MARCON 2016: International Marketing Conference
By Dr. Sarvjeet Herald & Dr. Poulomi Ganguly, Director of Research, CL Educate
International Marketing Conference MARCON 2016
Dr. Herald was awarded PhD degree by Northumbria University in United Kingdom (2014). He was awarded university prize for scoring a rare unbroken string of A1's in MSc Distributed Systems and Networks by the University of Hertfordshire in United Kingdom (2009). He had also received scholarships from the St. Stephen's College where he completed his undergraduate studies and was awarded BSc degree by University of Delhi in India (2008).
Last week I received opportunity to present the first research output of CL's CRI at the 4th International Marketing Conference MARCON 2016 held in Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. Both, our research poster and presentation were well received by everyone. Our application-oriented research approach of solving real business problem and putting solution in commercial use was highly appreciated by organising committee and attendees from around the world. This differentiated us from other presentations at the conference.
Our research presentation at MARCON 2016 focused on "Creating Efficient B2C Sales Funnel in Education Sector using Personas". Akanksha Paliwal (Marketing) and Darpan Saxena (Academic) carried out this research at CL's Head Office and innovated new method to segregate website leads for developing a robust sales funnel to rapidly convert them into paid customers. They were mentored by Mr. Sujit Bhattacharya and Dr. Sarvjeet Herald. This research work was accepted in September 2016.
The 3-day conference was kick-started by welcome speech from Prof. Saibal Chattopadhyay (Director of IIM Calcutta) followed by Keynote Address by Dr. Avinandan Mukherjee (Dean of College of Business at Clayton University, Atlanta, GA, USA) and Ranjoy Dey (Independent Digital Consultant). They made us aware on how the definition of marketing has shifted from exchange to value creation over the years, cautioned us on the irregular use of the word e-Marketing in practice and encouraged us to approach from a different perspective of marketing in the digital environment.
Dr. Mukherjee and Prof. Pallab Paul (Professor of Marketing at Daniels College of Business, University of Denver, USA), who are also reviewers and editors or various academic journals and have a strong publication portfolio, educated us on "How to Publish in Top-tier Journals". They also discussed on framing research questions, improving research quality and technical writing. It was identified that Indian authors belonging to Indian institutions generally lack originality and clear discussion in the submitted manuscript which leads to rejection from top-tier journals. This can be improved by effective collaboration and rigorous review of manuscript by experts (other than the authors) prior to the submission.
The theme of the conference was "Engagement in the Era of e-Marketing". It was very enlightening to network with leading researchers in marketing field and learn about new developments and innovations on Product, Service and Brand across different cultures and also on Consumer Behaviour and Psychology. Especially, discussions with Dr. Mukherjee and Prof. Paul on important research questions and future research directions which will help us at CL conduct research aligned with the market needs and publish in top-tier international journals.
I would like to thank CL for providing us this opportunity and recognise the innovativeness and hard work of Akanksha and Darpan. Congratulations to all on our success at MARCON 2016.
Reference: Paliwal, A., Saxena, D., Bhattacharyya, S., & Herald, S. (2016). Creating Efficient B2C Sales Funnel in Education Sector Using Personas. MARCON 2016 Proceedings. Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India