IT Services Marketing - Are we there yet?

The concept of IT services marketing is definitely not new but the whole concept has definitely seen a paradigm shift and underwent numerous transitions particularly in India in the last decade or so. The Indian IT companies realized that if they were to beat the IBM’s and the EDS’s of the world in the “game” – they should get their act together. It not only meant the delivering the message to the end customer about the novelty of the services provided by a said vendor but also shrouding the message in a jazzy web so as to create maximum impact and customer recall value. While on one hand it meant the phasing out of a generation of delivery folks out of the marketing departments of the top tier IT companies – on the other the so called marketing whizkids of the FMCG and product companies moved in to fill in the “niche” within. So while the Wipro’s, Infosys’s and the HCL’s of the world got in the marketing guru’s to try and bridge the gap between the message sent out by them and that by the big 3. While in reality though the profit margins increased as did the sales of the Indian companies as they went further global – the big question is pertinent here: Are we there yet?

While the concept of IT services marketing tries in essence to differentiate itself in the sense that it the core strategy is built around influential marketing – much like the US political scenario. The messaging and the context as well as the services need to be flexible.

Boom!!! I said it again – in context is services marketing any different from product marketing. While purists will bay for blood if most modern day marketers try to bring down the holy-grail i.e. the 4P’s of marketing and try adding a different dimension of ‘people’ – in a whole, the context of the 5th P was always integrated within the economics of the world and that made services and not goods the core unit of business.

All businesses at the heart are services business – if we take the Dell model or even the model of a can of “desi ghee” – essentially each one of them follows the integral model of the services economy. In reality marketers try and approach the model from two opposite sides of the spectrum – e.g. our very own Tata with the ‘nano’ is not actually in the business of automobiles (believe it or not) but in the business of transportation services. Marketing of the ‘nano’ would not only revolve around the product marketing to spell success for the product but essentially incorporate the 5th P i.e. people if ultimate success is to be attained.

The Indian IT services arm has essentially not seen much action – but the scene is heating up. With margins shrinking and vendors essentially targeting similar geographical markets we are poised to see a sea-change in this business that will essentially differentiate the innovators from the followers.

The Wipro’s, Infosys’s and HCL’s of the world please stand up.

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righteous marketing.....

Innovation of something useful = Priceless

Repetition of something inherent = 100$

Repetition of the something ineffectual = 1$

Delivering the same message through different viewpoints = sometimes totally worthless

Well I have come across some many colleagues of mine starting up a blog airing their views about some function related to business like finance, cash flows, sales, innovative rules in marketing, HR and so on. Barring a few exceptions I am seldom to come across a blog which effectively delivers truly a new message of sorts with respect to a particular subject in question. Some relate to effective marketing techniques while others to transformational human resources practices. Sound as they might on paper from a internal point of view rarely have they been used efficiently in practice.

So when a friend of mine suggested that why not come up with some interesting concepts in the art of marketing - I was (albeit sheepishly I must admit) considered some sort of guru in marketing when I was in B-school and though the first experience in a job situation changed my views for the better, still amongst a close circle of friends that concept lingered on. Coming back my only answer was – marketing is a whole lot crap these days, media blowing in out of proportion and the hapless common man (atleast in India) not knowing the difference between sales and marketing. Well not many would believe that marketing is an art which we try to deliver in concrete action after comprehending the theory in demand creation somewhat unsystematically in the mind.

Marketing is a matrix – we all have our own definitions; some delivering a sense and expected outcome while others biting the dust. Well what is marketing then – try defining that. Try defining the matrix. While our very dear guru Kotler gives the definition as “Marketing is the social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others”.

Try making sense out of that – while many of my friends got away with random A’s while quoting the definition the question yet remained in my mind whether they understood the true essence of this. I am sure though Kotler did but the interplay of words was something to my mind avoidable.

Anyway marketing is not always about a demand creation and meeting it successfully – as most of the common mortals might be led to believe; it might be even educating and providing changing benefits to the changing needs and demands of the target audience. SHREEEK………..read the line again.

Well if change is constant (which is debatable but mostly acceptable in the end), this definition holds ground. Another point is sensitivity and sensibility. It makes more sense in today’s “’CONNECTED” environment. Online social media has opened up new avenues of marketing – the new age gurus predict transformational strategies to deliver content and open up avenues thorough web2.0 and so on, while the purists bay for blood, I for once tend to side with them. While I would go to a facebook or a orkut to check out messages from long lost friends, post pictures etc, essentially I would not want to click or check out advertisements posted on the site. The success of marketing lies in delivering the key message sensibly, to the target masses without putting a shroud of glitterati on it – the message must deliver and set a tone in the customers mind, effectively and efficiently, not necessarily immediately. While the story of Mozilla Firefox, an Apple iPOD or a AOL winamp can be brought in to support this viewpoint – net net marketing must meet the changing needs of the environment to meet the changing needs of the customer. If that is understood the effective strategies to mastermind a effective marketing strategy in the next step. More on that later.

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the great divide...

well taking classes on marketing in B-school apparently did not help many of my colleagues who are still plagued by the oddity of failing to differentiate between marketing & sales. Recently a friend of mine got into a conversation with me on this and I had to spend 30 minutes of valuable airtime trying to educate him on the nuances of the business world.

If I try to follow the idiom "Dummy's Guide to Sales & Marketing", then, net-net

Marketing is everything that you do to reach and persuade prospects.

Whereas

Sales is everything that you do to close the sale and get a signed agreement or contract.

Marketing consists of the measures you use to reach and persuade your prospects that you are the company for them. It's the message that prepares the prospect for the sales. It consists of advertising, public relations, brand marketing, viral marketing, and direct mail. To add a few lines for my friends interested in the IT services marketing area, a person handling a marketing area will be responsible for one or all of this for a particular service line or industry vertical.

The sales process on the other hand consists of interpersonal interaction. It is often done by a one-on-one meeting, cold calls, and networking. It's anything that engages you with the prospect or customer on a personal level rather than at a distance. The keyword here (for most of my friend interested in IT sales) is networking, networking and more networking.

It is interesting to note that without marketing an organization does not have prospects or leads to follow up with, but yet without a good sales technique and strategy the organization’s closing rate is usually depressing. Simply stated, marketing takes the long-term view of customer relationships, paving the way for sales to occur in the short-term. One feeds the other. At the end of the day, its about integration and collaboration of both expertise.

PS: This article is also influenced by the fact that apparently 90% on the people I came across & discussed my job profile earlier, had absolutely no clue what IT services marketing was.

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