It has been 100+ days since India went under lockdown. The country is slowly opening up now. The recent outbreak of the COVID – 19 has caused a tectonic shift in most people’s lives.
WFH is the new norm now, many companies are now willing to extend this facility even after the lockdown is lifted. In our endeavor of bringing our readers views from a wide variety of stakeholders in the industry, Medianews4u spoke to Anoop Karumathil Melethil, Associate Vice President – Marketing, Maveric Systems, started in 2000, Maveric Systems helps global banking and fintech leaders accelerate business transformation through effective integration of domain, technology, future-ready strategy, and high-velocity execution. Our deep focus in banking combined with specialized competencies across Data, Digital, Core Banking, and Quality Engineering, makes us the preferred transformation partner for customers worldwide.
Can you take us through the Maveric’s journey in India?
Maveric Systems was started in 2000, by four friends Ranga Reddy, P Venkatesh, NN Subramanian, and VN Mahesh who had a common dream. The dream to build an organization driven by people, relationships, and transparency that would replicate the atmosphere of passionate learning as seen in an educational institution, coupled with a professional zeal that strives to attain customer success and celebrate it together. The founders also zeroed in on ‘Maveric’ as a name for their organization to suit their radical approach.
Over the last two decades, Maveric Systems has grown to be a technology transformation partner of choice for global and regional banking leaders. We help banking and Fintech leaders drive business transformation through effective integration of domain, technology, future-ready strategy, and high-velocity execution. Our global presence spans across 15 countries with regional delivery capabilities in Bangalore, Chennai, Dubai, London, Mexico, Poland, Riyadh, and Singapore.
What was the strategy or thought behind the brand transformation survey?
Continuous evolution is the key to survival for an organization. The comfort of status-quo provides no safety against a future fraught with seismic changes. Incremental changes to current practices can yield only marginal rewards, but disruptive changes are too risky.
Therefore drastic innovations, de-risked and pragmatized have the ability to address client needs and concerns. The starting point is knowing the client’s business landscape and challenges. Detailed understanding of the key strengths being looked for in a transformation partner, is ideal to arrive at the right brand positioning.
The survey helped us understand that as financial institutions grapple with the challenges of decreasing revenues and increasing costs, the ability to maintain leadership and retain a competitive advantage in a landscape marked by new-age banks and FinTech’s calls for
- Reengineering business models
- Adopting newer technology stacks & platforms
- Integrating with financial technology ecosystem, and
Achieving these at unprecedented speed is the game-changer for effective transformation. In this landscape, the ability to effectively integrate competencies – domain & technology, strategy, and execution is the expectation of a true transformation partner. This finding helped us arrive at our promise of ’Accelerate Next’ – the ability to accelerate transformation initiatives across data, digital, core banking, and quality engineering.
How do you think the Communication Strategy for Brands will change post-COVID-19?
With the current pandemic spread across the globe, communication strategies for brands have already begun to change in the way they are thought and executed.
It has become imperative for organizations to adopt an agile marketing strategy that is driven by the ability to quickly change tactics, align to the new reality, and innovate based on what works best.
The new normal in communication will be frequent and consistent empathetic connect with stakeholders. Delivery readiness and commitment to customer success will drive the bulk of messaging, with the focus of narrative being as much on maintaining the strength of the relationship as on being a trusted partner who can stand with, by and alongside the customer.
Data-led marketing campaigns through analysis of customer personas based on past transaction history and multi-channel buying behavior will be more prominent. There will also be an emphasis on drip campaigns aimed at consistent brand awareness so that organizations are more ready for active marketing when situation rebounds.
What will be the New Normal for B2B marketers and what are the tools they are adapting during this crisis?
We must live with COVID-19 now so adapting the new normal will be a little difficult for everyone but with new strategies and processes in place, everyone will sail through.
The new normal for B2B marketers will visualize a drastic change. We believe we are at a digital inflection point, where B2B marketing operations going forward will look organically different from what they were before the pandemic situation across the globe. Tradeshows that are an integral part of a B2B marketing channel are being replaced by virtual networking events, which had very few takers before COVID-19.
Media such as podcasts, webinars, live streaming will continue to increase as part of the marketing mix. Similarly, email campaigns will continue to see traction and deliver good success so will influencer marketing. The importance of online and social channels in the marketing mix has been increasing and will continue to do so.
What is the outlook of B2B Marketing?
The untimely spread of the coronavirus across the globe is no exception for anyone. The marketers around the world are starting to review, change, and follow new strategies in an effort to adapt.
We have already witnessed a shift from physical to digital branding and the budgets will be reallocated to digital branding.
Technology has been playing an important role and lately, many B2B marketers have realized that increasing budget in the online sphere helps in bringing a quick turn-up in their respective businesses. The future of the CMO is the CMTO.
