Meet corporate stalwart,VISHAL PAREKH, Marketing Director - India at Kingston Technology who shares his views on the marketing sector that has grown highly competitive in today’s times
In a conversation with Corporate Citizen, Parekh shared his views on various subjects such as his company prospects, his field of work, Gen Y, while also touching upon the course of his personal life.
I have been in the marketing field for almost seventeen years now, after I completed my post-graduation in marketing from Chetana’s Institute of Management and Research (CIMR), Mumbai. I worked in various domains, starting with retail at Pantaloons, then moved on to work with Lintas ad agency. While working with brands such as Surf Excel Matic, I figured out that though you may have the ideas, you are not allowed to propagate them because your dependency on the client. I then moved on to a local company which was into videography and photography software, the only Indian company which developed this kind of software in India, where the challenge was to build up the entire sales and marketing team. I started working for them as a marketing manager for India and gradually the firm grew up to become an international-level marketing firm. As a firm, its network grew all over the globe, having a chain of international distributors. In the next round, I worked with Kingston, thereby making a long journey from retail to photography-videography to gaming and now to commodity and product. I have been for eight years with Kingston now and I guess I am passionate about this brand.
It is getting into a domain where it’s the same thing when you study about the product life cycle. If you don’t have a backup plan, you will end up doing a lot of things because of the pressure. In earlier days it was okay not to grow and be where you are, because there was nobody to catch up with you. But today, the market scenario is different, the world is different.Products have changed from being limited to local brands, to global brands looking at India as the next big market. After China, India has the potential to become the biggest market.
So when you’re looking at that, you’re trying to sustain yourself, you get into the pressure and try to work out all the possible options. But in that, if you forget your core values and strength, things will start to collapse. For us in Kingston, no matter what pressure we had, we did not move away from our core values and never tried doing things beyond our limits.
In India, anybody who consumes data is our target audience. When I say this, probably he or she might not be the buyer but they are definitely my consumer or an influence. For example, a kid going to school in fourth standard, has his projects and if he is using a laptop, he is my consumer. An elevator operator or a security guard at the gate, if they are using phone to listen to music, they are my consumers. While creating benchmarks I’m not sure if you’re aware but Kingston globally owns about 52% of the market share and that’s the kind of market share we have. We are here for last four to five years and its growing. We have come up with a multi-functional product called MLWG2, it is a power bank with a Wi-Fi router, Wi-Fi booster, memory card reader and pen-drive reader.
I would strongly disagree to this. That’s because what you’re talking about is that more or various media vehicles are available to you, but that doesn’t make marketing easier. It makes marketing all the more difficult. If I have to market Kingston, earlier it was very simple: I had limited options of print, hoardings, TV and radio. But now I also have Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Hike, WeChat, and so on. Where I spend my money is the bigger challenge, and would the spending give me better returns, is what every-body in marketing is thinking about. If Facebook had been so easy, you wouldn’t see much happening in the other domains or the other media. Look at the digital world, the banners you have and the e-commerce websites. Look at how Amazon and Snapdeal are trying to get into the marketing space. It seems like they are almost killing each other to acquire customers. The marketing game has grown much bigger and equally more difficult, because we don’t know what will work.When you say it is easier for someone to talk about a brand on social media and create awareness, it is equally risky. One wrong move, earlier you could have managed to control but now it goes viral and in two minutes millions of people know about it. Look at what happened with the recent Volkswagen’s emission crisis—how much time the news took to reach the users in India, when it was still not officially announced. That’s how it is and that’s how tricky marketing is getting and it’s definitely not easy.
When we started, we were a team of three people, now we are about fifteen and maybe another year or so we should be crossing twenty. So far, there is only one office in India. So that’s how the culture of Kingston has been. We don’t really have many offices, we don’t have huge teams and if we look at the numbers, we are about a $6-billion company across the globe, with business presence in more than 120 countries. The revenue generation per employee is quite high.
