Marketing is the only field in Management that will have a huge scope for career development at any point in time, in India, and most of the developing world, where the scope for new products, new technology and new markets is improving and getting very well established day after day. This happens in India as well, as there is a market for every pocket. 

Be that as it may, it is essential to understand the entire dynamics of marketing in India,and the essential characteristics of Marketing. 

Marketing is the art and science of planning, developing and reaching different products to end customers.  Hence, the process of Marketing also has a very important function: advertising.  Unless a product is advertised and has a clear value to any buyer, he or she will not buy the product.

The product itself may be cheap, a medium sized and priced product or a luxury item.  But for any sales to take place anywhere, the Marketing Manager has to develop a concept around the product and then ensure that the product is advertised for some or certain key attributes.  Even a small mistake in advertising can cause a product to fail, even if the basic product idea is good.

This is why, the Tata Nano, a very good car for Indian roads, which advertised itself as a "poor man;s car", did not find favor with the lower middle classes and the middle middle classes.  What went wrong was the perception that people will stand for hours together to book a car that was cheap and costed just one lakh rupees.

Though the idea was good, the concept was good, the actual perception of the buyers was not.  The car did not sell as much as expected.  The Tata group, which has deep pockets, understood its mistake and start a good re-positioning of the car.  It was advertised as a "family car"and sales started climbing again.

Hence, advertising is a vital part of marketing, and hence those who aspire for a career in marketing, should also take up a short stint in advertising to gather the vital experience.

Similarly, those in the filed will always tell others that a career in marketing does not, as a rule, start with framing marketing strategies.  It always starts with sales.  Hence, an absolute grounding in sales is so essential, and it is worth the effort. 

Without understanding what is going on, without understanding the nature of the market, without understanding consumer behavior, not a single individual will understand anything about marketing.  The street is the only place to understand the real world of business.

This is the reason why the persons who are always taken as Management trainees are sent to the field to understand the dynamics of the market.  

For instance, if a person is working for a television company, it is wise to understand the evolution of the two Korean companies that have now come to dominate the Indian market.  One of them radically reduced prices, improved product quality, and aimed to sweep the bottom of the pyramid market.  That is, the market that buys color televisions on credit, in easy monthly installments.  The dealers happily entered the game, and since there was a huge market waiting to be tapped, that Korean company grew from strength to strength and the competitors had to run for cover.

The other Korean company, positioned itself as a "value for money" brand and eat away the upper end of the market.  In fact, these two case studies can offer many lessons in marketing.  What intelligent positioning can help in marketing success can easily be understood from these two case studies.

Any young man or women wanting to make a grade in marketing, should always be ready to take on new challenges.  Hence, experience in more than two different industries, manufacturing two different types of products becomes very essential.  For instance, it is vital to start off, preferably, with the fast moving consumer goods industry, move on to the electronic goods industry, and then come back to the FMCG industry.  In this fashion, it is easy to gather a huge variety of experiences and then this will help one to go on to framing marketing strategies.

There is always a huge market for any consumer product.  For example, a slightly low priced detergent called "power soap" has a small, but growing, market.  This product is also quite okay with the clothes and does not spoil the clothes, as many low cost detergents do.

The rest, as they say, is history.  Even the mighty Hindustan Unilever is alive to this competition, particularly in the South Indian market.

A career in marketing can be a huge success if one joins organizations such as these.  The pressure of protecting the market share will begin to tell, the strategies will be framed to maintain or grow the retail market and so on.  The challenge of working in such markets is a real thrill, and can help the person to learn a lot about marketing strategies.

Even before taking up a career in marketing, one should observe consumer behavior.  One has to understand what is, for example, unorganized competition. There are a huge number of products that are local products, and are manufactured under some conditions that can even be physically seen by the consumer.  Getting to know how such products sell, can be a great learning.

For example, the potato and banana chips from Kerala, are made of coconut oil, and to attract customers, most of the manufacture is done in the open.  The manufacturers would use only coconut oil and the most customer-oriented of them, would never use the coconut oil, which is already use to fry a certain amount of the product.  

Since the product is freshly made and packaged, there is no branding at all.  The shops have one label, called "hot chips", literally throughout the entire South India.  The customers simply lap it up, and no organized player can match the price, since the marketing cost is zero.  It is word of mouth publicity, and how marketing takes place is a great learning in itself.

So, a career in marketing is not only so good, but also superb for its learning and its down-to-earth lessons.  It is more exiting, because of the lessons learned at every stage.  Advertising is so important, but the unorganized sector, that hardly needs any advertising, will also grow from strength to strength.

The whole world will simply take off, in marketing.  Its importance -- particularly managing the supply chain of both raw materials and the end products -- will grow, with every single day.  It is not without reason that those in marketing, often tend to dominate every single decision in any major organization.

It is essential to understand the career dynamics involved.  Once this is done, one can embark on a successful career.

• Written by ABSIVAKUMAR.
• In category Careers.
• 10 years ago.

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