PBTO2: Changing Role of Marketing and The Importance of Building a Personal Brand

http://traffic.libsyn.com/pushingbeyondtheobvious/02_PBTO2__Changing_Role_of_Marketing_and_the_Importance_of_Building_a_Personal_Brand_with_Sunder_Madakshira.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Email | RSSThis is episode No 2 of “Pushing Beyond the Obvious”. Today, we host Sunder Madakshira, who heads marketing & communications at SAP in India. He was recognized as “The Marketing Thought Leader” by Stars of the Industry Awards, constituted by the ABP group in Feb 2014. We had a very interesting conversation about the role that marketing can and should play, both internally and externally. He also shares a lot of interesting insights about the importance of building a personal brand; some do’s and don’ts about how you go about building […]

PBTO1: Launching “Pushing Beyond the Obvious” Podcast

http://traffic.libsyn.com/pushingbeyondtheobvious/01_PBTO1__Introducing__Pushing_Beyond_The_Obvious__Podcast.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Email | RSSI had earlier announced that I will launch my podcast shortly. Today, is the day when I would like announce the launch of “Pushing Beyond the Obvious” podcast. This is the first episode of the podcast. In this episode, I talk about what this podcast is about and whom is it relevant for. This podcast is relevant to you if: You are an entrepreneur or a CEO You are a manager responsible for sales, marketing, innovation or strategy function in your organization. The podcast provide you insights and strategies on how […]

Lessons in Designing Strategy from Planning a Road Trip

Yesterday, one of my friend approached me seeking help in planning a road trip across my home state (Rajasthan, which shares a border with Pakistan). So, we did what everyone in such a situation does. We researched all the cities and listed down a long list of places of interest in the state; we researched about the weather during his visit; options for stay; possible routes; places to eat, etc. We then wanted to decide on all the options and found out that the entire exercise was overwhelming to say the least. There were just so many decisions that needed […]

Guest Post: How Amazon Wins: Low Prices Don’t Require Bad Customer Experiences

In 2005 CustomerThink gave Amazon.com a customer-centric leadership award. In an acceptance letter, Craig Berman, Amazon’s director of platform and technology communications, said: It is simply in our DNA to approach our business by starting with the customer and working backward, and for the past ten years we have stayed laser-focused on this core principle. In the following years, Amazon.com has shown that customer-centricity is more than a slogan. The company keeps innovating to serve existing customers by expanding what it sells and how consumers access its content (e.g., Kindle). But it has also been a pioneer into new markets […]

Networking in a Networked Economy

It is a no brainer that the ability to create and nurture a good network is critical to succeed in a networked economy and this is one area where we all can continue to improve irrespective of how good we are. It was a Sunday morning when i was alone and in a self-reflection mood. I was thinking about what i have done to cultivate my network in the past few years and was unpleasantly surprised that i have not done anything to nurture my network at all in the past 3-4 years. “What have YOU done to nurture your […]