On 7th February 2019, the Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur had the privilege of hosting Ms Madhumita Basu, Executive Committee Member and Chief of Sales, Marketing & Innovation at Nuvoco Vistas Corp Ltd for a highly informative guest lecture. She has worked with various corporate giants like Exide Industries Ltd, Eveready India Ltd, Lafarge India Ltd playing instrumental roles. An expert in the field of B2B and B2C marketing, Ms Basu has carved out a niche for herself and spearheaded many corporate strategies throughout her journey.
The session centred on returning to the basics and joining the dots to recall the fundamental principles that remain constant even during the disruptive times of today. Ms Basu talked majorly on "Building Brands in the Age of Disruptions" and how understanding customer insights and consumer behaviour play a critical role in capturing the markets. She emphasised that the basic working principles remain the same even during the transition of industries. The age may or may not be disruptive, but good marketing and branding always are. She said disruptions have to be a part of the communication channels and doing the right thing at the right time is crucial to make the right choices.
Taking the session forward focusing on Consumer Insights, she said that it is a more fundamental concept than restricting it to marketing. Ms Basu defined Consumer Insight to be the written expression of consumption truth. She explained that consumers do not provide "ready" insights, one needs to listen to and interact with the distribution channels, sales colleagues and consumers while understanding their voices to build the brand. She also mentioned that knowing the need is not an insight. A need satisfied or dissatisfied creates emotion and interpretation of these emotions is an insight. People buy into ideas and products based on emotion and then back up their decisions with logic.
She then discussed "Customer Moments of Truth", which are the moments when certain expectations of the customer do not get fulfilled. She said that for such incidences it is essential to empower the customers and the front line, customer-facing teams to improve serviceability. Do people ask for our brand, are they ready to pay the price and are they willing to wait for our brand are some of the principal questions that define the success of a brand.
The highly informative session enabled the audience to understand branding and marketing in a better way. The insights of Ms Basu about involving the customer in brand building and being relevant to them will help our students prosper in their professional journeys ahead. Ms Basu marked the conclusion of the session by summing up her ideas and thoughts and stating, "Keep reading the tea leaves!"