Moving Beyond Sales

My organization has just published its 4^th Annual report of Marketing Best Practices. The study was done on IT & BPO Services organization.

One of the key finds was the fact that Marketing has become too preoccupied in acting as Sales Enabler; especially in the area of New Client Acquisition. While I completely subscribe to the principle that is a key focus area, however our experience shows that this focus comes at the cost of other equally important initiatives. For example, Technology Companies in India devote less attention to areas such as Customer Retention/Relationship and Branding Programs. Why? One reason is that new customer acquisition consumes so much bandwidth that there is little inclination and resources are available for other initiatives. The other more serious reason could be that companies do not consider these other areas to be a priority. This is a major concern. It is time that companies allow marketing to have a broader footprint and venture into previously unexplored areas. Else, it is highly likely that distinctions between companies become even more blurred. And a “Me-Too” image is something that should be avoided at all costs.

One of the Forrester analysts John McCarthy has an interesting view on the impact of the US financial services industry crisis on the offshoring industry. He feels that the turn of events cannot be merely termed as a recession; rather it is a more fundamental restructuring of the industry which could lead to consolidation and paring down, hence leaner IT budgets. Thus, Indian IT and BPO industry, with a significant exposure to financial services could be impacted.

He goes on to say” “There is no denying it will particularly impact Indian companies. In a way, they are paying the price for having under-invested in marketing all these years.”

This is completely in line with the study findings.

Comments

[Subbu Krishnan]

HI Christian

The scope of this study is Indian companies. In fact I have mailed you an excerpt to christian.bernard@saleslab.info.

Thanks
Subbu

[Christian Bernard]

Hi Subbu,

Is your study focussed on Indian companies? Could you share some more?

Kind regards, Christian