New Poster Boys of India, Bansals of Flipkart

'If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it' - Ward, Williams

Since the inception of mankind, human being have evolved; right from Stone Age till date (we can also term this age as a Digital Age).Today the world has become more like a cluster of digitally connected networks than anything else.Since Y2K the Computer Age has taken over the world by storm,especially the emerging economies like India.Some individuals and firms have been able to reap most out of it while others have just wondered about how the world around them has changed within the blink of an eye.

Two such individuals envisioned the Digital Age approaching India well in advance, they realised the need to establish a strong E-Commerce platform that can serve as many as 45.3 Million active Internet Users in India (Figures suggested by an IMRB International Survey Report, Sep 2008.Although the figure today is considerably higher than it was in 2008 with almost 164.81 million active internet users by March,2013) 

These two gentlemen were pass-outs from one the most prestigious institute in India, the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.They worked with one of the leading e-commerce company, Amazon and then ventured into the world of e-commerce with a website named 'www.FLIPKART.com' which initially focused only on selling of books.Later they diversified their business by venturing into sales of consumer durables like Electronic goods, Apparel for men & women, Home and Kitchen Appliances etc. and helped the company to become India's most preferred online shopping destination.

Their names are Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (not related by blood though).

Flipkart Online Services Private Limited was formally incorporated in October 2008, the time when most of the countries in the world were suffering from Economic slowdown.'Where others saw risk, they saw opportunity',an opportunity to grow, to expand, to use the potential of an emerging economy, to empower hundreds and thousands with a robust e-commerce platform to shop.

There is an old saying that 'The road to Success never runs Straight', this holds true in the case of Flipkart as well,remember this was the era when so called Mall Culture peaked in the minds of Indian consumers.Yes India was an emerging economy, yes there was a sharp increase in the number of Internet users across the country, yes the owners were IITians (assumed to be the sharpest of the whole lot) and had a past experience of working in a company with more or less similar Business Model but what they didn't have was adequate funds to purchase inventory and run their business without many financial hurdle.There was a stiff challenge to convert this huge number of active internet users into customers(may be not all but most of them), to make an Indian customer imbibe the online shopping model, to replace the Brick and Mortar structure with Click and Order and most importantly to make the customer believe in online purchase. 

All these problems were addressed one after the other.Accel India and Tiger Global - the venture capitalist firms invested heavily in Flipkart in its early years and ensured financial stability. Now with finances in place the next task was to make the people of India believe that online purchases can be trusted.Due to the absence of the actual physical appearance of the product before purchase, the customers are highly sceptical about the products moreover the payment of their purchase was another big question mark for the customers as till date, there are a considerable number of credit and debit card users who refrain from using their details for an online purchase.These problems were resolved by bringing about the Cash On Delivery model.Though this kind of mode of payment had its own challenges, Flipkart somehow has been able to find their way through it by innovating their business.

Now comes yet another important aspect of Flipkart's success,their Marketing Mix.The Virtual to Real connect that Flipkart was able to establish was noteworthy.The advertisements and the promotional activities of Flipkart not only amused the customers but they also conveyed the relevant messages with tag lines and phrases like 'Shopping ka naya address' (which in english translates to,'The new address of your shopping Destination').These advertisements and promotions helped Flipkart to establish trust amongst its existing and potential audiences. Flipkart have also ensured that their prices remain as low as possible in comparison to most of their competitors across various segments so as to attract more number of customers.Also, being a website it is available to all individuals 24x7, thus ensuring maximum possible reach and availability.

With timely and strategically important acquisitions Flipkart continued to expand its business in best possible manner.With acquisition of Letsbuy.com in 2012 Flipkart also established strong roots in the Electronic Goods section.

Today Flipkart is a giant in Indian e-commerce industry with sales of over  1 Billion U.S Dollars.But back in 2007-2008 it was only an idea, a thought, a vision foreseen by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal. The rise and glory of Flipkart teaches numerous lessons of management and life.The Bansals of Flipkart have now become role models for hundreds of budding Entrepreneurs with their success story and with Economic Times (a popular Business Daily) bestowing Sachin Bansal as 'The Entrepreneur of the Year', 2012-13 has set the bench mark  for all the aspiring entrepreneurs.

References:
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/internet/india-is-now-worlds-third-largest-internet-user-after-us-china/article5053115.ece

http://www.imrbint.com/old/media/45..pdf

http://www.iamwire.com/2011/07/sachin-bansal-flipkart-ceo-interview/
http://m.economictimes.com/news/news-by-industry/services/retail/flipkart-hits-1-billion-in-sales-a-year-ahead-of-schedule/articleshow/31549992.cms

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-09-26/news/42426999_1_business-model-tiger-global-accel-partners

Paradigm Shift in the World of Marketing to Digital

The saying that change is the only constant holds true in all aspects of life. It is evident from the past that he who fails to respond to change, also fails to make it big. Consider doctors for example, the diseases that they have to treat are not always the ones they learnt about, in med school. If they fail to upgrade their knowledge and skills with time, they would find themselves catching flies in their own dispensaries (provided they can afford any!)

