Mr. Kunal Mehta started his career as a software developer in Weblogics. He was involved in app development for both, mobile apps and web apps. He worked there for a little over a year, and then joined Innovate Solutions again as a software developer. Within the first year of his job there, he moved into Web Analytics project involving implementation and reporting. He was involved with clients like Conrad, Royal Caribbean, Citizen’s Bank Of Canada. Initially, he was involved in reporting and dashboard team, but then he moved into the implementation team to help create Sitecatalyst code that can be deployed on websites to track visitor behavior. He worked as implementation consultant and then led consultant for close to 5 years, and then moved to WNS Global Services as a Deputy Manager in Web Analytics. Right now he is leading a team of 15 analysts, in three different domains, web analytics implementation, campaign execution and data integration, where they merge online and offline data to build statistical models. He is working for 2 top regional banks, and one airline company to build and develop a web analytics practice to understand visitor behavior and improve conversion rates.
Digital Vidya: How did you get into Digital Marketing?
Kunal: When I worked as a web developer, we were always asked to optimize the experience on the basis of behavioral data analyzed through weblogs. It was a tedious job for all of us, since weblogs are extremely difficult to parse, and it doesn’t tell the complete story. At times referrers were unavailable to us, and at times banner ads, and on-site promotional campaigns’s click data was hard to get. This created a need to better analyze the visitor behavior so as to create a website that is more user friendly, more direct to customers, better experience, and thereby increasing conversion rate of various successful events on the website. While finding the solution of the problem, we came across tools like Google Analytics, and Sitecatalyst. And while working on developing solutions with these tools to help our clients, I got introduced to Digital marketing.
To better understand the concept of marketing and sales specially in the online scenario, I did executive management program in Marketing and sales from IIM Lucknow. After completion of my course, I was able to appreciate the importance of marketing as a part of the operations which provides input to every domain, whether that be product, CRM, platform, IT.
Digital Vidya: Why do you think it’s important for entrepreneurs, marketing professionals and students to learn Digital Marketing today?
Kunal: I believe marketing is most misunderstood concepts of management. Most of the time, term marketing is associated with advertising, but advertising is just part of marketing.
The industry has evolved itself from Product industry, to sales industry, and now marketing industry. There was a time when there were not many products available in the market. In 1982, there were only 3 manufacturers of cars, Maruti, Padmini, and Ambassador. Now there are so many manufacturers, and within each company, the product portfolio is huge. Your marketing team touch base with not only your customers, but even prospects, and others who can give valuable insights to you to improve your product, delivery, message, positioning, culture, and ultimately shows improvement in your top line and bottom line.
For example, when Hyundai decided that they want to enter Indian market, they had a car like Esteem in their minds. They wanted to launch a car completing the likes of Maruti 1000, and Cielo. Their marketing team came to India to study the market, and on the basis of their reports, they came to know that it would be disastrous for the company if they launch a car like that. They went back to their drawing board, this time with the insights provided by their marketing teams, and came up with India’s most successful car in its segment, Santro. Not only Santro gave them success, and established Hyundai as the second biggest car manufacturer after Maruti, but it gave them a brand recognition which they built upon and today has multiple successful products in their portfolio. It was only a few years ago that they launched the car they wanted to launch in 1998, Hyundai Verna. And this time their marketing team told them that the time is right, and they were able to launch their projects, though, 12 years late, but highly successful.
The example, stated above clearly showcases the importance of marketing in any organization’s success. Of course, marketing alone can’t make any product successfully, but it does play an important part in the success story.
Digital Vidya: What kind of Digital Marketing training programs / workshops you led at Digital Vidya? Feel free to share any interesting experiences you’ve had while training / workshops at Digital Vidya.
Kunal: I had an opportunity to collaborate with Digital Vidya to train a team at Cognizant, and it was a wonderful experience for me. When I went there, though I was going over there for the first time, but I got the advantage of being associated with Digital Vidya, who had made a reputation with Cognizant, that you provide quality trainings and workshops. This helped me to establish a connect with the team, and carry on with my subjects without any hassle. Digital Vidya also made sure that all logistics are in place, and there is a good coordination among all parties so that no time is wasted and we can focus on learning rather than worrying about logistics.
The complete process, starting from our initial conversations about drafting an agenda, and syllabus, to delivery, everything was done in an immaculate manner, with attention to detail. The professionalism displayed by Digital Vidya in that one stint, definitely made a huge impact on me.
Apart from Digital Vidya, I have provided trainings to teams in my organization, and other organizations since I am one of their certified trainers of Adobe Systems. In total I must have done around 50+ training sessions in last 3 years or so.
Digital Vidya: Please share top 5 takeaways your training participants get out of their participation.
Kunal:
- Technical Knowledge
- Approach to answer client’s questions
- Roadmap to follow while creating detailed and unambiguous reports/implementation documents
- Customer centric approach while building solutions. Business analysts find it hard to understand the expectations and requirements of website visitors. But this is something which is extremely important to understand before we create any report or implementation code.
- Understanding of business objectives. As an analyst the focus should not just be on the questions put form by clients, but also on what are the objectives of the business at large? It is not only about top line and bottom line, there are many checkpoints in the customer journey that business is interested in, or at least should be.
Digital Vidya: What do you like most about training and workshops at Digital Vidya?
Kunal: Their professionalism, attention to detail, collaboration with trainers and organizations, and an extremely devoted team. I have had multiple interactions with Pradeep, Vaidehi, and every time they have been forthcoming in their answers, quick to reply. If at all, I am a lazy person who has taken time to respond, but Digital Vidya has always been up on their toes to help and cooperate to the best of their abilities.
Digital Vidya: Do you suggest any changes to Digital Vidya, so that the value of its courses can be enhanced further?
Kunal: I don’t have a depth of knowledge about Digital Vidya right now, that I can give any kind of a feedback. But I feel that with the kind of focus given on Analytics right now, especially in BFSi domain, which contributes around 20% outsourcing business. Digital Vidya can get an in-house Statistical Analytics expert and probably create a focused course for this domain. Not only it will help Digital Vidya to achieve its organizational goals, but will also help its already existing distinguished clientele to enhance their skills.
Thanks Kunal for your valuable contribution in helping our community, learn and leverage Web Analytics. We appreciate your kind words about the work we are doing at Digital Vidya. We look forward to long term association with you.
Digital Marketing now a days playing a very important role in the field of exploring our business to the people through the country. Its also provides a platform where we can make a bright carrier.