“Marketing -For, By & To the Employee : An HR Perspective”

Today's Organizations face a number of business challenges. For them to meet these demands, the traditional approach to management would not suffice. Organizations need to streamline themselves in order to understand the needs of customers and differentiate themselves from competitors, based on capabilities that go beyond quality, delivery and services. Gone are the days when customers purchased and used a product and forgot all about it. Today's customers look for experiences. Companies that provide these experiences would evolve as the quintessential leaders. India, growing at a break-neck speed needs more of these organizations.

Some of today's super brands like Starbucks, Google, Yahoo and Amazon have thrived on the 'delivery of experience' model and successfully stayed ahead of competition. Even companies that belong to the so called 'traditional' industries have started demonstrating such capabilities. CEMEX, a cement company, allows its customers to decide price based on value added by the product. The customer pays low prices for company schedules and pays higher prices for on demand deliveries. The additional advantage of such a model is that it enables quick price discovery.

While talking about the delivery of an experience, logical flow would require that the experience be first delivered to and understood by an organization's internal customers (read: employees), who will then transfer the experience to the company's external customers. Indian Organizations like WIPRO have through alumni associations and ex-employee clubs created unusual and frank brand ambassadors for the organization. On a similar note, companies like Google have helped employees create a brand new identity and lifestyle for themselves. In this case, the Organization itself becomes an 'experience' and enthralls its first and foremost
audience, its employee!

Who delivers these experiences?

One thing common to suppliers, vendors and customers is that they all have to use the nerve centre of the organization its employees. Hence, experiences are delivered most effectively by front line employees of the organization. Now it is even more important that such employees understand the paradigm shift from a product and service orientation to an experience based one.

How to deliver these Experiences?

The employees or the 'delivery agents' and the human resource department have a very crucial role in enabling an organization transform itself from a product or service oriented one to an experience oriented one. Organizations face the following challenges while delivering the experiences.

§ Attracting the right talent

Attracting talent could be addressed by creating a corporate brand and thereby building a strong value proposition for potential employees. The second step would be to communicate the created value proposition.

§ Retention of Employees

Retention of employee’s demands that the corporate brand value be imbibed into every employee and thereby creates a pattern of behavior to pursue excellence and quality. The company, having invested heavily on intellectual capital, should view the exit of every employee as a failure on the part of the organization to deliver value promised by the brand.

The distinguished Professor of Marketing at Kellogg, Dr. Philip Kotler has commented on this subject.

In order to attract talent, the company must primarily be clear about its goal, mission, its own personality and what is unique within it. The systems and processes need to be effective enough to identify and map the core values of the company with that of prospective employees. This can be achieved by completely understanding the employee's aspirations and personal values. Adds Mr. Anuj Kumar, AVP HR of CSC, "Values are the guiding principles of our organization. Business interests take a back seat if organizational values are compromised. This has been our USP "

On the need for Marketing Specialists in HR, Dr. Kotler says, “Marketing should be kept in the loop of the HR processes. Alignment between service providers and service receivers is essential. As far as marketing people within the HR department are concerned, I think what we need is marketing thinking and not marketing people as such. So, I'm not ready to say that an internal marketing person is required. However, in the case of large companies which have large recruitments it may be required”. On the marketing for recruitment of employees, he says, “The recruiters generally go to colleges to make presentations and then competitors also go to the same colleges. So in that way a good presentation is required to interest those people. Good posters and good relations with the professors to know who the best students are. HR needs more organized thinking along with marketing.”

Continuing on those lines, he comments on HR & Sales saying that, “The first rule is to deliver on the promises. Second rule is to create an open office, so that concerns and complaints can be evaluated. Evaluation of the boss by the employee and evaluation of the employee by the boss, are both essential. Whistle blowers are not necessarily required in an organization but certain people who remain confidential are needed in order to
provide feedback. This helps you in gauging the happiness index.”

“You need to have both a fast track and a slow track in the organization. The company needs to deliver on the fast track by watching its key people. Do you have a policy to counter offers by competitors? Some employees in the organization leave without even discussing it, others will come to you and say that they are very happy but will also demand 50% hike in salary. You should look into the opportunity cost to the company.”

On the role of a CMO in branding HR, he says, “Absolutely, because in service companies people are a part of product delivery. If they are not living your brand, it will hurt you. The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) would have built the organization as a customer centric one but he needs the human resource department to help make it a culture. People good in technical skills may not take equally good care of the customer. Joint planning of marketing and human resources will be very useful in this case.”

He further adds about the Head of HR becoming CEO, commenting that, “The Head of HR has a chance to be a CEO, if they are also very good in finance and have experience in line functions. They manage hundreds of people in big companies by managing the budgets well. But they do not show profits, that's
the biggest disadvantage with the HR department.”

Finally, he advises on the Do's & Don'ts of managing employee perception by saying that, “The problem has always been one of over promising and under delivery. In the case of under promotion the potential employee may not take the job. In the opposite case, word of mouth may circulate so well that the company might end up creating an impression that it does not deliver on its promises. Some level of agility, honesty, integrity
and trust is required to back up your words and promises. If you say you will give certain help, you better deliver it. If they know that you do not deliver then a correction is required.”


-Praveen Pantula and Amit Bhalla
PGPM Class of 2007

The authors are thankful to Dr Philip Kotler for sharing his experience and thoughts on the subject.

Note : This article was originally published in the Gravity Magazine(Inhouse Magazine of GreatLakes Institute of Management, Chennai, India) in April 2007.