Moderator – Dr. Y.L.R. Moorthi, Professor (Marketing), IIM, Bangalore
Speakers:
Paul Murphy, Director of Innovation, Microsoft India
Suresh Vedula, Head – Business Mobility, Nokia India
Bharath Chinamanthur, Director, Amazon IDC
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Below are some points they talked about and some questions and answers given during the session: (Again, any mistakes are mine and probably due to misinterpretation only)
Paul Murphy – Taking ideas to market is the hardest part in any situation – startup or a company. Marketing is the first strategy for all companies. This is the first step. Resources are costly and so is time – invest in both wisely.
Suresh Vedula – IntelliSync – Enterprise software. How innovative ideas helped them boost sales for software. Direct marketing is not what it is about but personal marketing and meeting people. There is no substitue for hard work – personal marketing. Visit your potential customers and show how your software works if that is what it takes.
Bharath Chinamanthur- You have got the whacky idea. Now who do you make sure that it reaches the right people? Interbrands survey looks at brands and come up with rankings. It takes a lot of relentless discipline and quick decisions in times of uncertainty to get your brand recognized.
Moorthy said that Marketing is too serious thing to be left to marketing professors or marketing professionals. That was brilliant.
One question asked by a participant was how one manages a bad product and its impact on the brand name or parent company. One of the answers given by Suresh was that if it is a dud you have to take some decisions like pulling the plug.
How do you sustain innovations? For e.g. how does Nokia or Microsoft manage to do that? Nokia has an established program where they look at what will probably sell 3 years from now and then start developing it.
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