Marketers must effectively establish human connections in the new normal: Arvind Saxena

A subsidiary of Japan- headquartered NEC Corporation, NEC Corporation India (NEC India) started operations in the country in the 1950s. Initially, the group mainly leveraged the brand value established in Japan to serve the global market. A couple of years later, the brand started investing in a few local solutions for the Indian market, aligned with the government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative and wove this as part of its India to global journey. Empowering businesses with their cutting-edge products and solutions, NEC India currently caters to sectors like telecommunications, public safety, logistics, transportation, retail, finance, unified communication and IT platforms, among others.

NEC Corporation India has been transforming businesses and lives in India for the past 70 years. From telecommunications to manufacturing, transportation, logistics, or public safety, the company has been a frontrunner in driving digital transformation across sectors. More recently, they facilitated paperless boarding at some of the leading airports in the country to provide a safe and seamless travel experience. The company has already implemented this across other countries and are planning to bring some of our global best practices to India.

In conversation with Adgully, Arvind Saxena, Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications, NEC Corporation India, speaks at length about the key learnings from the pandemic, harnessing digital, rebranding exercise for NEC Corporation India, establishing human connections and much more. 

What are the learnings for the technology companies in 2020? How did NEC Corporation India navigate during these challenging times?

We are amid a pandemic that has put to the test every business continuity plan ever made. But with time, the fear is turning into acceptance, and individuals are adapting to the situation. The importance of trust in one another and camaraderie is increasing. The world, after all, is going through a shared experience. Therefore, as a brand it becomes imperative for us to build transparency through effective communication with our customers, partners and employees.

Staying true to our DNA of “orchestrating a brighter world”, we ensured sticking to our basics: demonstrating a core purpose; serving customers in the truest sense of the word and keeping our employees first in these times. We saw the world adopting what NEC has been practising as a DNA and as a way of life for over 100 years now, that is, realising a sustainable digital society that empowers everybody, irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity or ability to experience happiness, fulfilment and richer lives.

Amidst these uncertain times, marketers’ first and foremost responsibility is to recalibrate the marketing ROI as per the changing business dynamics, while keeping the customers, partners engaged and employees aligned to the brand purpose. Given the socio-economic impact the pandemic has had on consumers and moving towards the ‘new-normal’, consumers expect more mindfulness from brands by delivering helpful and human contact. Along with reassessing business models and buyer personas, we shifted our marketing approach from tactical to strategic, that is, building long term trust.

Our employees represent the most significant investment and define our essence of existence in the marketplace by delivering best in class customer experience – every time. We re-defined our internal communication strategy to keep our employees engaged and motivated during these challenging times. Taking the learnings from 2020, we chalked out a clear and strategic communication strategy that focusses on how to build a frequent and consistent two-way communication process across all levels of the organisation. Focussed external and internal communication strategy and resilience together helped us drive business growth last year. 

The pandemic helped digital acceleration a lot. How did NEC India leverage this situation, and how was it able to contribute to the growth of digital both for the industry and the company?

The COVID-19 crisis has underscored the importance of digitisation and shone a spotlight on the use of emerging tech for the safety of the people that otherwise were being neglected given the industry’s pace.

Since March 2020, we have leveraged our best technology capabilities and harnessed digitisation in its truest capacity to serve our customers and provide a safe and secure work environment to employees.

With hi-tech solutions like biometric authentication, cyber security, fingerprint identification to name a few, we are helping our customers on implementing a product portfolio that is of utmost importance in the current times. With the ‘In India – For India’ and ‘From India – For Globe’ strategy, our teams have been able to develop innovative solutions and technological disruptions that will help in building an inclusive society and a richer life for all.

We have helped the government machinery in implementing intelligent traffic management solutions through BRT operations across major cities in India and are committed to developing various smart city projects. We are one of the first companies in India to introduce track and trace technology, which has helped in streamlining the container movement across the country and helped in removing the inefficiencies in the fragmented Indian Logistics sector. As a holistic ICT solutions provider, our brand has reinforced its continued leadership in telecom, logistics, transportation and smart cities, thereby ensuring India’s growth by building a new tomorrow’s digital infrastructure. 

Technology has been a great enabler for many organisations this year. Any new innovative products were launched or introduced by NEC India, which benefited the industry?

NEC Corporation India has been transforming businesses and lives in India for the past 70 years. From telecommunications to manufacturing, transportation, logistics, or public safety, we have been a frontrunner in driving digital transformation across sectors. More recently, we facilitated paperless boarding at some of the leading airports in the country to provide a safe and seamless travel experience. We have already implemented this across other countries and are planning to bring some of our global best practices to India.

