Meet Tanweer Alam | next.university
I am proud to publish this article about Tanweer, an honorary Next University student and our Clubhouse speaker. He shares his insights about working with customers and wellness in animal industry.
Work experience
Myself, Tanweer, presently working as Marketing Director in Kemin Industries South Asia.
In my close to 30 years span of professional life, in retrospect, I see that it had been on a roller coaster of fun and learnings. Ironically, I did earn my first sales skill as well as buck while working as a product demonstrator of an Italian automobile company in India in their booth in one of the auto expos! And what a kick it was, to get back home with loads of insights and a few fivers!
Later, I started realizing the power of communication in the selling process and what could have been better to improve the communication at that time, than to don the hat of a stringer and write columns in the newspaper, I thought. And I remember, barging into the cabin of the editor of India’s largest newspaper The Times of India (still remember his name, Uttam Sengupta), and asking him, can I write a column in his newspaper. And don’t know, what made him say, “okay, write a piece on any topic and meet me next week’. And to cut the story short, I was a regular columnist in the same newspaper, and it was a treat to eyes to see my bylines in the morning delivered newspapers.
That really helped me in learning how to conjure thoughts with the right words.
Business and marketing education
I have been tossing my career with sales and marketing in between and quite a good time, managing both. But the interesting part is that both, sales and marketing have a few things in common. The importance of sixth sense in decisions, being street smart in executing and communicating in the language which reaches the target customer in the way it appeals to them most.
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In COVID times, we have understood it clearly. The half-life of conventional knowledge is too short in the rapidly changing business environment. Hence the updating of our knowledge to be in parity with today’s needs is paramount. The drivers of customer requirements are changing. The decision-making process is changing. The factors which influence the buying process is evolving. How come the learning process should not evolve?
Favorite books
As we are seeing a surfeit of digital intervention in marketing and sales process, I happened to gain a lot reading a very interesting book in the past month “Human-Centered Communication: A Business Case Against Digital Pollution” by Than Beute and Stephen Pancinelli.
This work by the authors acknowledges that we’re spending more time than ever in virtual environments. And this is all set to further increase in future. In this context, the viable way forward is to be more thoughtful, intentional, and personal. This book emphasizes that Human-Centered Communication will continue providing a philosophy and practice to help us connect in more meaningful and effective ways with prospects, customers, team members, and every stakeholder for the success in our business objectives and building strong brand trust.
How to stay productive
I often get to hear the context of B2B and B2C business approaches and there might be some technical difference amongst these two, but the DNA of both remains the same. In the end, you are dealing with humans. And keeping this approach has been quite helpful many times. While devising the marketing mix or plan or go-to-market strategy, having this clarity helps. Also, how have we been able to excite our overall team on the purpose is very important. Howsoever creative a plan is, what matters is the immaculate execution for achieving the desired goal. That we all know. But during the process of execution, howsoever drive a leader is having in oneself if the team is not having the complete buy-in, the leader will soon burn out.
#letsbuildwellness in animal industry
In today’s context, it’s not the content that is king. Rather, it’s all about being at right time at the right place with the right content. Obviously, the role of AI and ML is catching up a lot in core marketing. Unlike the conventional marketing approach, AI-based marketing is facilitating the utilization of detailed info on consumer buying patterns and behaviors which can be leveraged very successfully in bringing more success to the marketing plans.
I represent the animal protein production segment and during COVID times, we observed a sizeable positive impact on the consumption pattern of the protein. There was a scientific narrative being built on the strong linkage of good nutrition, protein consumption, and Immunity building. Even the medical professionals were seen strongly advocating the consumption of eggs and chicken to improve immunity. This trend was observed catching momentum and industry initiatives helped in further getting it paced up.
There had been a series of marketing activities carried out by the animal protein industry to come up with further strong messaging and build an interface with the consumers to convey how animal protein consumption and immunity are interrelated. In Kemin as well, we participated in this phenomenon with a series of the campaign was run with the hashtag #letsbuildwellness. The outcome of all the cumulative efforts was a decent growth of the egg, value-added milk, and meat product consumption.
It also fueled the graduation of animal protein products up in the value chain. For a country like India, the consumption market related to animal protein products are largely unorganized, COVID has brought a huge change in customer purchasing and consuming behaviors. The sale of value-added milk products, meat and meat products, more so through eCommerce has been phenomenal. The app-based congregators have mushroomed, and they have been sizably increasing the purchase frequency of the consumers, to begin with, in urban areas.
My contribution in marketing is driven by a simple philosophy of Mark Twain, “The secret of success is getting started”. And in the Marketing domain, I have been getting many opportunities to start afresh!
