Philip Kotler Explains How Marketing Works Best When Married to Innovation

“You know there are companies that are good at one or the other (innovation or marketing). But that is not enough, because if you’re good only at marketing, the problem is customers will change, they will have new wants…you need innovation to prepare new things to meet the same customers needs,” said Prof Philip Kotler, renowned globally as the guru of marketing, during an interactive session organised by the Asian Productivity Organisation (APO).

The APO, a non-profit intergovernmental organisation, has been organising “Productivity Talks” with industry experts of various fields over these past few months for the benefit of its 21 member countries, which includes India. This interactive session had been organised with the aim to explore how innovation can benefit enterprises of all sizes. Prof Kotler while taking into consideration current events, expands on the importance of the aspects of productivity, innovation and marketing while discussing 15 specific cases.

Through examples, such as Kodak’s failure as compared to Fujifilm’s success, Prof Kotler explains the importance of having mass employee involvement and co-creating new products with the customer. He also talks about the need for today’s top management of several companies to work for success, not just in profits but on many other parameters which are equally important.

Professor Kotler is the author of several books, which are widely used as marketing text in business schools worldwide. He has consulted for IBM, General Electric, AT&T, Honeywell, Bank of America, and others in the ares of marketing strategy and planning, marketing organisation and international marketing.