Management- The word says it all. What I perceive beyond all the intricate definitions given by some management scientists is that Management in normal laymen language means to manage. Manage anything in a manner that there is no chaos and certain value in terms of satisfaction is generated. We all come across various instances in our daily lives. Weather its dealing with our parents, lying at the time of late night outs. Managing our super complex love life maybe by showing it up on facebook, going out on dates, pampering and can either be by giving the space to our partner. And imagine its you who is playing all these different roles taking different steps with different people just to make them happy and balance your life. That’s so creative. On the contrary, we see some of us who cannot convince our parents, break ups is a regular thing for them and not that socially sound in making friends even when they want to. It is nothing it’s our creativity quotient which is very individualistic and shows up in our regular life.
In the same manner, being a Management Professional is nothing its just an appropriate mixture of being creative and commercial sound. Every spender from various society strata has a budget to spend which is called his/her purchasing power. Even if you take up your own venture or join any company, your life will revolve around the client’s budget and spending pattern. It is very important for one to know about the clients spending pattern so as you can make your own strategies that when do you expect monies to flow in to your systems and from where. Till the time you do not have these things in place, the working strategies are chaotic. For an example, we know that a brand of beer would spend on advertising in summers. So a Tv channel would plan meetings with the clients, Media agencies of such beer brands in late winters and make sure they get some business. After the channel gets the surety that the beer brand is surely spending some monies with them, they will then project it in the projections for the summers. This is called commercial planning and being commercially sound. In case the channel gets to know at the end moment that the client is spending and starts running to meet the client at the end moment, that shows that the strategic planning has not been done and the client is not tapped by the concerned person, that means that the planning is not commercially sound.
As we spoke before about the differing creativity quotient, today earning money has two main roots. As the spending pattern change every other day alike past, to have a great brand loyality one has to be creative. Creativity is an open term but in actual it is always bordered by ones budget. Right from a Brand Manager to sales Manager, HR, and all the possible profiles the world is all about being creative in what you do. Lets carry forward the last example we talked about, post when we know that the client has a budget to spend on the TV channel and ask the channel to provide him the best deal in an average amount say XXX and also adds that the client will only spend if he finds the deal better than the competing channel deal. Now it’s the sheer creativity which can get monies, the sales person needs to figure out how is the channel delivering in the clients target audience and which time bands and shows are doing well. The sales person also needs to check with the production team that if there are any restrictions on airing the alcohol brand. Beyond this the sales person needs to figure out the taste of the decision maker like if he is the consumer of the channel? What is his favorite show? If he likes glamour, if we can send him at the shoot or any award function in case he takes the deal. Before being creative we need to have our strategic plans in place else it is like rolling behind the bush. Now when we make the deal for the client against the ratings in the clients Target audience we will see which show is the best as per the clients ratings and will give him the Fixed commercial time as per the client’s liking and the ratings. Beyond this, if in this budget we can offer him a sponsorship on certain show and decrease the Commercial time on the other shows. So it is all about once creativity in getting the monies. We see amazing tag lines and continuously changing visual merchandising at the clothing brands like Zara, Forever 21, M&S and lot more for the fact that brand managers are taking creative strategic call for increasing the footfalls and the revenues. We see the Human Resource Managers managing the employees so effectively and continuously moving the employees in various departments to make sure they retain the valuable sources is all creativity.
Every move that a brand takes that we find creative and extra ordinary amazing, right from the coca-cola’s India Pakistan campaign, Swedesh Cancer patient Campaign, OLX on-ground campaign, dabur vatika’s cancer Patient Campaign(don’t know them all? Youtube it or follow my facebook) has various levels of strategic positioning decisions and creative brain storming of the advertising agencies and the brand managers involved. I remember while my internship with Ogilvy and Mather, my Manager told me that first 20 ideas are always done before and non acceptable, dump them! And this is actually true the more we challenge our selves, the more we dump, the more we read, the more we read and find the more our brain works. So to be creative get your commercial strategic planning in place, read about what’s happening around about the industry you plan to get in to and have your personal view point on everything. Yes please disagree with lot of things because that we will evoke you to do something of your own. Be the one in making PPT’s while presentations , collect data. Change things, colors, fonts, hairstyle, clothes. Life is too short to live it boring, stay creative!
Contributed by Rahul Wadhwa, (Class of 2013, IBS GURGAON)