As the US economy slows down, Indian companies face diminishing workload and lowering margins. Seeing certain withdrawal symptoms, rupee & stock market furiously fluctuating, it might be time for us to make the most of it by channelizing marketing in the right direction. I wish I could have said that this is not a time for worry; but I would further add that it’s a time for some strategizing.
As the US market slackens, Indian firms fear a danger; no matter what sector we are talking about. Of suffering lesser work, lesser profits and even the fear is sinking of having work taken away from them. However even the fact that we are going through turbulent times panic wouldn’t help us, rather we need to prepare ourselves well for what is to come. Organizations that had worked or are currently working to shape their marketing strategy for the downturn will emerge stronger when economic growth returns.
That is the trick. To make the most of what marketing costs offer you in a slump. As the economy slows down, this is the time you can leverage yourself to the utmost by investing in your image. If you present your strengths at the time of a slowdown, it puts you at an edge around your client. If you show results and enthusiasm at a time when all is not well, you are bound to reap benefits in the long run.
Instead of worrying over the US economic slowdown, it is a time of cost saving for most Indian companies. However pure cost saving would not lead you nowhere; hence we need to systematically think about rerouting our marketing dollar to get closer to our customer(s). That is the only way you can recover from loosing profit margins. When you concentrate on confidence building with clients at this point, you are bound to make a stronger statement that will stay with them much after the slowdown has recovered. You can focus on some image building, find newer clients during the slump, and who knows, you might win a whole new set of friends. This is the time where we need to dive deeper into our existing clients building stronger and longer ties.
It is up to the Indian industry to make the most of the situation now. If everyone’s cutting costs in the US, which is where most of India’s business comes from (it is Indian software industry's largest market with a whooping 61 per cent share), there are all the more chances that more varied work will flow into countries like India. However it does gives us the opportunity to explore opportunities of doing more central software or knowledge development instead of cloning processes that have simply been passed on by our Western counterparts.
So far we are primarily providing back-office services. There are little chances of doing premium work like coding and engineering management. So this might be a good time for Indian techies to learn the intricacies of the technology market as it works across the globe. This again requires us to undertake serious marketing so we are able to garner more work out of currently confused companies abroad that are not sure how they want to go about maneuvering the economic recession.
The flipside, once again to India’s advantage, is that companies don’t cut down on processes that are mandatory to day-to-day processes. They may instead cut down on more nonobligatory jobs like consulting. This gives an advantage to Indian companies that undertake tasks indispensable to routine needs of an organization. In an interview HCL chairman Shiv Nadar said, “Our work is the core of the client's business processes.” He says the company primarily focuses on technology services, which don’t impact their business in such a slowdown.
Innovation. That is another key to successfully rise out of the slowdown. Invest smart, get business that will impact you lesser and provide unique services at a good cost to new clients and old. This will boost your business now to propel outsourced work later. Indian technology firms can also look at exploring newer markets where they have not reached so far. With low costs, extended services and newer offerings, they can lure clients.
Technology for India is an area of excellence and it is time for us to invest and use global best practices for India’s benefit. If we provide the right services at agreeable terms, invest into the image building and infrastructure for the industry, we are likely to benefit in the long term.
Another Important aspect of the India IT is to create or develop or acquire the “Intellectual Property”. Any downturn or upturn we need to build and/or revise the IP as per the changing dynamism and a look into the future. According to Dale Wolf (http://www.perfectcem.com/) creating Intellectual property is a universal truth, whether a country is in a recessionary or in a growth mode ... that it is our intellectual property that enables us to better satisfied customers. An “IP” is what a company can differentiate itself from its friends known as Competition. The ability to create uniqueness in one’s process, delivery, implementation, etc. can provide the competitive advantage that is require to tied over any downturn(s). McDonald’s targeted service time for a burger is 7 minutes delivery, no matter which part of the globe you are.
Social Media is another innovative way to market your product & service. Worldwide, social media phenomena are catching at a fast pace than expected. No matter if you are college going student or a vice president of the company you are hooked into some or the other social networking sites. So can I safely say that you target audience is out on the social web, though the key attribute for you would be to identify these social media subsets where your prospects or target audience are networking. The phenomena and its strength is great however like every place or post I write about social media, I always like to provide a word of caution. It is not cheap and can easily derail your brand image if not done in a correct or effective manner. Simple tools like Twitter to listen about your product or organization to interacting with your target audience over Linkedin, or through blogging; the power of Social Media is enormous.
When in peace prepare for war. And that is what we ought to do. Utilize the time to strategize the marketing efforts/resources for reaping benefits in medium to long term.
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