‘Bringing Branding back to the boardroom’, Marketing insights shared in DoMS, IIT Roorkee

Department of Management Studies, IIT Roorkee conducted a session on Marketing insights on ‘Bringing Branding back in the boardroom’. The session was conducted by Mr. Sunder Madakshira, Vice President, Marketing and Communications, SAP India. Along with Mr. Madakshira, Mr. Mohammed A K Rao, Manager - Marketing & Communication at SAP Labs and Mr. Rohan Sinha, Senior Software Engineer at SAP Labs India Pvt. Ltd also shared their experiences with the students of DoMS.

 In July 2012, The Fournaise Marketing Group released a statement on business unit alignment. For their 2012 Global Marketing Effectiveness Program Report, they interviewed more than 1,200 CEOs from across the globe and found that a staggering 80% of them admit they do not really trust and are not very impressed by the work done by marketers. So, what went wrong between marketers and the decision makers? Mr. Madakshira, throws light on what needs to be done to handle such situations as to make the marketing count.

“Marketers should always portray the real picture so that a more pragmatic approach should be followed. Some of the grave realities that every marketer needs to accept are, real prices of the product will always come down, customer will redraw the value equation all the time, competition at all levels is forever increasing and marketing ROI will always be difficult to demonstrate. Only if we keep these facts in our mind that we could actually think about how to deal with them instead of avoiding them”, said Mr. Madakshira.

The session was very interactive; each and every student got involved due to Mr. Madakshira’s engaging way of knowledge sharing. He very well pointed out the Brand managers shortcomings like over analyzing the situation, advertising in desperation and planning without execution. ”Brand managers should focus on developing strong customer insights, building strong chain to deliver value and extending global footprints”, said Mr. Madakshira.

At the end of the session, he provided some useful pointers for upcoming marketers. Some of the suggestions were that the marketer should have ears of a snake so as to know the customer very well. He should be an exceptional analyst like a hawk and an enthusiast who focuses on networking for building strong relationships.

All in all, the session was very enlightening for the future marketers. Students of DoMS, IIT Roorkee appreciated it whole heartedly and showed interest to carry on such informative sessions in future as well.