systems try to recognizes the trends in all raw data for predications.

Big Data Analytics
Data processing platforms let data scientists analyze, collect and shift through various types of data. In 2012 Summer Olympic Games at London used 1,800 closed-circuit video cameras monitoring Olympic Park and athletes' village. Analysts used applications to process data pertaining to those who were filmed and flag any individuals behaving suspiciously. The big data servers automatically detected the suspicious behaviors. Data visualization has given a new dimension to visual communication especially for statistics. This helps to simplify complete data into infographic or other formats which can be easily transcript by lay people. It is both art and science, since the amount of data generated is huge which makes it difficult to translate or communication. Through infographic or visual art data visualization has becomes easier. Big data and data visualization helps in identifying new Business Opportunities. In 2012 US presidential election demonstrated this how BIG DATA helps to identify voters and donors and plan accordingly to reach them. Campaign managers in both Democratic & Republican parties invested resources for seeking interest led information of voters and taking this information, addressed different election rallies. This information also helped to target advertising and fund raising programs.
Data is everything from text, voice, video, statistics, etc. using right tools of BIG DATA ANALYTICS this valuable information can be processed to offer vital information for mining. This data has huge capabilities, especially predication's for business and healthcare.

The relationship you have with your technology is no longer command and control. It is evolving to become human relationship, and slowly your technology will know you and it will understand you.