I suggest that one has to start with working under an experienced mentor, because you as the buyer or seller, not been exposed to the real world. When you are doing something on your own you are taking decisions based on what you have learnt, but you are not exposed to the realities of life. A very simple example—when I studied marketing it was very simple: if you had to launch a brand, you have to get in to segmentation, get into positioning, define your audience, define your market span and launch your product. But now, it’s really not that simple because you really don’t know which media might like it or what is your market. How will you segment the demographics in the country, as every state in India is different from eah other. It is different for every city. Mumbai city’s demographic is different from Pune or Nagpur. Even the behaviour of the consumer is different in these cities. For example, in Mumbai, people don’t really care about money, it is just about getting it done faster. In Delhi or Noida, consumers would spend two or three hours driving to market to save ridiculously small amount of money. If you move to south, they do not care about time or money, what they care about is quality. So in south, you have to give the best-quality product and you can’t afford to give something that is second-grade just to make it cheaper. So, if you don’t know all these facts, you are bound to fail. You don’t get to know all this while you are studying because you don’t get exposed to the practical life. So at least two years you should be working to gain experience, before you plan to manage your own business. I choose to be only in marketing for ten years and then I started doing little bit of sales, a little bit of operations, finance, which is why I have reached a position where I can now manage the whole of India operations. I came to know all of that because I gave that much time to gain experience. But, when you are looking at managing your own business, you need to learn all of it and not just marketing. You expect it can happen within a short period of time and that’s where the things start getting tough. You realise that it can’t be mastered and you need to give time to your brain and mind to specialize in something.
“WHEN YOU SAY IT IS EASIER FOR SOMEONE TO TALK ABOUT A BRAND ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND CREATE AWARENESS, IT IS EQUALLY RISKY. ONE WRONG MOVE, EARLIER YOU COULD HAVE MANAGED TO CONTROL BUT NOW IT GOES VIRAL AND IN TWO MINUTES MILLIONS OF PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT IT”
It was interesting because while in Lintas, I worked with products like Excel Matic and then I worked for Maruti Auto launch. I have worked for Bombay Dyeing and AIG Insurance. So, I have been exposed to numerous industries. I realized that in marketing, though the products change, the basics are the same. The more you try out new things, the more it helps your brain go beyond the obvious. So, it’s not limiting your-self to working with certain products and certain brands. Today, by God’s grace, I can get into any product or any service. I can market a small-time business, like a home-based business, to something like a brand which is planning to come down to India and establish itself in India.
Vishal Parekh, a strong believer in Relationship Management, has successfully developed a complete a distribution network and channel. He has conceptualized and managed roadshows across 300 cities in a calendar year with an objective to educate customer. Currently, he is working as a Marketing Director - India with the world’s number one memory product brand, Kingston Technology, on a profile that covers all the aspects of marketing. Parekh is fast achieving new heights and boasts of building Kingston as a brand in India in the last eight years. He is now taking the brand to a newer and higher level. He has worked as product incharge in the domestic product company and slowly moved into the corporate world. Having more than 17 years of experience in marketing. He was associated with Surf Excel Company, Zapak Digital Entertainment Limited, Reliance ADA Group and now, for more than eight years, he has been working with Kingston Technology.
Parekh’s marketing profile has helped him exploit his potential to the fullest and bag the Best Marketing Campaign Award for the Year 2007 as well as the Best Marketing Concept Award for the Year 2010 and 2011. With the complete repositioning of Kingston in India, the challenges were many and he claims, “I am glad to see the new positioning being accepted by the Indian audience and this has moulded me too with the smart edge.”
He recently delivered a lecture to students of a leading management institute, on the topic ‘Upgrading the product with the time’.
In my marketing strategies, I make an effort not to follow trends blindly. I’d rather set the trends myself
Branding has evolved in the past two decades where it is not just about positioning the product or a brand. A brand used by a person defines his status and personality. The branding and marketing strategy is also a reflection of the company’s culture and vision. There is no singular branding strategy I believe in. However, there is one belief that I stay true to in every situation and that is to create your own path. I have learned to believe in myself and trust my instincts. Sure there will be times when following your instincts might not give you a 100 percent success rate, but these moments will only help you learn and mature in a fast-changing industry.
