Prof. Bernd Schmitt, one of world’s most recognised observers of brand dynamics addressed business and industry, on branding and customer experience management on 17 – 18 July 2008 in Kolkata.
In his address, Prof Schmitt opined that much of marketing practice in India is based on traditional 4-Ps, but Indian brands need to enhance customer experience to become global brands. Prof Bernd Schmitt, Ph.D., is Robert D. Calkins Professor of International Business and Executive Director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership at Columbia Business School in New York.
Prof. Schmitt is widely recognized for his major contribution to branding, marketing, and management through his unique focus on the customer experience. His frameworks and tools are used worldwide by companies committed to delivering value and a great experience to their customers. Schmitt has authored or co-authored more than 50 articles in marketing and psychology journals and six books which have been translated into 16 languages.
Prof Schmitt said that customer experience is the next step of branding and is much more important than just putting an image of the product in the brains of the customers. He gave immense importance on ‘thinking big’. He affirmed that in order to excel, the characteristics of the companies should get transformed from inertia & resistance to creativity & Change, from narrow mindedness to visionary leadership and from risk aversions to bold ideas and quick actions. Prof Schmitt avowed that the six steps of a big think strategy are Sourcing bold ideas, Evaluating and selecting best ideas, Turning ideas into a big think strategy, Executing big think strategy, Leading big think strategy and Sustaining big think strategy.
Beyond Languages 
July 22, 2008 at 1:00 am |
wonderful
I like this
Schmitt: I have seen in the big cities, they are getting more sophisticated. As Chinese are now travelling abroad more and more, they see how Chinese brands compare to foreign brands and they demand not only quality from Chinese brands but also experiences. Recently, I have seen Chinese brands doing experiential marketing very well, especially small, upstart brands. There is a new casual clothing portal, called bananapapaya.com, which sells T-shirt on the Internet. It’s very cool and the site is all experiential. The owner is an ex-Columbia student who took my course and I have advised her a bit. But even big companies like airlines are now caring more about customers and treat them better and better. In conclusion, Chinese companies are becoming more and more customer oriented—and that is good news for Chinese consumers.