SME World Article February 2012

Elections – Treat For Trade

An election in India is one of the unpredictable every processes, as political party, except the ruling one is waiting for this chance to dance upon. In these scenarios contestants and political parties are busy canvassing and so run short of time to look after the election campaign and this is the movement when they require the professional help to take care of their task and the same is provided through the backbone of Indian economy that is SME industry.

The Election Commission of India launched the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management, IIDEM in New Delhi which is an advanced resource centre of learning, research, training and extension for participatory democracy and election management. The institute is set to be a national and international hub for exchange of good practices in election management. The institute will work towards the goal to enhance the potential and capacity of the Election Commission and its officials in carrying out their mandate and functions in a more effective and professional manner. It carries the goal of meticulous, accurate, voter friendly implementation of election processes by committed, competent, credible and skilled managers and associated groups. 

Fighting elections in India has become extremely expensive. While limits of the candidates' spending were established, the law did not set limits on the expense of political parties themselves, as the Constitution of India did not recognize the 'Political Party' as a formal entity at that time because political parties had no defined role to play, either in the elections or in the formation of government, but now the time has come wherein the financial transparency is required thus Income Tax Act was amended in 1979 requiring political parties to file income tax returns every year.

 The tax law allowed a political party to claim full exemption from income tax for a variety of sources of income including voluntary contributions received from any person provided the party maintained books of accounts, recorded details of all voluntary contributions and got their books audited.

The outsourcing Election Management Services thus comes in to picture and provide phenomenal scope of revenue generation for the SME industry in the form of below mentioned service providers:

Types of Services

Accounting Assistance

Financial Accounting or Book Keeping is one of the prime services during elections nowadays. Setting up an internal accounting department is not worthy and also requires lot of time, thus it is better to outsource it to a professional accounting outsourcing firm.

The Clients can utilize more time to concentrate on election campaign. as it has dedicated accountants to handle there accounts and the most important aspect is that it has advance infrastructure to perform the accounting task.

Various services through these SME’s include Election campaign accounting , Preparation of income and expenditure statement , Generation of election accounting reports, Preparation of trial balance , Expense management report , Election administration accounting etc.

                                                           

Helicopters and Aircrafts for Election flying - campaign

The service is provided directly through the aviation companies or through the coordination of the PR Companies engaged with the respective political party contestant. The political rallies and the attendance of the mass leader to those political rallies play vital role in the victory of any political party. To ensure the presence at every possible event the leaders have to utilize some niche services during this crucial movement of elections which is the bright source of revenue generation for SME’.

As elections is a big event in India and there is increasing demand for air charters - both rotor wing helicopters and fixed wing aircrafts. The aviation industry strives hard to provide the best possible services to all agency and political parties involved in the upcoming elections. The aircrafts are made available all over the country from any rural location to any top notch event location.

Election Management Software development

Current Election Management in India has problems like Voters list are inadequate , No contact info available in the lists , Non updated Voter Lists are used repeatedly due to frequent elections in Indian democracy  and majority of election campaign is done offline.

The software development SME’s drop in to the scenario to provide below mentioned benefits.

A) They provide end-to-end election management services.

B) These companies have voters lists all across Metro and rural areas.

C) They provide right mix of online and offline services for the best response.

D) Web based application accessed by multiple persons at a time.

E) Customized Reports with pie and bar charts.

F) Reports classified using gender, age and native distribution.

PR and Media Agencies

Media is an important feature of democratic politics. Elections become the medium through which the collective political approach is forged at the anvil of public opinion with the help of the media. It helps on an ongoing  basis  by  involving the masses  in the  democratic  process by providing  much  needed  feedback  on  the  government's  functioning. Since independence, political awareness of the people has been steadily maturing.

Recognition of the necessity of party politics, elections, local political processes have been more firmly established than five decades ago. The  media  plays  a  vital  role  in  providing  the information  required  by  the  government,  political  parties  and  the people, to make intelligent and informed decisions.

As per the research earlier and by the expert views, Publicity management constitutes a vital and critical part of election campaigning today. Politics has become a theatre where image matters. Image construction needs professional management.  Political parties now take the help of professional agencies (advertising firms, etc) to build their image. The  language  of  the  posters,  slogans etc,  all  are managed  by  these professional  agencies.

