Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucknow recently held a Marketing Management session for its students to learn more about the subject and its practical implications. That’s because the venerable Mr. Prabhat Sinha, Zonal Manager (Sales development), Piaggio Motors Pvt. Ltd., led the session held on 6th Sept. Mr. Sinha is an expert in the field with years of experience under his belt, which he enthusiastically shared with the gathering

The session was focussed on Sales Process and Consumer Behaviour in the Automobile Industry. Since Mr. Sinha is a renowned name in the industry, he was just the right person to help students understand various concepts and their practicality and functionality in the real world. Throughout the session, he tried to cover wide ranging topics from the sales process, which includes customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and repeat sales.

As the gathering settled in amidst much anticipation, Mr. Sinha sought to explain some basic ideas related to Marketing Management. According to him, it depends on M-A-N, a term commonly used. “Money, Authority and Need are these factors”, he said at the beginning of his talk. “The biggest challenge is to generate needs in the market”. He then went on to offer effective solutions that professionals in the field can use to resolve most Sales and Marketing issues.

Mr. Sinha stressed that there were four ways to generate enquiries into the market of commercial vehicles. He called them the CORD technique: “C- Counter, O-Outdoor, R-Reference, D-Database.” Through various examples, he tried to help students understand how these techniques and several other concepts of marketing management are applied in the industry, which helped them better understand the CORD techniques application in the business world.

He also focussed on the importance of knowing different types of customers who influence the automobile industry. Elaborating further on that, Mr. Sinha said, “There is one customer who is interested in buying the vehicle but chooses your competitors’ drive. One who doesn’t have any vehicle but has an interest in buying one. Also, one who has no vehicle and absolutely no interest in buying one.” He further offered advice on how to deal with each customer, which is surely something that each prospective employee in the field needs to know.

After offering a basic understanding about customer insight, Mr. Sinha moved on to the Sales Process, breaking it down to simple and relatable terms for students. “Suspecting, prospecting, advice/analysis, negotiation, close and order are the different steps that are involved,” he added. Finally he summed up the session by putting an emphasis on Enquiry Segmentation and Demonstration for the right customers, using an AAI approach of Approach, Awareness and Interaction.

The session itself was a useful interaction with an experienced industry expert as Ayush, PGDM 2016 pointed out. He added, “It was a brilliant opportunity to hear from Mr. Sinha who shared his knowledge in a simple manner, which made it easy for us to understand.”