BIMTECH's 6th Indian Marketing Summit Held On 27th & 28th April A Huge Success

Online, May 8, 2012 (Newswire.com) - The 6th Indian Marketing Summit (IMS), jointly organized by The Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH), The Academy of Indian Marketing (AIM) and The American Marketing Association (AMA) at India International Centre, New Delhi on April 27/28, proved to be a huge success. The theme of this year's summit was 'Marketing for Not-for-Profit Organizations in Emerging Markets.' Many of the speakers emphasized the need to use traditional and digital marketing tools to reach a wider audience and, in turn, generate support and revenue for their social causes.

Gurjeet, who runs a not-for-profit organization in Chandigarh, thinks marketing for not-for-profit organizations in emerging markets is an urgent need. Resources are hard to come by, but whenever she talks of generating funds through marketing, many disagree. She came all the way from Chandigarh to attend the 6th Indian Marketing Summit as it openly discussed the hitherto taboo idea of generating revenue through marketing in the not-for-profit sector, better known as the NGO sector in India.

She was happy to see all the speakers and participants believed that in order to survive and be sustainable, not-for-profit organizations should embrace marketing techniques while concentrating on making a social and environmental impact.

"The corporate sector is largely concerned about profit, but not-for profit organizations work for marginalized sections of society. The current global political and economic turmoil highlights the fact that the private sector and governments have, to a large extent, failed to meet the aspirations of the masses. To fill this vacuum, many civil societies have come into existence and the not-for-profit sector is one of them. But, in order to make a bigger impact, the social sector should adopt techniques that would help achieve financial sustainability. Effective marketing can play a key role in achieving this," says Dr. H. Chaturvedi, Director, BIMTECH.


BIMTECH, living up to its motto - Excellence With Values - organized the 6th Indian Marketing Summit (IMS) on April 27 and 28 at India International Centre, New Delhi. IMS provided an opportunity to bring the best national and international talent together with leading organizations from the not-for-profit sector. This timely summit helped to gain an insight into the challenges being faced by this sector and how effectively incorporating traditional and digital marketing techniques would help maintain positive financial viability.

"You need to be visible and known in order to attract grants and donations. You must make people understand how your efforts can bring about change in society. Be visible. Be known. People must know why they can put their faith in you," advised Dr. Jagdish Sheth, Founder, AIM.

But, before you go out and ask for support, be sure you know your product well, warned Bill Toliver, Executive Director of The Matale Line. "A good marketing campaign can kill a bad product,"

Trust of the masses in the not-for-profit sector is of utmost importance. "If your efforts are genuine and directed towards the betterment of society, go out and ask for support, generate revenue. When you are financially sound, you can widen your reach and in turn help many more people," said Cynthia Round, Executive Vice-President, Brand Leadership, United Way Worldwide.
All the speakers stressed on the role of the Internet in providing easy access to the masses. Power of the social media can and must be properly harnessed to make oneself known and instantly reach out to a wider audience.

The two-day summit was divided into five sessions. During the inaugural session Mr. Alok Bharadwaj, Senior Vice-President, Canon India was felicitated. being honoured with the Bimtech Award for "Outstanding Global Mamger" for having contributed substantially to the World's Best Management Pratices" . The first day also saw the launch of the BIMTECH Journal 'Business Plus Markets'.

Editor's Choice, a special session on day one, saw social entrepreneurs sharing their success stories and the challenges they surmount every day in order to remain in business.

Finally, at the end of day two, in response to queries from the audience about what could be done about establishing a permanent forum for exchange of ideas, and actualizing steps to attend to the issues raised in the Summit, Dr Chaturvedi, Director BIMTECH announced that BIMTECH would take the lead in establishing a Centre for Social Enterprise.

Speakers at the summit included prominent names such as Pradeep Kashyap, Founder, MART; Ian Correa, Hope Foundation; Sankar Dutta, Basix India; Tim Schotman, Chief Global Officer, Sightlife; Anshu Gupta, Goonj; Jessie Paul, CEO, Paul Writer Strategic Services and Saloni Malhotra from Desi Crew.

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