Leveraging one's captive customer database for insights

In the course of building a business, one typically creates a database of customers and prospects. If one agrees that insights are not just important but also critical for creating winning business strategies, then the captive database that a company has nurtured over a period of time is a veritable source of customer insights. 

That said, it is not unusual to find companies - in both consumer and B2B space - not striving to leverage this source for insights. 

Let's take the example of a Bank. In my family, we have relationships with 6 Banks in all - ranging from a relationship of 2 years to over 25 years. This list has 3 foreign Banks, 1 Indian private Bank and 2 Indian public Banks. So far, we have not received a single invitation from any of the Banks to provide them inputs on any facet of their service. To be fair, one Bank does throw up a survey link on its website but none of the other Banks have even tried to engage with any of us in my family. 

Why tech start-ups should outsource marketing

One of the biggest positives one sees in the growth of India's tech-knowledge economy is the rise in entrepreneurial intent among today's professionals, in technology, mobile or Internet space. And typically, my observation has been that most of the technology based start-ups are started by entrepreneurs with technology skills as getting one's own hands dirty is a great way to become an entrepreneur.

One has had an opportunity to meet with scores of founders of tech start-ups in the last few months and most of them have voiced very similar challenges relating to marketing - "what should our marketing strategy be and what kind of a person one should hire to spearhead our marketing".

My advice to a tech start-ups - "time your marketing hiring".