Rajesh Tripathi

Brands, in general, contour functional ‘superiority over each other. This functional superiority has short life cycle as everyone is trying for incremental changes in their products and therefore in brand displays. As a matter of fact, shorter life cycle gives rise to tremendous pressure to succeed and complete every stage of life cycle- birth, growth, decline and death. Eventually, even before the stage of birth is complete, people start giving booster doses for growth. Booster doses do not give time to a product or brand thereon, to stand on its feet and therefore, collapses due to not able to give economic benefits leading to withdrawal of support in the form of budget for advertising further. We here can make inferences that is it the failure of brand to establish itself in the market or wrong strategy and conceptual interpretations that lead to death of a brand. Iconic branding is the panacea for it. Iconic branding is based on cultural expression which are out worldly depic...

While deliberating on Brand creation strategy & process, a group of people innocuously asked the question, is Brand creation an art or science and more importantly, Iconic Brand creation? Still a student of Brand Creation and Marketing, it was not easy for me to deal with it by crass talking & giving an upbeat answer but a moment to think and ponder upon. My interest in other subjects however, could give me some insight. Systematic adoption of changes is what science teaches us, art on the other hand recognises that change need to be soothing. Brand Creation is a science, deeply immersed in artistic expression of facts about society. Let’s look at what goes in brand creation.  Brands are primarily created based on certain features of a product with rhetoric communication so that there is an influence on the purchasing decision of the customers. These are very sequential in nature. However, success coming out of these sequential activities do lose their intended re...

By definition, a brand is a timeless, abstract entity; thereby anything which is short lived, time based cannot be recognised as a brand in real sense. Brand Identity, however specifies a product markers, having reputation, benefit or value attached to it and this brand identity helps marketers to achieve short term success for their organisations. This at the same time, helps managers to control and coordinate easily the abstractions attached to a brand. It means cognitively one can conceive abstractions and manage it within the boundary of an organisation and even outside. This branding having Cognition at its base characterises Cognition Branding Model. Cognition Branding Model has its birth somewhere in 1950s, the era which is known for emphasising Unique Selling Proposition - USP - i.e. each product must communicate to its potential consumers a simple but distinctive benefits. The idea of USP got a shot in arm in 1970s when “Positioning” became the dear word across corporate...

About brands, a question generally been asked – is brand a means to convey a message to consumers about a product or it is a route to reaching customers via depicting socio-eco-cultural state of the society? May both be true to some, but it is the second more to me . Thoughtful scrutiny of brands clearly shows that Iconic brands have their origin in a state of the society. As Brand strategists say, Markers of a brand – Name, Logo and Design do not only depict product features but the then socio-eco-cultural transition, a society may be undergoing. To support it, look back in 1970s when the US was under economic and political meltdown along with increasing independence of women, beer manufacturer - Budweiser made use of it in its all advertisements. Budweiser, interestingly targeted acute tension between the revived American ideals of manhood and the economic realities that made these ideals nearly unattainable for many men. In India, 1970s and 80s, saw movies portraying anger thr...

Not able to understand one’s business nature and appropriate strategy is what I see a major reason of companies not able to get a place for themselves in the market.  Companies float between various approaches of strategy without realising what actually they need for success. The situation becomes more cumbersome for a conglomerate, comprised of various businesses, having need of specific strategy approaches for each business. Of late, you pick up any article on business strategy or talk to Business Heads, you will find mostly talking about how to ensure SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE  ADVANTAGE  for their respective business, without understanding that it may not be possible for them to achieve it as their individual businesses are in different phases of evolution & market placement. Nature of a business and phase they are in, differentiates the need of having a specific approach to succeed, eventually. Through this blog, I would like to stress upon the need ...

My interview, published in Recruite, Times Job in its Half Yearly Publication , Feb-2016

I have read innumerable articles on strategy and companies following a ‘definite’ strategy which has made these company ‘run their businesses successfully’ for a long period of time. No, doubt systematic analysis of environments around, marketing capabilities may be some of the factors which have made these companies tuck into the business world. But, simultaneously a question raises its head,  are these factors only really responsible for success, various organisations, if not all, tasting today? Let’s together, peep into the business world. On close look at various businesses and their success stories based on ‘certain strategy’ being followed by them, reveals that truth is far from the fact. It seems that most of the time, it is due to a product simply as there is no other comparable product in the market that makes a company run its business ‘successfully’ to a point and not because of having an appropriate strategy. Regarding strategy, most of the people do not even know...

