Is customer the king?

To continue .....


Looking at the current Indian marketing scenario, I have a feeling that we are moving back in time. Kotler says that in the evolution of marketing ,before the marketing concept became popular, there is a selling concept which states that "customers and businesses, if left alone will ordinarily not buy enough of the organizations products. The organisation must therefore undertake an aggressive selling and promotion effort" ( Kotler Philip, Marketing Management, Pearson Education2003).

In this present scenario, it is true that companies will survive only if there is a super efficient sales force. The reasons are that increasingly every products are being commoditized and there is an increase in the power of retails, information explosion that has given the consumer an unusual power. This has ensured that without an efficient salesforece companies cannot survive.

But is it now an overkill?

Even when companies focus on sales effort, concept like segmentation shouldnot be overlooked. For example, there has been lot of effort on increasing credit card usage in India. Credit card now comes free for life and sales people are just selling creditcards like chocolates .
Is it not wise to look at whether the consumer wants a credit card. Does he like to use one ?
Does he have the ability to pay back?

Recently a news channel showed a mutual fund agent giving discounts to a client from his brokerage. what does that mean?

It simply means that we are not practicing marketing. we are just selling....