I had attended a 2 day marketing workshop by Prof. YLR Moorthy of IIM-Bangalore sometime back. I had prepared this summary and forgot to post it for some reason! Prof. YLR is an amazing person and I guess I got to know about more products and brands in these 2 days from him than in my entire lifetime! Here’s the summary of what I learnt:

• It is all about the 7P’s of Marketing (product, place, price, promotion, physical evidence, process and people) + 7 pillars of wisdom (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning, Differentiation, Value proposition, Punchline and Niche).
• Any product (or service) should relate to the
  • rational benefits (e.g. 8KMiles brings down the cost of your outsourcing by over 50% or No cap-ex, invest based on ROI)
  • emotional benefits ( One of the examples quoted in the workshop was some about some tea that talks about being handpicked and completely organic from North Africa and that buying this particular tea will help a poor labourer in N. Africa to have his meal or using 8KMiles and leveraging the on-demand cloud based infrastructure for my project will help reduce “X” amount carbon footprint which is equivalent to planting “y” trees) and
  • self expressive benefits (e.g. I freelance in 8KMiles and so I’m a guy who has complete freedom and control over my life)
• Segmentation: Dividing the markets into logical groups based on common customer needs. (Characteristic: Low standard deviation within and high standard deviation across segments). Need to know who the customer is. The best way to segment is to draw the pen picture of the customer. E.g. pen picture of a Ready to Eat product (Overloaded housewife, bored hosteller, happy family needing a change once in a week, overseas traveller, harried office going woman)
• Targeting: Picking one or more Segments that you can handle. E.g: Infy’s target customers – Fortune 2000 companies – CXO’s (total of 75K), Business heads (total of 55k) and IT heads (total of 75K): Total of 200,000 target customers. Don’t care about anyone else.
• Once the segments are identified, we can then target that segment through Positioning
• Positioning: Stacking the benefits in a certain (right) set of sequence. It is a brief statement of what we can do.
  • Positioning is done by contrast
  • A well positioned brand owns a word in the market
  • Which position to choose should be based on:
    • Customer (address a gap) –> connects
    • Competitor –> contrasts
    • Competence –> plays (in the mind)

  

• Communication mix (5 ways of reaching the target that should result in positive WOM): 1. Direct Marketing 2. Advertising 3. Personal Selling 4. PR and 5. Sales Promotion
  
• Reference Books:
  • The business of Software – Michael Cusumano Cusumano, offers an in depth study of what it takes to succeed in software. Of particular value are critical questions to contemplate:
  • 1. Do you want to be mainly a Products company, or a Services company?
    2. Do you want to sell to Individuals, or Enterprises | Mass market, or Niche market?
    3. How horizontal (broad) or vertical (specialized) is your product or service?
    4. Can you generate a recurring revenue stream that will endure both good and bad times?
    5. Will you target mainstream customers, or do you have a plan to avoid the chasm?
    6. Do you plan on being a Leader, Follower, or Complementor?
    7. What kind of character do you want your company to have?

    Cusumano also offers eight Critical Success Factors that are necessary for Software Start-ups to succeed as a business and raise investor money:

    1. Strong Management Team
    2. An Attractive Market
    3. Compelling New Product, Service, or Hybrid Solution
    4. Strong evidence of Customer Interest
    5. A Plan to Overcome the “Credibility Gap”
    6. A Business Model Showing Early Growth and Profit Potential
    7. Flexibility in Strategy and Product Offerings
    8. The Potential for Large Payoff to Investors

• Positioning – The battle for your mind – Al Ries & Jack Trout
• Successful Sales Promotions – Pran Choudhary
• For God, Country and Coca-Cola – Mark Pendergrast
• Platform leadership – Michael Cusumano

Business Line carried an article on 8KMiles yesterday. Please read it here

It was a very well written article that clearly explains the 8KMiles value prop and the target users. The article is the result of a discussion I had with the IT reporter of BL, Shamik Paul.
Shamik seemed to appreciate what we are trying to do at 8KMiles and saw value in it. Thanks Shamik!

www.Freedomishere.in is a new website that talks about freelancing as a career option to all the IT professionals. The site has some interesting aspects to it –

• Freedom Fundas – A funda (updated weekly), that in an illustrative and comical fashion talks about the benefits of being on your own and the demerits of being associated to a regular job
• Freedom Quotient quiz – A quick and easy way to find out your freedom quotient and what it means.
• Share your freedom story area- A place for users to share their thoughts, views and stories on their work freedom (or the lack of it)

The site will have some more cool stuff added in the next few days/weeks. Please do visit the freedom site. The site is run by my company 8KMiles as a way to educate the Indian IT talent about freelancing.

