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The customer is King "It's the competition that makes him the king
You have all heard that "The customer is king." However, Once in India, there was a company called Pal Automobiles cars used to do Fiat (Fiat believe under license). Later the same car was listed as Padmini. At one point in time, there were only three car brands in India – Padmini, Ambassador and Standard. Padmini to sell at a huge premium. There was a list wait of about 5-6 years. Padmini The brand was a premium brand.
Today, the company, the brand and the car no longer exists.
Why Why? As most of you will come up with numerous reasons for the failure of the old Padmini car including technology, customer dissatisfaction, the marketing strategy effective, high price, senior management and shoddy ineffective. But none of these are the reasons for the company and the brand is not. I'm sure you are amazed and perplexed that time. You must be thinking that you probably have listed out all the reasons why products fail and still hits the bull's eye.
In order to explain you the reason behind the failure of the company and brand, let me add a twist to this scenario, saying it may bring Padmini car to its original glory, ie, will have to wait years to get the car and pay a premium for it. I will do this without changing anything in terms of quality Padmini Car, price, technical production, positioning, advertising and strategy. I will not even visit the offices of the company or factory. However, for me to do this, I will take a single action.
I know what I should be thinking. This guy is crazy. I hate to disappoint you, but I think I'm pretty sane.
The action of a I'm going to take to bring back Padmini car to its original glory I'm going to remove all competition that followed. After I removed all the competitors that have come later, you have only three brands of cars to choose from, namely Ambassador, Padmini and Standard. Just as before, with only three brands to choose, do not you think we will return to a situation in which market will begin to pay the premium for a car of bad quality? We, as customers will have no choice. If we buy a car, we have to choose between one of the three brands available.
I'm sure you must be thinking, this guy is really crazy. How can we remove competition? You are right and wrong. You are wrong because I still say I'm not crazy. You are right because I agree we can not eliminate competition. To highlight the importance of competition, had no choice but to find an interesting way to get your attention and at the same time highlight the importance of competition to your business and your success in your career.
Padmini car did not fail because customers decided one day that enough is enough and that we will not buy a car of poor quality and pay the premium for it. At this time, customers were not in the proverbial "Kings." At that point time, were beggars. They had no choice but to buy one of the three models offered by manufacturers at the time. Customer has not been the king "," Customers became more powerful when other car manufacturers like Maruti, Daewoo, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai entered the car market in India and offers best options for the customer. Now, with a large number of new vehicle models available, customers can really exercise their power. After the competition was more options to the client, the client actually became the "King." He exercised his right not to buy the car for a better quality Padmini car already available. So you can see that competition was leading to the failure of Padmini cars making better choices available. The client was not the "king" before the arrival of competition. It became the "King" after the arrival of competition and gave options to the client to exercise his power as a client.
The same happened to car heaven when it was introduced in India by Daewoo Motors. It was the premium luxury car first introduced in India and was a success. If I remember correctly, Daewoo Motors was selling about 1,000 cars a month. At this time there was no competition. However, as soon as Ford, General Motors and Honda introduced their models in the same segment as Sky, Sky also disappeared. Expanding my crazy thought process in this instance, ie it eliminates competition that took place after Heaven would result in the sale of Heaven again in similar numbers and more.
Competition is what makes the customer "king." Competition is what makes your life hell as a businessman and professional executive. But competition does not give due importance to formulate our strategies.
It is surprising that Most marketing books never talked about competition in the way they should have. The marketing book I've been through while I was doing my MBA at the University Illinois in 1987 did not even have a chapter on competition. At that time, I do not think any marketing book had a chapter on competition. Now I think the book by Philip Kotler on marketing has a chapter on competition.
I hope you now believe is the competition that makes our life difficult and gives us sleepless nights. So when you are looking for solutions to their business problems, think of the competition.
About the Author
Customer mathematician Avinash Narula is very passionate about the subject of customer satisfaction and retention. He aims to continuously develop customer mathematics and economics to convert everyone in the business world into a BELIEVER in the concept of “Customer is King.”
kotler : markets change