MxMIndia

Tag: telecom

  • Sad, given that telecom is driving media in a big way, and in order that the digital economy grows, it’s important that there is integrated attention.

    Welcome, Prakash Javadekar. But has Modi missed a trick by not combining I&B with telecom?

    By Your Editor

    The suspense over portfolio allocation ended earlier today with the announcement via a Rashtrapati Bhawan communique. While one needs to figure why some people were chosen (or not chosen) for a few key ministries, there is a new master for the media sector – the information and broadcasting ministry: Prakash Javadekar. The other important ministry for the media – telecom – sees Ravi Shankar Prasad continuing in office.

    Although it requires some lateral thinking, one would’ve thought that given the mandate the new government has won and the Prime Minister’s penchant for going out-of-the-box, we would’ve had a single minister for telecom, and information and broadcasting. There’s a lot more to IT than the internet and social media, and it could well be looked at by another minister, if at all.

     

    However, that’s not been done. And we are back to one minister for I&B and another for communications, IT and electronics. Sad, given that telecom is driving media in a big way, and in order that the digital economy grows, it’s important that there is integrated attention.

     

    Be that as it may, let’s welcome back Prakash Javdekar to the I&B Ministry. He’s affable and has had some experience in I&B (May-November 2014) and a few years as a member of the Press Council of India. Javadekar is liked by most people and can be a consensus-builder.

     

    There is loads happening in the media – especially on the digital front – and the minister would be required to step in and take a progressive approach to tackling things.

     

    Will he? Won’t he? We’ll know for sure soon enough.

  • How various sectors like BFSI, Telecom and FMCG are coping with the challenges and finding solutions to resolve issues through social listening

    Big Data trends spotted on engaging and leveraging social media analytics

    By A Correspondent

     

    Big data analytics is steadily emerging as a viable means of generating actionable business intelligence. Wikibon has predicted that the big data market will top $84 billion by 2026. Although adoption of big data is on the rise, its utilization is less impressive with Gartner predicting that 85 per cent of Fortune 500 companies will be unable to exploit big data for competitive advantage in 2015. Needless to say, the scope for brands to indulge in big data analytics is huge. KonnectSocial – India’s fastest growing social listening and analytics platform has identified these key trends –

     

    – Brands are eager to embrace big data in exchange for actionable insights

    A 2014 study by IDG Enterprise observed that 70 per cent of enterprise organizations have either deployed or are planning to deploy big data-related projects and programs. Several Indian brands have showed inclination towards harnessing big data analytics. They want to achieve homogeneity of data obtained from their current systems and big data. Trend spotting, demographics and psychographic evaluation are the key areas where big data analytics has been deployed.

     

    – Customer centrism is paving the way for big data applications

    Mass marketed brands are taking their customer centric approach to the next level by engaging in social listening. Here’s how different sectors are going about it –

    A. BFSI – Brands from this sector are punching bags for a variety of reasons such as allegations of fraud, negligence & unauthorized transactions. Currently the social listening approach taken by leading brands from this sector revolve around managing the brand’s reputation. As these brands get comfortable with brand reputation, social listening as a means of identifying sales leads and gaining real time market insights will go mainstream. This is mostly because big data applications already have analytics features built into them. Social media teams simply need to warm up to the advanced applications of such tools.

    B. Telecom – This sector is perennially plagued by complaints. For brands from this sector response management is of great importance as customer attrition is high. This is mostly attributed to TRAI mandated MNP facility which allows consumers to change mobile operators while retaining the same mobile number. Not only is it critical for telecom brands to respond to every grievance, they also need to be efficient at resolving them. Social CRM workflows are need of the hour to track the response team’s turn around time and manage conversations from every online avenue.

    C. FMCG – FMCG brands rely on market intelligence to launch new products and gauge sentiment for course correction. With listening tools they can now gather such intelligence in real time. We are going to witness a lot of brands engaging in social listening for accurately building psychographic profile of their TGs to drive brand engagement. Crisis management is also something brands can do much more efficiently with such big data applications.

     

    – Mass marketed brands will lead the march towards big data adoption

    Due to the proliferation of social media, the impact of social conversations on reputation is felt by all leading brands. In order to enhance and safeguard their reputation, several brands have an active presence on social media. They have also subscribed to listening tools for discovering brand conversations and acting on them. The benefit of such big data tools is that the data from them can be churned to gain market intelligence in real time. They bring previously unknown correlations to fore. Some leading brands have started to make optimal utilization of such tools to generate predictable & tangible benefits. The benefits gained by them will serve as case studies for laggards to follow suit.

     

     

  • Marketers should define their category by the way their customers see it, rather than the way the industry sees it, says Suman Srivastava

    The Anchor: Suman Srivastava on 5 Reasons why Marketing is a Creative Business

    By Suman Srivastava

     

    1. The marketer has to define the category he is in:

    Marketers should define their category by the way their customers see it, rather than the way the industry sees it wrote Theodore Levitt in Marketing Myopia. This is true even today. One can argue that a discount airline and a full service airline operate in different categories, even though they both fly planes.

     

    2. Pricing has become an art and not an accountancy exercise:

    Cost plus pricing is dead. Today consumers live in a “free” economy. Musicians give away their music for free from their websites and then make money on the concerts and the merchandize. Printers in the USA cost less than a full set of cartridges in them. Go figure.

     

    3. Marketers increasingly sell augmented products:

    You never just buy the car. You buy the car and the service and the resale value. As products become more commoditized, the pressure is on the marketer to differentiate the product in some other way. Hyundai offered to buy back cars from people who lost their jobs in America. That ensured that it increased its market share in a declining market.

     

    4. In India, creative distribution ideas can truly disrupt markets:

    Cavin Kare changed the rules of the game by launching shampoos in sachets. They started a revolution that has extended from personal care products to telecom (prepaid cards). Sachets could be placed in the smallest of stores and be within reach of the poorest of customers.

     

    5. Advertising doesn’t work as well as it did before, so marketers need to think of unique brand experiences:

    Smirnoff is not allowed to advertise, so it created a series of events where consumers were taught to make cocktails. These were fun events where the consumers left after not just having a few drinks, but also learning the right way to make and serve cocktails. Beats a 30 sec TVC any day.

     

    Suman Srivastava is Founder & Innovation Artist at Marketing Unplugged, a firm that helps firms create marketing innovations