A leader has to be properly dressed and speak with a proper accent. The electronic media encourages publicity and prominence to the politicians. The electronic media has wider coverage than the print media in India. Villages which do not have roads, primary schools, post offices etc, abound with TV sets. Television  helps  in building  the  image  of  a  politician  on  a  national  scale.  The movement of the camera can add a dimension to a story.

Call Center for Voters and Party Workers:

Call centers during the time of election is a new development in field of Canvassing for the contestants, which provides the benefits and services like mobilization of Party Workers which means the meeting for party workers would be organized to mobilize for the election. The company tries to increase the strength of our party workers as much as possible through the data of mobile numbers utilized.

Target Campaigning is responsibility of around specified houses would be given to each and every party worker for getting out the votes in favor. They will not be responsible for only getting out the votes but also be responsible for advertisement in those houses and creating a wave in favor of the client.

SMS – A known and effective election campaign

SMS could be the politician's new poll brahmastra: Short Messaging Service is all set to rock propaganda vehicle in the coming elections in India. These SME‘s provide service to election candidates to reach out to lakhs and lakhs of voters simultaneously and is

also considered to be the cost effective medium due to the easy availability of the mobile number database.

Bluetooth pushers

If you walk into a shopping mall in with your Bluetooth reception turned on, don’t be surprised if you receive a request to download a message from any political party. The parties have now strategically placed Bluetooth pushers in high footfall areas such as malls, so people can download messages, pictures and caller tunes from the contestant on their mobile phones. With the boom in the field of media options & technology interaction between the leaders & voters has become the primary channel of communication. The contestant is dependent upon these SME’s providing various services.

All the above factors encouraging the SME sector display the excitement around this election is being generated by the sector rapidly and with utmost professional manner which ensures that SME sector is all set in making changes and broadcasting their ideas to the world. In fact, in this election, SME’s have created awareness and have generated enough interest among the masses for them to get out and vote the right candidate, while few of them have come forward to bring about more transparency and accountability in the electoral system by providing information about the contestants that was earlier not so easy to access.

All these developments and opportunities, if combined and sustained with a sensible blend of responsibility and optimum utilization of resources with the recognition of democratic Power we are sure to bring about a sea change in Indian democracy.

Conventional War - Sales & Marketing….

Today the companies must identify their market and their offerings on the basis of KYC tools

(Know your Customer), there actual needs and wants and remember that every customer has different taste, attitude and the understanding about every aspect. Sales & Marketing have vital role to play in this process as it not only specify the need of the customer but also analyze the product requirement and the changes required in the product as well as in the process, which helps to gain the customer and generate the revenue as per the business plan.

A clear understanding of customer needs, buying processes, buying preferences, perceptions, and potential is essential to sales and marketing success. The qualitative and quantitative methods spanning both primary and secondary data-based approaches to provide clients with customer insights.

Both have correct perspective!! When the opportunity is unsure and is a possibility, it’s not a lead but a Prospect, and the challenge starts at this stage when the Prospect is considered as lead and the sales process is initiated. This scenario is observed when there is lack of co ordination and efforts to adhere to the process. The sales or a marketing role should be clearly defined and assigned to the individuals at their respective levels. In reality though, the most effective approach is assigning the responsibility to both and integrating the activities of each. Essentially, successful prospecting comes down to the powerful integration of the magic of marketing with the science of sales. And though it is not easy and does take discipline, it is well worth it.

