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Profile of Ashwin Merchant: A true entrepreneur and SME family member
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Born in an industrious SME family, Ashwin Merchant is an engineer from VJTI, University of Mumbai with post graduate studies in marketing management. After returning from USA, where he had gone to pursue higher studies, initially he joined family linked business in manufacturing of electrical equipment.
In the first quarter itself he designed and developed first of its kind of solid state battery charger (unique, advanced, not available in India) and demonstrated manufactured product at India International Trade Fair (IITF) in New Delhi under Government of Maharashtra pavilion for SSIs & SMEs. He put in lot of marketing into business of selling a hard core electrical product by designing catalogue which unlike rest, talked about benefits and not just features.
For a 15 day trade fair, to explain product he used tape recorder which played product information to visitors. A nice logo and business cards were designed as marketing tool. Received hundred of enquiries and back in Mumbai seniors were not ready to allocate company typist to reply enquiry.
Ashwin Merchant borrowed money and bought Apple computer than costing Rs.99,000/- a first generation of PC. Used low profiled word processing software and mail merged all enquiries with a single text in less than a week. Surprised by technology assistance and usage for commercial purpose, senior encouraged him to do a business in the area of providing similar services to all those who regularly participate in exhibitions.
And, this gave birth to India's first word processing bureau WORDPLUS Compu-Mark Assistance which was launched at a well known event at Hotel Ambassador in Mumbai. From thousands of square feet of space at the factory, Ashwin Merchant preferred to settle in 200 square feet office in South Mumbai, purchased on rent.
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Changing trends - Marketing & your business
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Ashwin Merchant | 01 Oct, 2009
C
for Change is first of the 3Cs of modern day marketing; other two are
customer and competition. Till yesterday, the SME business was mainly
based on product, price and profit.
Today marketing is the most essential part of any business. What was
important all these years was only to make profit, today with the
change phenomenon so dynamic for local, regional, national and global
market, it's also equally important to make customers, manage
customers, and develop customer loyalty - relationship marketing for
survival and success in long run.
Competition is boundary less. Neighbourhood to new world, from another SME to MNC, it is ever increasing.
SME has the strong point of quick decision making ability which will help them to react immediately towards 3Cs.
(To know more about the author please visit: www.ashwinmerchant.com The author can be contacted at ashwin.merchant@yahoo.com) |
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