CG Marketing: Taking the SMAC route

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," said Arthur C. Clarke. Social, mobility, analytics and cloud (SMAC) technologies, I believe, are already weaving their magic in the consumer goods (CG) space. In a sector where competition is stiff and the consumer increasingly discerning, CG companies are leveraging the disruptive SMAC stack to focus on customer experience, rather than products and services. Not only is SMAC being deployed to augment the company’s sales and marketing efforts, I also see it being harnessed to enhance the performance of the overall business. This is having a multiplier effect leading to business success.

According to a Bain survey report, customers who interacted with companies over social media spent 20 to 40% more with those companies than others who did not. Their emotional commitment to the brand was also deeper. Reason enough for CG companies to step up their spend on social technologies.

Today the smartphone has become ubiquitous. In the US, 58%of smartphone owners are already using the device for store-related shopping. By 2017, smartphone penetration is likely to be nearly 60%, which I think offers tremendous opportunity to the CG marketer. Already, some CG companies have mobile apps that offer discount coupons after ‘reading’ a consumer’s digital shopping list. However, I often find that mobile continues to be a disparate channel. I believe integration of mobile with other channels has to be on a CG company’s priority list for seamless customer experience.

According to the Wipro and Forbes Digital Marketing study, harnessing big data to improve marketing was one of the key goals of CG companies. However, I see that many companies are still collecting data in silos. So logistics, supply chain, manufacturing and the marketing functions are relying on different data sets, yielding skewed results. Data integration, therefore, should also be a priority area. A number of CG companies have leveraged the cloud for storing analytics-related data in a manner that is cost effective and easily accessible. Even when it comes to marketing campaigns, companies can reach out to a diverse set of customers at a reduced cost, through pay-per-use pricing models with the cloud.

The SMAC stack market will be worth USD 5 trillion by 2020. Since SMAC has plenty to offer from the marketing perspective, I’m sure that CG marketing investments will form a significant part of this figure. How do you see SMAC impacting CG marketing in the coming years?

About the Author

Hiral Chandrana is Sr. Vice President & Global Head for Business Application Services (BAS) in Wipro with end-to-end responsibility for the Applications related strategy, development, implementation and management. BAS is Wipro’s largest Service Line and the portfolio includes following areas across all business units:

Enterprise and Cloud Applications: SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, IBM and Microsoft
Differentiated Offerings: Enterprise and Cyber Security, Enterprise and Solution Architecture
Omni-Channel & Mobile Commerce: Customer Experience, eContent Mgt, and Collaboration
Technology Practices: Testing, Business Process Management and Enterprise Integration

Hiral has extensive experience in P&L management, leading Global Teams and Delivery, Executive Relationships, Large Complex Pursuits, and growing Applications, Infrastructure, Analytics, BPO, PLM businesses in Retail, Manufacturing, Consumer Goods and Life Sciences. He is an active member at leading forums including CGT, GMA & developed partnerships with SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, CISCO, etc.

Prior to the current role, Hiral was VP & Global Business Head for Consumer Industries in Wipro with end-to-end P&L responsibility including Delivery, Sales, & Solutions. He also played leadership roles as US Head for Retail, Consumer Goods, & Transportation and Americas Head for Business Technology Services at Wipro where he won multiple awards. Before Wipro, he had progressive client/program management roles with Electronic Data Systems (EDS), Parametric Technology Corp. and Tata Motors.

Hiral is based in the US for the last 21+ years managing long term strategic customer relationships with global organizations, driving transformation initiatives and leading large teams. He has published various thought leadership papers and articles through his career. Hiral has an Engineering background, with a Master of Science (MS) from Washington State University and Executive MBA from Iowa State University.

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