In my marketing strategies, I make an effort not to follow trends blindly. I’d rather set the trends myself. However, if I had to pick a specific philosophy or ideology, it would be to honour relationships and trust.
In sales, if you can sell the product and services to your closest friends and you can sell it to the world. When we look at the new generation, there is this rush to do a lot of things and in this rush they forget that they cannot do everything at one go. It’s like before running you have to start walking and before walking, you need to start crawling.You just can’t stand up and run. You will fall you will get hurt and more importantly, you are in a company that’s going to damage the company itself. So just have patience. I would not say that don’t get aggressive, aggression is needed but then it has to be a well-channelized and well directed aggression. You can’t be doing things just because you need to do it and you think it is right. You need to expand your horizon and thought process a little bit and see the implications of it and then decide. Especially, for the marketing guys, the easiest way to work is to place yourself as the customer and then think whether the particular strategy or particular route excites you to try out the product and services of the company and if it does not excite you, don’t go with it. Chances are that it won’t excite many people. So as a consumer when you are you are not excited, you can’t really expect other people to be excited about it. For sales, a very clear and easy message is, if you can sell the product and services to your closest friends, you can sell it to anyone in the world.
A very difficult proposition. Even today myself and my batchmates, we feel that today’s generation has a lot of advantage. We felt that if we don’t keep ourselves on the move, we will probably be left out. A challenge that me and my generation were exposed to is the Internet. While we were studying, Internet is something we really need to cope up with. The world we were exposed to was only information in the print form and then there was always the limitation of the institute to have a certain number of books. So whatever you can read is what you are exposed to. Today, even if you don’t read, you’re exposed to multiple brands. I don’t need to tell my son how to switch on a laptop. When we were studying, we had a session on how to operate a mouse—it was that difficult for us. Today I am living in a world where as a marketing head I need to think not just about talking to this generation but I also have to think about what tools I need to use and majority of them are digital. So, we have digital marketing, e-tail and as simple as WhatsApp marketing. These are the things which have changed and I believe if we had not been looking at this into detail, we would have been left out.
I would not say move on or stay with it, as it’s again more about how you interpret things. If you decide to move on, you will have to let go. On things you can’t let go, you have to take a stand. If you think, no, I am okay to let my boss take away the credit all the time, you are always going to be hurt. Are you so strong like a Mahatma that you can let go of things. You can’t because that’s the world you are living in. So, you will have to stick to your point and wait for the right time to talk to your boss or your super boss or the head of the company and tell them that this is what is going on.
I believe in three things—first, try to change the environment you are working in if it is bad. If you can’t change the environment yourself, then adapt to the environment. If the office you are working in still doesn’t suit you, change the company; move on, get into something that relates to you. It is not that every brand or every company would be good for you just because others like it. That is not how it works.
“WE ARE ABOUT A $6-BILLION COMPANY ACROSS THE GLOBE, WITH BUSINESS PRESENCE IN MORE THAN 120 COUNTRIES. THE REVENUE GENERATION PER EMPLOYEE IS QUITE HIGH. SO FAR THERE IS ONLY ONE OFFICE IN INDIA. WE DON’T REALLY HAVE MANY OFFICES, WE DON’T HAVE HUGE TEAM
I live in a joint family with my grandparents and parents and have an eight-year-old child who is reasonably average in studies, just like me. I was never a brilliant student so I never expect something great in studies from my child. My wife teaches in a school and is a Kathak dancer.
I love to play outdoor games with my kid. Once I am home, I switch off my office work completely. When I come back from office my brain just stops working in office mode and I think that’s something that everyone needs to get into. We have successfully managed the Kingston India team to get off work after 6.30 pm in the evening. The office shuts at 6.30 pm. After that until and unless there is a real emergency nobody even calls or messages. We see to it that mails won’t be sent and messages won’t be replied to, after work. We work five days a week. As far as stress is concerned, it’s really difficult because stress is different everyday; I think it’s more personal. At times, just going out for a walk, listening to music, just lying around and doing nothing helps. Most of the time, just spending time with my kid has helped. That’s the time when you really don’t think about anything else.
By Chaitraly Deshmukh