The article appeared in the Human Capital, December-2015 issue

Dear Globe Readers, I sincerely thank each one of you from various countries for liking my blogs and giving regularly valuable inputs.These inputs really matters a lot to me as they not only refine my own thoughts on subjects I cover in my blogs but also in conducting further possible studies. May one-day these inputs converge into a world changing Business Model. Because of your reading & liking, I could achieve my first milestone of more than 5000 page views in a very short span of time. More importantly, comments and views, I received. I will keep putting across my views on various Business subjects and hope getting your comments and views as before. Wishing all my readers Merry Christmas & Happy New Year-2016!!! With wishes, Rajesh 

The article contributed in the monthly HR Magazine " Human Capital", November-2015 issue

Success begets success. An old idiom and perhaps the genesis of competitive benchmarking or different strategy matrices. The reason of benchmarking is to get ahead of competitors. It has been used extensively across one and all type of industries and companies. Essentially for reasons where companies easily get business performance numbers to compete for, like performance parameters, process parameters etc. But the question is, does benchmarking get the expected success for organisations? I see an inherent fallacy in this process of what I call - imitating others. What goes in benchmarking, I examined and found that the entire process is faulty. In general, organisations try imitating other successful organisations on certain characteristics which seemingly has brought success to them. These characteristics could be defined by a business strategy – a culmination of various processes to run a business. Even ‘personal benchmarking’ has its parallel where individuals get into this t...

My views were published in the Hindustan Times, 3-Nov-15

Strategy is the one word in Corporate that is being used & misused by individuals in their own ways. A highlight of these mis/interpretations to me is, when it is used for a plan. There are many more such examples. However, there is a catch here: Even if people use the word strategy for various other distorted reasons & meanings but still can strategize & achieve what they want to, perhaps, word meaning should not count much. But, reality is far from this? I have come across organisations which could not distinguish between their present and future needs and;  strategize  around  them. Mere focusing on the present may give you short term profit; but believe me “A strategy cannot run a short distance”. The strategy has a soul and a body – something to be seen now and something to seen then - the future. Aptly defined “It’s fundamentally the movement of an organisation from its present position to a desirable but inherently uncertain future position. ...

In this cut-throat environment wherein anyone and everyone aims for success, getting success at last is what one should look for. Nevertheless, the success differs from person to person.  Some seeks solace in financial success and some look for spiritual or like that in their life. But, one thing is quite clear that one cannot sit idle and has to look for success coming one’s way. Success has to be planned, efforts are to be made. Real, sensible efforts. In my eyes, success is generally aimed for, without choosing its direction. The decision where people generally struggle is in taking a decision. Aimlessly, as the world makes some float and look for success, people in mass you may find around. This will not let one even inch closer to the success, one desires for. In Indian context, collective wisdom, sprinkled with parents and well-wishers at large defines the direction for people in mass, without realising capabilities and interest of people. Perhaps, main reason for n...

Read the full article as Published in the HR Katha http://www.hrkatha.com/news/398-are-we-really-facing-a-talent-shortage

Once again yesterday I was confronted by an employee who inquired about his not getting growth despite his doing wonderful job since so many years. This confrontation again brought to me back the same old  query  – Does spot running make you run a distance? Interestingly, since the day of my joining the corporate,I am hearing and is generally advised that it is the soft skills which are more responsible to succeed in career then functional & technical skills; still people do connive with and do not want to understand it. People however, in private discussions, accept and vouch for the behaviour’s importance in success. I see two reasons of this immature behaviour of people - Education system & Culture in corporate - responsible for giving growth to employees based on their technical/functional skills. At Education level, primarily focus is on imparting technical knowledge and to some extent in whatever way, providing opportunity to students that can make ...

In one of my earlier blogs, talked about undue importance being given to ‘Experience’ while ascertaining relevance of a person to a job. It is being proved time & again by youngsters today who are yet to graduate out of their colleges that it is not experience but certain mettle which counts more. Some, at this point may get into arguments with some numbers about a large number of start-ups failing to prove that experience is more important, but so is the case with ‘experienced CEOs'.  Count, how many CEOs do give back to their shareholders continuous better than average returns. At the same time, even I go to the extent of not denying peeved impact of  experience  on many decisions, where we feel, right decision are taken due to having some experience. But  experience alone is not what makes one successful.   Observations around and top of that research in the field of Neuroscience has made considerably clear that experience has its own biases wh...

While doing a study of companies which are been seen successful in market, I have not come across a single company - having rested on the glory of a product or even products in its portfolio; that has given better than average returns to its shareholders for a reasonable period of time. I say 10 years. Question comes to mind, why is it so? Going through many a renowned & successful CEOs speeches, I found one thing common- no one talked much about the basket of products they have. They primarily talked about the culture, people and adopted processes which made people to come out of award winning products for their organisations, continuously – that made their respective organisations successful. In total, I can say it is their Winning Aspiration which made it happen. Many CEOs have categorically put across their views and success mantras that they were or are successful due to their ability of laying down ‘Aspirations’ that helped them getting a continuous stream of pr...

Contingent Workforce is the tactical strategy to meet quality manpower requirement. This is well captured in the magazine People & Management, August-2015 issue.

In a research , it was revealed that the role of IQ in success is limited to 20% and rest is due to EQ. But, there are three other Qs which are as important as EQ. In my attached article , I tried giving some insight on it.