Furthermore, as part of the safer cities strategy, through our Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC), we assisted various municipal corporations in setting up of centralised COVID-19 war rooms to promote people’s safety. 

There are already some behavioral changes with the consumers. The new normal is going to bring in further changes in the behaviour. How will your technology help to counter the unique challenges and bring in efficiency to manage the customers?

The pandemic has dramatically increased the consumer awareness about technology and its benefits for the businesses. Today, a business leader with a non-technology background truly appreciates how to leverage technology in order to keep his business KPI’s intact. The changing consumer behaviour patterns are here to stay. Earlier, ‘Price’ used to be one of the top parameters for any technology investment decision, but now organisations also consider parameters like stability, compliance, quality, and future-proofing solutions capability for business growth in the ‘New Normal’. Contrary to the traditional Indian belief of ‘cheapest and best’ may not hold true anymore in the technology ecosystem, as most of the matured enterprises are willing to ‘pay a premium for quality’.

As a global leader in integrating IT and network technologies with a legacy of more than 120 years, NEC has witnessed multiple economic cycles. And over the years, we have continued to stay relevant and dedicated to our purpose of contributing to the development of safe and secure societies. Merging technology and human awareness is the most powerful way to maximise the power of human imagination. NEC is striving to do just that by forming ecosystems and co-creating digital solutions that channel AI development into the building of a digitally inclusive society.

We at NEC are committed to using digital technology to help solve problems in the real world. Fortifying the key values of safety, security, efficiency and equality, NEC is now more than determined to use its IT, network and AI expertise to help guide this ‘New Normal’, and accelerate the digital transformation of companies, communities and countries in such a way that will guarantee safe, secure, fair and efficient living for all in a post-COVID-19 world. 

Any new marketing initiatives or product launches in the pipeline? What will be your marketing strategy for this year?

Our rebranding exercise for NEC Corporation India reflects the company’s strong commitment to the country and India’s growing relevance within the NEC Group globally. We are expanding the portfolio and depth of our solutions and services offered in the Indian market through our product innovations efforts and bringing some of our global technology implementation best practices to India. We are truly living by our DNA, giving more preference to social listening and focusing on industry benchmarking as part of our rebranding.

As we move along, we are going to shift our marketing priorities in accordance with the changing buying personas. We will continue to prioritise marketing that will deliver the greatest return to bottomline results. Our focus will be on customer experience, transparent communication, and brand awareness to build trust during these unprecedented times. We would continue to engage in creative storytelling, genuine reputation management, and interactive feedback mechanism. 

What lessons can the marketing fraternity draw from 2020, in your opinion?

Last year has led the industry to critically examine the marketers’ relationship with their customers at an elementary level. Consumers have come to value honesty and empathy during this pandemic. The brands that are most successful are those that make an effort to “be human” and speak to consumers without the sales pitch.

Spends on marketing promotion have no correlation with the desired business outcome for brands anymore. Empathy and agility have been the key takeaways from last year. Brand communication needs to be sensitive to consumer emotions as everyone is facing a different kind of challenge. Consumers are accustomed to easier access to content and transacting online, therefore they would continue to explore and demand online solutions for many of their other needs as well. Hence, every business needs to simplify and reinvent the existing methods of business—both offline and online—and align to the future digital.

The need to obsessively follow data to course-correct plans is critical to emerging stronger. Digital can no longer be the second fiddle. To track the changing needs of the consumers, analytics will be essential for any new marketing strategy that is born in this ‘New Normal’. Existing models will have to be replaced with new behavioural data. 

Three mantras you would like to share with the audience on how to do effective marketing in this new world?

First and foremost, lean on your brand’s DNA and treat your organisation’s purpose as a guiding light. The second is to focus on employee and customer advocacy initiatives. And third is implementing innovative ideas to connect with and serve the ever changing needs of your internal and external customers.

To stick to these mantras, organisations can take an integrated marketing approach, that is, leverage an appropriate marketing mix, including Social Media, In-bound Marketing, Content Strategy, Database marketing, Mobile Marketing-Retargeting, WhatsApp, EDMs, Webinars, etc.

As we step into 2021, marketers must effectively establish human connections, build trust, and demonstrate purpose while being agile. Marketing will play an increasingly important role in how brands talk to their customers and endeavour to bring customers closer to them than ever before.