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The second day of the conference witnessed formal inaugural ceremony in the presence of Prof. Sanjay Jain, Naveen Jindal School of Management, UT Dallas, Texas, USA; Prof. Manju Ahuja, College of Business, University of Louisville; Prof. Philip Charles Zerrillo, Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore; Prof. Giri Kumar Tayi, University at Albany State University of New York; and Prof. Bharat Bhaskar, Director, IIM Raipur.
Professor Abhishek Mishra, Conference Chair & Faculty, IIM Indore welcomed the delegates.
Professor Himanshu Rai, Director, IIM Indore then addressed the gathering. He shared a mantra of FIRE (Fear, Inertia, Relevance and Ethics) which needs to be accomplished well in order to flourish as a researcher or a teacher. ‘People are petrified of failure—and also get nervous when they start getting successful. They tend to be anxious when they believe that once succeeded, they now have to succeed every time. This is the ‘Fear’ which creates obstacles in one’s mind. People also prefer postponing any new initiative and tend to go with the inertia, like delaying working on research paper, rescheduling in acquiring new skills, etc. This needs to be taken care of’, he said. He noted that every research paper should be relevant to someone and be able to contribute to the society. He advised the scholars to remain ethical and always follow their principles.
This was followed by five keynote speeches by the guests.
- Sanjay Jain, Naveen Jindal School of Management, UT Dallas, Texas, USA spoke on the topic—‘Self Control & Choices: Role of Marketers and Policy Makers’. He said that with the expansion in technology, the role of marketers now has changed. For example, issues like obesity, internet addiction etc. are increasing and marketers now need to implement solutions which create win-win situations for both the buyers and the sellers. Smaller packages with higher prices of healthier goods will help the buyers consume less, decrease obesity and also ROI for the sellers would be good. He concluded that since the variety in technology has increased the number of choices for the customers, the need to study the impact of consumer biases on choices has also improved.
- Manju Ahuja College of Business, University of Louisville spoke on ‘Interruptions, Multitasking & Digital Marketing’. She discussed about how interruption marketing—the effort to get attention of already overloaded customer, gaining the customer’s attention and digital marketing are interrelated. Discussing about the advertisements that show up on random websites because of the data stored during our surfing the e-commerce websites, she said that marketing alerts should be bounded. She also discussed her own research about how digital marketing strategies can be enhanced for selling a product.
- Philip Charles Zerrillo, Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore spoke about how the future is going to be—with growing world population, less workforce and reduced job opportunities. He also shared population rates in various nations and noted that in the year 2050, there are a few countries like Thailand, Spain, and Japan who might not have sufficient workforce due to no youth population. ‘9 out of 11 lowest birth-rates in the world are in East Asia—and this would be creating labour and talent issues in the future’, he said. He suggested that investment and immigration from other nations might be a solution to these issues.
- Giri Kumar Tayi, University at Albany State University of New York then shared his views on ‘Smart Marketing in the Digital Age’. He said that a researcher should know how his/her research would be relevant in the present and similarly, a company should understand it’s customer before marketing. ‘A company needs to teach its search engine to recognise the style and requirements of the customers- which proves to be a boon for buyers and sellers alike. Machine learning algorithm and artificial intelligence will come in handy in such situations’, he said. He suggested that implementing blended text analysis with image and text cues would help the buyers to pick a product and make it easier for the company to understand what the customer wants. He also discussed about the challenges like increasing amount of data, growing privacy revaluations, the analytical horsepower required to mine through that data, the media spend and how consumer loyalty is in decline.
- Bharat Bhaskar, Director, IIM Raipur then spoke about how the internet has brought a revolution in the marketing strategies of the companies. ‘When the World Wide Web was launched, it belonged to just around a million people. Today, everyone has access to internet. Giants like Facebook, Yahoo, and Google and e-commerce websites are also using digital marketing to keep their customers engaged. Marketers need to be alert of how to use these platforms by creating different ways of showcasing your product through webs rooming and surfing- having a space where you’ll get feedbacks as well’, he said. He noted that today the customer trusts more on the online reviews and feedbacks, and companies should be more responsive to these feedbacks and customer requirements to get positive reviews. He also suggested that various coupons, incentives and on the spot incentives or discounts are also helping in keeping the customer loyal to a brand.
This was followed by a book launch ceremony, wherein a book by Ms. Varsha Jain & her co-authors Mr. Jagdish Sheth and Donald Schultz was released. The book is titled—‘Consumer Behavior- Digital Natives’.
This was followed by another book launch by Professor Rajendra Nargundkar, Faculty- Marketing, IIM Indore. The book is titled—‘Marketing Research’.
The closing remarks were then delivered by Professor Rajhans Mishra, Conference Co-Chair & Faculty, IIM Indore. The day then witnessed various technical sessions with paper presentations on various tracks of the conference.