Strategic Planning As aware Strategic Planning is one of the crucial topics and is very close to heart for most of them. We believe sales and marketing success depends on it. We believe in a well-built strategy that integrates the sales and marketing process and consistently communicates a company's position in competitive market, thus, we should believe a strategy based on the knowledge. If the plan designed is not viable and is not something you have the resources to implement and stick with, edit it to something which you can achieve and can stick to your commitment, then, build a detailed project plan for implementation, detailing departmental dependencies, resource allocation, project tasks, and key deadlines on a weekly basis and, hold each other accountable to delivering on the strategy, whether strategic or tactical. Working together is important, but independence is also important. If you have sales and marketing reporting to the same department you have to be careful one isn't ignored. If that happens (like focusing on sales only for 6 months), you will soon find that you have been compromising the long-term prosperity of your company. Sales As correctly preached sales is the act of meeting prospective buyers and providing them with a product or service in turn of money or other required compensation.Selling has features and benefits which are still the main topic at every sales  department, as management is pushing the same old ideas about cold calling and open-ended questions, but customers are changing rapidly in their behavior, buying habits, knowledge about the situation on the market, and most important to their expectations from sellers. Selling technique is vigorously changing, Whole business environment is more dynamic, we have many and breaking new products on the market, and competition is bigger, harder, and stronger day-by-day.  Buyers are more educated and they are searching for information by themselves, and they are looking from providers to understand buyer's situation, needs and business. Sales cannot continue to resolve previous situations in the business world by using same old tips and tricks. Sales challenges cannot be met using previous understandings and strategies. Although the skills and information are not wrong, but they are simply incomplete for today’s market. Technology is developing at a pace that rarely anyone can catch up, and especially the last two decades many trained sales people are not in the position to utilize the advantages of the technology. Customers are not waiting around for a sales person to get back to them with information; they are waiting for answers from people outside company through their networks and generally searching for people they should be in contact with. The trick is to make yourself as visible as possible so that this new breed of customer has no option but to come across your name or profile during this search. Marketing As aware marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business.Recent approaches in marketing include relationship marketing with focus on the customer, business marketing or industrial marketing with focus on an organization or institution and social marketing with focus on benefits to society. It attempts to perfect the segmentation strategy used in traditional marketing. It targets its audience more precisely, and is sometimes called personalized marketing or one-to-one marketing. Internet marketing is sometimes considered to be broad in scope, because it not only refers to marketing on the Internet, but also includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media. Marketing is used to identify the customer, satisfy the customer, and retain the customer. With the customer as the focus of its activities, marketing management is one of the major components of business management and is evolved to develop new markets caused by mature markets and overcapacities in the last couple of centuries. The adoption of marketing strategies requires businesses to shift their focus from production to the needs and wants of their customers as the means of staying profitable. Marketing is used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves. In the consumer-driven approach, consumer wants are the drivers of all strategic marketing decisions. No strategy is pursued until it passes the test of consumer research. Mutual Relationship Selling starts the very minute the company goes out into the world and talks about its offering. It would be very naive for anyone to assume otherwise. Companies spend on marketing activities because they want to attract people who can buy their offerings. So what really differentiates marketing from sales is the point of their entry in the relationship building process. Sales unit always believe that marketing hasn't created enough leads to meet their goals, while Marketing unit claims they have generated ample numbers which are not processed by sales. There is in fact a place for both Sale & Marketing, but it is defined by customers and the industry respectively and by the complexity of products. When domestic market is your target audience, and you have short span to demonstrate your product, then certainly the need for marketing is the lead process for growth. When target audience is corporate or small businesses with a high technology product that requires education, then there is a lower requirement on marketing and a higher degree of emphasis on sales personnel. For sales & marketing, people, often go to market, unprepared, unfocused and not following the basic steps of the sales process. They are trying to close unqualified leads and doing presentations to people on subjects they are not interested in. They also have not explored the market sufficiently and followed the tried and true practices of consultative selling. Again, the simple process not being followed which is detrimental to the overall results. Both the sales and the marketing departments have grown from very similar beginnings and certainly have caused organization senior executives equal amounts of anxiety over the years. Marketing have been renowned for the 'advertising pitch': an ability to create passion for the product with a significant price ticket attached for the service.Sales and marketing will always be natural partners and their common relationship is your brand. But their mandates are quite different; therefore, it's important we clearly define each department's responsibilities. Use of technology like marketing automation solutions can help in easing and automating the process of scoring and qualifying leads if your primary source of Lead generation is Internet and Just this one process can go a long way in bridging the sales-marketing divide, at least in settling the blame game. This is because; setting up such a process not only helps in bringing clarity to the end objectives of both, but also equates the success metric. Marketing is a very measurable process, but the results are head to measure; it’s easy to measure Sales outcomes but Sales activity is hard to measure. As a result, compensation and rewards tend to be very different, which creates further problems. Marketing is measured not on the basis of Leads generated but on the basis of qualified Leads generated in accordance with the common definition whereas Sales get measured on how many of these qualified Leads it managed to close.  Irrespective of how companies want to position their marketing and sales objectives the truth is marketing and sales are two sides of the same coin….