Notes from Nasscom Product Conclave - Oct 2009

Last week, I attended the Nasscom Product Conclave on Oct 27 and 28. Although I couldn't attend all the sessions as they were overlapping, I managed to attend a few interesting sessions and panel discussions. Most of the discussions were focused on issues related to startups, business plans and GTM strategies. Focus on specific product related issues was rather missing. But overall, it was a set of useful discussions.

The twitter session was entertaining but I don't really agree with some of the strategies suggested by Guy Kawasaki in using twitter as a marketing tool. Bombarding the followers with interesting links will just be an overkill in order to add more followers. But Guy is an entertaining speaker and definitely a good marketer. I'm sure the number of pageviews to Alltop would have increased in the past one week.

Raw notes from the sessions below:

Guy Kawasaki's key note (The art of the start)

• Put everything in the cloud
• Ship, then test
• Use TweetMeme in your blog
• Forget venture capital
• Niche thyself (I agree with this completely)
• Don't let the bozos grind you down
• Position yourself in a 2*2 where you are high on uniqueness and high on value

Workshop on Marketing and Branding Strategies for Product Organizations

• "Product made in factory, brand is what customer buys" - David Aaker
• "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you and then you win" - Mahatma Gandhi
• Brand communication should make you relevant to your customer and different from your competition
• Media and Public relations have been leveraged well by Infosys to build their brand
• Three customers of your brand - Investors, Consumers and Employees
• Consumer Experience - more important than brand identity or advertising
• There is very little or no difference among products which creates the need to identify the unique value proposition (UVP)
• UVP includes everything that engages a customer
• Always stay in touch with consumer and buyer behavior
• Product has become the minimum hygiene factor for all product companies. Uniqueness has to be derived outside the product
• In the initial stages of the company, the brand is "YOU"
• In many of the business plans, questions like "Who are you building the product for?", "Is there a need?" are not answered well
• You need to justify the marketing spend in terms of RoI when you mention your marketing plans as part of your business plan. Calculate the marketing spend per acquired customer and the revenue gained per acquired customer
• Keep asking "How will I get my first customer?"
• There is a need for an evangelist within the company for brand creation
• You need to identify points of dissatisfaction. You cannot sell to a satisfied customer
• Customer service also helps a lot in building your brand. People don't have problems with problems but the ability to respond to problems and being honest about them is critical for a start-up
• Keep questioning "Do I really want to build my startup in a crowded marketplace?"
• During customer presentations in a B2B scenario, do not directly pinpoint the customer's inefficiencies. Let the customer open up and talk about the issues they are facing. Ensure you are able to steer the discussion to get the customer to talk and then explain how your product can solve the customer's issues

Panel discussion: Product Strategies in the telecom sector

• VAS contributes to 8 to 10% of operator revenues in India compared to 20% in LATAM
• Product Management capabilities needed in the sector to build products and sell to international markets
• Identify the right partners in delivering end-to-end solutions. Ensure there is effective agreement on content aggregation with providers

Keynote by Pallab Chatterjee - MD and Operating Partner, Symphony Technology Group

• Curtis Carlson's definition of innovation - Creation and Delivery of new customer value in the marketplace with a positive return for enterprise
• Value proposition identification (using NABC model)
• - the important customer Need
• - the unique, compelling Approach
• - the superior, customer Benefits per costs
• - when compared to the Competition
• Innovation Index = Value/(Cost*Time)

GTM strategies for product startups

• Web presence more important in the consideration stage of buyer lifecycle
• Product knowledge and passion to sell are just not sufficient for selling
• Connecting to end users should be continuous either through newsletters, new product releases etc
• Ensure enough efforts are spent towards sales resource readiness
• Price = Value = Perception
• Tools for GTM
• - Affiliate Marketing
• - Paid Search
• - Organic Search
• - Free Trial
• - Brand advertising
• - Email
• - A/B testing

Panel discussion on Accelerating Product Innovation

• Innovation must be to India what quality is to Japan
• Mindset towards innovation - deference to the developed world, deference to industry giants and deference to industry and market trends
• Innovation starts with a challenge and capabilities are acquired next
• Deference v/s Positive Irreverence
• Secondary research or brainstorming not sufficient to validate a new product idea