The corporate sector is no exception to this inevitable phenomenon.The organisations that have lasted for long are the ones who changed their approach with time. Post World War II and the Industrial Revolution, our society has changed remarkably. The companies which were product or production oriented shifted their focus on marketing orientation and are now trying to understand and respond to the needs of their customers better than ever.

With organizations showing keen interest in the

marketing approach to increase their profit margins, the role of a robust marketing strategy and planning has become paramount. The marketer’s approach to lure his/her target audience has changed. The world is going digital and so is the potential customer. Gone are those days when the prime time slot 'allocated' or in other words 'earned by you' for advertising your product defined your reach to the audience. With the advent of smart phones and tablet computers, complimented by Wi-Fi and easy access to a data connection, the potential customer can be reached anywhere, any time.

The reach of digital media has crossed the confines of geographical, cultural and social boundaries. The Apparel and FMCG industries are thriving on their digital marketing campaigns to garner more customers than by any other stereotype method of print advertising. A research shows that over 93% of the marketers now prefer digital media for their business growth (ref. www.jessicadraws.com). A recent survey done by StrongView indicates that  9 out of 10 'Business Leaders' from a mix of B2B and B2C in the North American continent have planned to increase their digital marketing budgets by alarming numbers. A statistical report below depicts the percentage increase in budget by these companies in various marketing medium.

Now even politicians have harnessed the digital marketing platform to gain their political grounds, increase their popularity and build an image by roping in the advertisement and image building agencies. Barak Obama (President, The US) being the trend setter and Narendra Modi (CM, State of Guj,India) being the torch bearer of such marketing strategies are fine examples (I also consider them to be the best marketed products during their respective election campaigns).

All said and done the question that still haunts me is, for how long will this new gimmick of Digital Marketing sustain? Is it here to stay or is it just like any other passing fad? Well undoubtedly these changing trends in the marketing and promotional strategies of various organizations across the globe are a result of changing consumer behaviour. Being a marketing student I’m curious to know how far this Paradigm Shift can go. Not to forget that these newly discovered strategies firmly challenge the ‘Kotlers’ and ‘Poters‘ of the marketing world (who have ruled it for ages) on certain grounds and have still sustained for fairly good time now and continue to do so. Time has come for the world to look beyond the 4 Ps of conventional marketing and learn the 4 Cs of digital marketing so as to stay upbeat with the pace of this changing world.

'What Next?' is now an interesting question. As I quoted in the beginning, change is inevitable and we as marketers will have to keep this in our minds at all times.

My First Blog

For years I have been wondering, what these blogs are all about? What do they contain? What is all this buzz about the blogs for several years now? What is it that Big B writes in his blogs that creates such a sensation on the media front? Why is it recommended to read blogs of eminent writers,thinkers and personalities? What value does it add to an individual? Aren't they supposed to be a forum for expressing thoughts and nothing beyond that? If yes, then there are so many other social media portals as well that do the same job, then why is it that in spite of so many years the blogs and bloggers are still acknowledged and given importance in certain section of social and corporate society? With a series of questions in my mind I decided to sign in with Blogger.com considering, may be this will be of some help to know what bloggers write.

Initially I was clueless about what is to be done next after signing in, all that i could really see is ' create your new blog ' so after pondering upon the various tabs on this website for sometime and not really finding any material worth reading I decided to write my first blog. Interestingly to my surprise I find out that even as I am writing this blog on the Blogger.com somehow the word BLOG in itself is not being identified as a correct English word  in their inbuilt dictionary and on the similar lines words like Bloggers, Blogs are also being highlighted by the red curvy underlines..!! This triggered a doubt in my mind that whether or not the word BLOG in itself a correct English word which otherwise is present in most of the English Dictionaries only to find it is a truncation of words Web Log ;)

As part of a learning exercise to know 'How to write a blog' and being an amateur blogger myself I simply chose to restrict to 500 words. Only reason being that you never really know if you yourself would be willing to read it again if it is beyond 500 words, possibly one of the primary reasons that until grade 10 we often were asked to write an essay in less than 500 words, because even the professor might loose his/her interest beyond a certain threshold limit of reading crazy stuff written on the answer sheets of students ;)

To surprise of the readers (I doubt if there would be any) I conclude my first blog (although I haven't really written anything worthy to be read), with an aspiration to write more and try and deliver a better quality and content in my blogs to come by sharing experiences of my life, my opinion on Sports, Films, Music, Politics, Society etc.

God Bless.