Marketing National Seminar at I.T.S – Institute of Management

I.T.S – Institute of Management, Greater Noida has successfully organized a National Seminar in the area of Marketing Management on the theme “Redefine, Reimagine, Reinvent: Roadmap for New Age Marketing” on 14th and 15th December 2013. At I.T.S – Institute of Management, these seminars are the integral part of a continuous industry and academic interface. The Chief Guest in the inaugural session was Mr. Shailendra Kumar, Executive Director of School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL). The Key Note Speaker in the inaugural session was Mr. Surjya Meher, Business Head, Mawana Foods Pvt.Ltd. The Seminar was attended by the Delegates from Industry and Academia, Faculty Members and PGDM students of I.T.S – Institute of Management and students from surrounding colleges.

The seminar started with the inaugural session with the introduction of the theme “Redefine, Reimagine, Reinvent: Roadmap for New Age Marketing”. The following sub themes of the seminar were introduced by Prof. Farhat Mohsin, the Convener of the Seminar:

Mobile and SMS marketing
Internet Marketing
Viral Marketing
Green Marketing
Innovative Marketing Communications
Managing Value based Marketing
Consumer Psychology
Space and Media Marketing
Digital and Social Marketing
Assessing Marketing Performance
B-to-B and Industrial Marketing
Product and Corporate Branding
Brand Development and Brand Equity
Sports Marketing and Sponsorships
Developing inclusive Customer Relationships
Marketing in Small and Medium Enterprises
Social Marketing, Relationships, Networks and Community

Prof. Shekhar Ghose, Director General, I.T.S – Institute of Management, gave the welcome speech and thanked the Chief Guest and the Key Note Speaker for sparing their valuable time for the cause of the Seminar. He also put in front of the audience, the need to redefining and managing the customer better. He mentioned the need for leveraging new age technology for improved marketing effort. He emphasized on the need for strategic Re-integration of the departments in a business organization and aligning everything with customer’s interest and satisfaction. He mentioned that the customer has information on fingertips and that the customer thinks from his brain, not heart.

Mr. S. Sood, Chief Administrator, I.T.S The Education Group in his address mentioned that there is a paradigm shift in the ways Marketing is happening these days and it is evolving very fast. He said that it is therefore important to organize a National Seminar in the area of Marketing to learn from the hands-on experience of those who are witnessing these changes. He thanked the Chief Guest and the Key Note Speaker.

The Chief Guest Shri Shailendra Kumar said that in the area of marketing, “integrity, market knowledge, and marketing spirit” are very important. He mentioned that “innovation, involvement, focus and value creation for customers” in the key to success. Also, he focused on the need for marketers to be careful about their commitment to customers, communications to customers, expectations of the customers and actual value delivery.

The Key Note Speaker Shri. Surjya Meher, in his keynote address said that continuous change is a must in marketing. He shared his experience of revival of Eveready Batteries and Sapat Chai and how these brands have multiplied their profits due the changed positioning in the minds of customers. He also focused on using innovative ways and leveraging interne and social networks for new age marketing.

The “proceedings of the seminar” in the form of an e-book with a collection of 29 selected research papers was formally released by the Chief Guest Mr. Shailendra Kumar. These research papers were presented in the Paper Presentation Competition running parallel to the technical session and panel discussion.

Inaugural Session ended with a vote of thanks by the Prof. (Dr.) S. P. Singh, Director, I.T.S – Institute of Management. The seminar had the presence and blessings of the Chairman of I.T.S – The Education Group Dr. R. P. Chadha; Vice Chairman of I.T.S – The Education Group Shri Arpit Chadha; Secretary of I.T.S – The Education Group, Shri Bhushan Arora and Chief Administrator of I.T.S – The Education Group, Shri Surendra Sood.

The 1st Technical Session had the theme “Unlocking the power of New Age Marketing tools” and it was chaired by Dr. Arvind Shukla, Professor, BIMTECH Greater Noida. He set the ball rolling by mentioning that rethinking, reinventing, and reimagining is the need of the hour for gaining customers and best thing is to connect on the e-platform with the help of new age tools like Facebook, MySpace, Orkut etc.

Dr. Arvind Shukla invited the first speaker of the technical session Mr. Vinod Kumar Goyel,
Head, Brand Management & Corporate Communications, Jaiprakash Associates Ltd. In his introspection of the theme, he mentioned that the contemporary marketing is too much cluttered and there is a great need for positioning the offering very differently against the competitors. For the same, various innovative ways of marketing have to be devised.

The 2nd speaker of the session was Dr N.H.Mullick, Professor, IIMT, Oxford Brookers University and he said that the new age accessibility and empowerment to the customers has made life tough for the marketers and they have to be vigilant enough to decipher hidden motifs and needs of their customers.

The second session was a freewheeling Panel Discussion with the theme “Understanding the shift from Traditional Campaigns to Real-Time Marketing”. Dr. Pinaki Das Gupta, Professor, IIFT, New Delhi, was the moderator of the session. The other members were
• Mr. Abhinav Sood, Director, Communications Inc.
• Mr. Amit Goyal, Training Director, TKWS Institute of Banking Finance.
• Mr. R. Nayak, Head HRD, Anmol Bakers Pvt Ltd. Noida

Dr. Pinaki Das Gupta said that there is a lot of overlap in media and entertainment due to the proliferation of Twitter and other real-time feeds which adds on to the woes and difficulties of customers. The information passes by us at a rate faster than our comprehension. Thus, engaging customers has become much more difficult for the marketers.

Mr. Abhinav Sood mentioned that the TV broadcasters are boosting audience anticipation by integrating real time social content into TV graphics and also how new network mediums are filtering the content on the basis of differences in customers segments. This is helping the marketers to reach their customers with pin point accuracy.

Mr. Amit Goyal asserted that marketers these days think out of the box in order to understand unchartered territories in the minds of customers and he also focused on the importance of neural marketing. He said that if the product is not differentiated, then it is imperative to have differentiation in other Ps of marketing so that the offering stands out.

Mr. R. Nayak said that acquiring fans, building community and two way communication & dialogue on social media channels give a great platform to the marketers to get and understand the feedback from the customers and various stakeholders.

Dr. Pinaki Das Gupta summed up the session by saying that the world of marketing is evolving at a faster rate than ever before. The marketers that are able to adjust and adapt to the great changing environment by adding value to the customers and stakeholders better than the competitors, are going to survive and such organizations will sustain themselves.

There was also a Research Paper Competition organized on the theme of Seminar in a parallel track with the Technical Session and Panel Discussion where authors from academia and industry participated and presented their papers. The two judges were Dr. Sanjay Rastogi and Dr. Saroj Das.

The papers were presented on various subthemes of the seminar. The session ended with the vote of thanks by Prof. Sunita Kaul.