Markz 2010, the first edition of IFMR's national marketing summit was a huge success. The event, held on November 27th, 2010, surpassed expectations and boasted of more than 40 Corporate attendees at the day long summit held at Hotel Chola Sheraton.
The first edition of MarkZ focused on the theme: “FLUX— Aligning marketing strategies with changing trends”.
The event witnessed participation of stalwarts from all the fields of marketing, be it market research adverstising branding, sales, operations etc .The chief guest, Mr. Samardeep Subandh (GM – Hindustan Unilever, South Zone), in his address, talked about the importance of keeping the core values intact while going for a change according to market requirements sighting examples from his experiences of working with Close Up. The guest of honor Mr. Himanshu Chakrawarti (COO – Landmark) also talked in depth about how the means of exploiting opportunities have changed with the time and how certain industries like Music, books, home video industries have suffered for not adapting to the change.
The second section of the summit was dedicated to speaker series. The first one was addressed by Mr. Kiruba Shankar (CEO – Business Blogging) who discussed the importance of social networking in both building and managing a brand. He cited one of his own experiences with Clear-Trip among others,
The second section of the summit was dedicated to speaker series. The first one was addressed by Mr. Kiruba Shankar (CEO – Business Blogging) who discussed the importance of social networking in both building and managing a brand. He cited one of his own experiences with Clear-Trip among others,
wherein he cited how fast any information about a company could reach to public by the power of internet. He also advised the students to start working on establishing themselves as a brand ,which can help them differentiate from the competitors and can be an effective marketing platform to help their career grow by leaps & bounds. In the second session Mr. Panneerselvam (Business Head (South) – CSMM, IMRB) gave his inputs on the subject of “Marketing Insights”, in which he advocated the need to Explore, Immerse, Think and Seek Solutions as the basic building blocks of the process to acquire a proper insight to the market being targeted. Mr. Prakash Dharmarajan (Trainer & Thinker, Ex-President, Ogilvy and Mather Chennai) addressed the issue of “Brand Loyalty in times of Flux” by a superb analogy of the most effective and successful brand of India, Megastar Rajnikant. He successfully proved that the Brand Rajnikant, in spite of being in existence for more than 3 decades, connects with the audience due to the virtues of being true to the promise, creating and maintaining an original style, never resisting mimicry since it ultimately markets you even better and keeping a surprise element to ensure that the customers get more than what they expect!
The Summit was not only focused on the issues related to Marketing, but also tried to answer the burning question of the value addition expected from MBAs and the quality actually delivered by them, in a Panel Discussion which included eminent personalities like Mr. Shashikant Jayaraman (Zonal HR Manager, South India – Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance), Mr.Krishnakumar Raman (GM, Sales and Marketing – Ucal Fuels System), Mr.Sarith Nair (A.G.M - I.M.S learning Resources Pvt. Ltd.), Prof. Sathyanarayanan R. (Deputy Director - Hindustan University), Mr. B. Prabhakaran (Brand Manager, Vision Express) and was moderated by Mr. Ashmit of NDTV Hindu. The discussion brought out many important aspects of the problems like the need for the students to concentrate on developing effective communication skills, adapting to the expectations of the industry, being ready to put in lots and lots of efforts and need to change the attitude towards being on the top of the organization right from the beginning. They also agreed that the industry was equally responsible in building the attitude. They also suggested to the academic fraternity to orient more towards practical teaching and case-study based approach where the cases pertaining to current scenarios are discussed in depth with students. The main takeaway of the very interesting and informative discussion was the advice to the students hoping to succeed in today’s cut-throat competition was to see the larger picture, be flexible,be adaptable and try to figure out what their inclination and channelize their energies in attaining proficiency in that field and view MBA as the first step towards success and not as the master-key for it.See it as means to the end and not the end itself.
Team Markz thanks all the stakeholders for making this event a huge success.
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