I have been following most of the IPL matches. Good way to reduce the stress for me. It is an open secret that Lalit Modi introduced the strategy break to push more ads. I hate this not only because it upsets the flow of the game but also strategically (from advertising POV), I don’t think it makes a lot of sense as the audience is well aware of the break and promptly switch channels or take a break themselves. Many times, the audience get engrossed in a different channel or take up some work which will not get them back to the match post the strategy break. In essence, people not only are not watching the ads during the break but also may not watch the ads post the break. I’m sure Lalit Modi, the smart marketer that he is will realize this howler and make the necessary correction.  

However, a stranger thing that I noticed is the forced ads of “Fly Kingfisher” for any third umpire decisions. Even in the case when both the batsmen were at the same end, the third umpire takes an unimaginably long time to come out with the decision and during this time, the camera focuses on the “Decision Pending” screen with Fly Kingfisher ad all over. Is there an arrangement between the broadcasters and Kingfisher? My guess is there has to be one.

Came across a very interesting book – “Killer Differentiators: 13 strategies to grow your brand” by Jackie Tai and Wilson Chew. It talks about the need for every product to stand for something in the minds of the people. Some examples:

Ebay – online auction

Dell – Direct to customer computers

Zara – Just-in-time fashion

Oracle – Database software

Visa – Credit cards

Red Bull – Energy drink

The idea that is stressed is that one can’t find a strong brand from among those that take a middle-of-the road approach. Your brand can’t stand for everything because the human mind needs to be able to categorize things for easy reference. A brand that stands for everything will have a lot less credibility. A positive perception (of the brand) is critical to the success of the business and for that to happen your brand has to stand for something unique.

One of the messages (my interpretation) is that it need not be the case that one has to create a completely new category to differentiate. But brands have to create a unique perception within the category. Automobile (though these are very bad times for the industry) is a classic example of how the companies though competing on the same category (selling cars) have created a unique positioning. Toyota is known for reliability, Volvo is known for safety, Ferrari for speed, BMW for performance, Maruti Suzuki for value-for-money etc.

The 13 differentiation strategies are:

- Sales Leadership

- Technology Leadership

- Performance Leadership

- Next Generation Product

- How it is Made

- Where it is Made

- Attribute Ownership

- Opposite Position

- Personality

- Specialisation

- Preference

- Heritage

- Design

There is a lot more information in the book than what is mentioned here. Do read it if you are launching a new product or starting a new company.

Came across an article in CIO.com that listed the 25 most dangerous cities for offshore outsourcing.

The article had a protectionist overture and hinted that US companies are better off getting the work done locally (or through nearshoring). Almost all the Indian IT cities are listed in the top 25 (whew! Didn’t know you can actually outsource to Accra in Ghana till I saw the list!). In fact, all the well known and not so known outsourcing destinations across the developing world find their names included in the list. While Bangalore is there for environmental waste & pollution, Jerusalem along with Mumbai and Delhi are listed for high terrorism threat.

What is surprising though is the timing of the article (and the report on which the article is based). The report is titled “2009: The year of outsourcing dangerously”. It is not in 2009, Bangalore has suddenly become a threat to the environment or Jerusalem becomes a soft target for terrorist. And to bring about a list of 25 cities and including parameters that are not so serious is stretching this anti offshoring propaganda a bit too far (most of the Indian IT cities are listed from 20-25).

You can read the full article here and arrive at your decision: http://www.cio.com/article/482404/The_Most_Dangerous_Cities_for_Offshore_Outsourcing?source=artrel_top

Outsourcing has become an imperative business decision and offshore outsourcing is indeed a very attractive option for companies looking to optimize cost (who isn’t!). There are enough business cases for each one of onshore/nearshore/offshore solutions or a combination of these. It is also fair for a government to try and protect the jobs of its citizens. The good times helped in overlooking this tricky situation. But the current economic situation demands an answer and it will be interesting to see how things pan out in the next few quarters!

Loved this ad where Sachin talks about “Team”. Well said!!!

After a very exciting one year into product ideation, design and development we finally have launched the alpha version of 8KMiles!Thanks to a dedicated and passionate team, we could achive this. Of course, this is only a start.
Reminded of the line from a poem from Robert Frost:
“And miles to go before I sleep…” Not just to me but for everyone in 8KMiles.
Currently, we have it as an invite only alpha. You can request an invite from www.8KMiles.com  by filling in a short signup form.
I have not spoken about what 8KMiles is all these days! Here you go: 8KMiles is an online ecosystem of verified professionals and companies to enable outsourcing of software and other knowledge services completely over the internet.
Victor Hugo said “An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.” We strongly believe the time has come for the 8KMiles idea to take off…Look forward to your co-operation.

I made a presentation about 8KMiles in October’s Start-up Saturday event in IIM-B. The presentation was very well received and the audience found the idea to be cool with lots of potential. It was an interactive session and useful one too as we got a pulse of the audience. Watch the presentation:

Many thanks to everyone who attended the session and thanks to the Start-up Saturday team who gave this opportunity.