Marketing Business Education: Searching for Innovation

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Article by: S.S. George
Director, ICMR (IBS Center for Management Research)

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Innovation: The Heart of Marketing

According to Peter Drucker, "Innovation is an economic or social rather than a technical term. It can be defined in demand terms rather than in supply terms, that is, as changing the value and satisfaction obtained from resources by the consumer. to create new and different values and new and different satisfactions, to convert a 'material' into a 'resource,' or to combine existing resources in a new and more productive configuration." Here, innovation has been defined in terms that would be familiar to any marketeer.

Marketing successes that drive top line growth in organizations and expand their markets are not the result of accidents - rather, they are the result of successful innovation in products and/or processes. Such innovation is becoming increasingly necessary for any organization's survival. Innovation is often described as being of two types. Innovation with a capital 'I,' involving high risk, high investment initiatives that significantly impact the organization as a whole; and that with a small 'i,' denoting incremental changes and improvements to products and processes. Both kinds of innovation have a role to play in marketing success.

How can a business school design and market its products innovatively? While any number of choices are available , a few of the more important ones are discussed below.

Look for New Business Models: Understand the Core, Expand the Boundaries

Business schools need not restrict themselves to teaching management concepts. They can - and should - be involved in content development, content dissemination, and research. The same factors that contribute to the strength of India in the areas of IT and IT enabled services - low wages, an educated, English speaking workforce, and so on - can also contribute to the growth of Indian business schools as centers of academic content development and dissemination. How many institutions in India have explored this as an alternate revenue stream?

In the field of research or content development, how many institutions have explored the vast content - much of it free - available on the Internet, including large electronic databases of journals and publications? Are there ways to utilize this content for the benefit of the business school and the academic community as a whole?

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