How To Build A Career In Marketing | Ft. Former VP At Zycus

Question2: What hard/ soft skills do you recommend students learn during b-school?, and which might help them to bag a PPO?

Answer2: One soft skill is reading, students should be well-read. Another one is having a positive attitude because the initial few years might be very tough for them, their expectations will not match, they would perhaps not get the job that they want. It is the attitude which will carry them forwards. Strong oral and written communication is a must, which doesn't mean only English communication skills, they should be able to communicate in any language which makes sense to the audience, but it should be good and articulate. They should be presentable because I have seen many people give proper attention to hygiene, presentation. These small things make them stand out. E.g. They shouldn't come to a room with their body odour, which unfortunately happens a lot.

Question 3: Tell us about your current role in detail.

Answer 3: I head the entire marketing function, so all these marketing activities come under 3 heads:

1) Brand Awareness and Brand Building

2) Demand Generation

3) Product Marketing

Question 4: Please describe your career trajectory (Designations and responsibilities).

Answer 4: Started off as Management Trainee then got promoted twice in 6 years.  Pretty remarkable, because in IBM, an average promotion cycle is 4-5 years. After that, I became a Principal Research Analyst at Gartner.  It was a global role and required a lot of travelling abroad. I was in early 3os, so travelling was fun. Then I worked as a country marketing head at Capgemini and then in Mastek.  Finally, I arrived at Zycus and got promoted as AVP  and then VP as global head of marketing.

Question 5: Did you take any particular key decisions that have shaped your career in this particular way?

Answer 5: Honestly, no. Most of it was very incidental/accidental.

There were quite a few offers from Infosys, TCS, HP which I did not take, reasons for which are debatable, but in hindsight, yes, I could have worked in larger organisations. But in your tenure, you realise that working in a large organisation really does not matter. It is the role which matters. Yes, initially you think that you can join Google or Facebook, which is fine, but if Facebook doesn't offer a good role, it is much worse than let's say doing a role in a smaller company. So if you say you work at Google, nobody will ask you questions. But if you say you're working with Zycus, they'll ask 10 questions, what do they do and all that stuff.

In the end, if the day, it is a role that matters because that's what will make you wake up in the morning and come back to the office. You'll spend the majority of your hours in the office, and if you don't like your role, you won't be happy. And the lack of happiness and the stress will carry on to your personal life also. It will affect your health, affect your family life. More money, foreign trips posting is insignificant when it comes to the role which matters. We need to happy and that is why we're in this world for.

Question 6: Which factors did you take into account while making a career decision?

Answer 6: Most of my decisions in my life have been accidental. In fact, when I have planned something that I really wasn't this job, I have not got through, or I have ended up not liking it.

When I joined Zycus, I never thought that I'll stay here for 6 years, I thought I'll stay here for 1-2 years. I kind of liked the role; freedom begins developing this function. I left a good track record over the years.

Question 7: Which careers are most sought after in the market today by employers and why? What is their gestation period?

Answer 7: Obviously, sales, frontline sales, because at the end of the day, business roles are important. People shirk sales roles because of too much pressure, humiliating and all that stuff, which it is not. Sales are actually just convincing someone that, "you need this product and you need it more than competitor's product". That is a kind of consultative approach that you need to take. Just like you will not get through every job or interview you go to, similarly, you will not get all the customers that you approach.

Then comes marketing. Unfortunately, pure marketing roles for freshers out of campus are few. Startups might have such roles.

Question 8: How far is it true that one should start from sales and then move on to marketing?

Answer 8: There's no harm in it and neither is there any harm in going for marketing if you're very sure that you want to go for marketing, then if you get that opportunity, don't change your job for at least 2-3 years. It is also okay if you move from sales to marketing. The problem is that the tech industry which I can talk about, moving from sales to marketing is not very easy. It is easier in consumer industries, so it might be better to start from marketing itself. If someone is very sure that they want to move to the market, they should not spend more than 2 years in sales. Otherwise, you'll be branded as a salesperson, then it'll become more and more difficult.

If someone wants to stay in sales, it is a high growth high-risk career. They are getting the chance to head business units, become subject matter experts. More salespeople become CEO's than marketing persons. In marketing, initially, you might not get brand management. Brand management as a concept doesn't exist in the B2B world. The only brand which exists is the corporate brand. But there are other flavours. Communications manager, research manager, MPR manager, social media manager, digital marketing manager. Otherwise, sports marketing is there. Traditional marketing roles like typical advertisement roles, typical outdoor advertising, communication roles are kind of dying out.