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| Branding
exercise must for
investments: Jain
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Our Convergence Bureau
21 September 2002 |
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 Chennai: Branding has assumed importance not only for products and services but also for states to attract quality investments, said Polaris Software Labs chairman and CEO Arun Jain. So Tamil Nadu should start brand building initiatives to attract global investors to put in their money. The state has several feats to start branding itself as the best quality destination for investments.
The state houses two companies that have won the prestigious Deming quality award and the worlds first CMMI 5-level software company (Polaris Software), he said. In addition multinational corporations like Ford Motor Company, Hyundai Motors, World Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Citibank have set up operations in the state.
Speaking at the Connect 2002 conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), he said: The state should take up branding as the next major step towards increasing software exports. In other words, the state should be more proactive, implement corporate practices in its marketing efforts and not wait for investors to spell out their expectations. One of the first steps towards changing the perception of investors is to attract more foreign airlines landing in Chennai and upgrading the Chennai airports.
According to him there is a huge opportunity for Tamil Nadu in software exports and in the IT-enabled services sector. Citing Nasscoms projected software export figure of $81 billion from India by 2008, Jain said the state should able to achieve $15 billion provided sufficient steps are taken. In rupees terms the figure is really mind-boggling. The potential is around Rs 75,000 crore per year.
He also advised software players to move away from software garage mentality of service and maintenance to product development and marketing activity. Today 70 per cent of the revenues for Indian software companies is from maintenance work and the competition is increasing at a faster clip.
Marketing assumes greater importance in the wake of global competition and cross-selling is becoming the only way to build a sustainable long-term relationship with a customer. At Polaris, we label this as the iceberg theory. The customer first sees only the product and its price a small portion of the entire gamut of services. The remaining services have to be sold to the same client and therein comes the importance of marketing skills, he summed up.
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