In this segment of ‘Chai Break’, we talk to Prasenjit Roy, Senior Vice President – Marketing, Netmagic (An NTT Communications Company). Prasenjit has around two and half decades of corporate experience on the business side – spanning across several multinationals on the IT/Technology services side.
What makes a good marketer?
There is no one quality but a combination of multiple traits that combines in different proportions to make a successful marketer.
The most successful marketers have a vision and plan with built-in flexibility to make necessary course corrections along the way.
The vision is essential for uniting a partnership around a specific objective. Humble marketers know when a marketing investment is not a good fit and they cut their losses and move on to the next opportunity.
While so much of marketing today is all about the specialist, it’s still important to be able to think like a generalist. It helps you see the big picture. Also Marketers need to be able to think about everything they do through the lens of the consumer. So designing the user-experience with keen insight into consumer motivation and behavioral dynamics is critical to success.
It’s extremely important to realize the importance of measuring each portion of the campaign to understand the true value of each tactic. The best marketers are committed to measurement.
Even if a Marketer is leading their category, they are not satisfied with where they are, and encourage those around them to stay restless, curious, and healthily paranoid. Similar to having a commitment to continuous improvement, strong marketers are also lifetime students.
The best marketers I’ve been around have had the unique ability to understand marketing at a tactical level, but could also understand how to leverage business data, consumer data, and marketing data to build strategy.
3 things you look for when you hire people?
Passion: To continuously add value from experiences and take proactive initiatives
Attitude: All other traits can be taught if this is right
Integrity: If this is absent, don’t bother about the other two
Your favorite destination for business trips?
Japan
Your favourite book?
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
3 things would never do a meeting without?
I don’t do a meeting without – an agenda that should be less than 40 minutes, my laptop / notepad, and background work.
When did you decide that Marketing is what you wanted to do?
When I was picked up in the 2nd year of Engineering by an US firm to do a Marketing assignment.
Your most memorable advertisement that you still remember?
Amul’s the very first “The Taste of India” ad is still so fresh on my mind – This highlights that simple and strong messages with human touch in are the key of communication.
Do you love data or hate data?
I will call myself data curious as it forms the basis for Marketing Analytics.
One app that you cannot do without @work
What are your marketing priorities for the year 2016/2017?
Major thrust on enriching Customer Experience – vide B2B Loyalty Programs, Advisory Board, CSat and Brand Advocacy.
Profile: Prasenjit Roy is Senior Vice President – Marketing at Netmagic (An NTT Communications Company). An accomplished and dynamic strategic marketing and business professional – he is the evangelist of Integrated Strategic Marketing covering a wide spectrum of industry sectors including financials, telecom, information technology and other verticals. His relevant sales experience in different geographies helps to churn out high efficacy marketing strategy across multi-locations, multi-state and global environments.
He has been invited by NASSCOM to be a Mentor to their 10,000 Start-ups program launched across India. He is a Visiting Faculty Member to the CEO School of Management and occasionally takes full day Marketing workshop with multiple corporates. He is the winner of several industry awards like “Most Iconic Marketing Professional” and “Most Influential Marketing Technology Leader”.
He is also a regular speaker at International symposiums, leading Business Schools and industry associations like NASSCOM and INFOCOM.
Prasenjit has advanced degrees in Engineering and Business Management, both with distinction and is a rank holder. He also did a Post Graduate course in Modern Information Systems from IIT Mumbai.
