Applied Case Studies in Marketing, S. Shajahan, Primus Books.
Swaminathan, Freda Joseph
Applied Case Studies in Marketing, S. Shajahan, Primus Books, New
Delhi, 2011, pages 558, price Rs. 649.
S. Shajahan's book, 'Applied Case Studies in
Marketing', is a fresh new way of handling the concepts of
Marketing-significantly different from the modules set by other authors
of a basic Marketing Management text book, usually as per the format set
by Philip Kotler. The book begins by addressing the marketing challenges
faced by organizations from the year 2008, when the world faced an
economic crisis. The performance of industry in India has been
effectively covered in the first chapter to conclude with the definition
of Marketing and the societal and holistic concepts of Marketing. The
focus of the book seems to be to look at Marketing's role to deal
with the challenges of today's economy.
Shajahan 's book has emerged as quite different from Philip
Kotler's 'Marketing Management'. Kotler discusses the
concepts of consumer and customer behavior for B2C and B2B situations
respectively, after taking the reader through an understanding of
marketing plans, environment and marketing research. S Shajahan however
covers both these situations quite briefly, in one chapter where markets
and customers are profiled. Corporate insights and detailed case studies
makes S Shajahan's book very relevant for the marketing situations
faced by Indian industry. The corporate insights however tend to be
informative rather than decision oriented. The cases also tend to become
time bound, where personality names, years and dates are clearly stated.
Kotler's format that focuses in an elaborate understanding of
marketing concepts and theory, with varied global industry examples,
tends to be minimized because of Shajahan's elaborate information
on Indian cases.
Strategic concepts like SWOT, PEST, ANSOFF Matrix/ GE Matrix, Five
Forces Model and STP marketing are the focus of S Shajahan's book,
while Kotler gives a more elaborate understanding of strategies to deal
with competition, services marketing or the effective use of marketing
tools like the 4 P's. Technology marketing, whether through
Customer Relationship Management, use of Mobile culture, and the overal
technological revolutions in Marketing has been well covered by S
Shajahan. In facta major portion of the book covers these topics, unlike
most introductory books in Marketing. The book is therefore very
contemporary, especially in the Indian marketing context.
Six applied case studies give very detailed account of contemporary
marketing situations faced by Kingfisher versus Jet Airways, the
pressures of HUL, Nokia and the players in the PC, 3G Mobile and Retail
sectors in India. The cases have been handled in an interesting manner,
where in some cases, specific case questions have been answered. For
Post-graduate management studies however, these cases would have been
more useful if it was written in a manner which made students realize
key managerial decision making while identifying the key problem and
understanding the consequences of alternative strategies.
S Shajahan's book would really enlighten both students and
faculty of the core courses of Marketing Management, on how marketing
concepts can be applied to today's business situations. With its
focus on applications, the basic concepts of marketing tends to get
overlooked. This would make instructors reluctant to make it a basic
text book for the Marketing Management course, but could become a text
book for an elective in Marketing Applications or a recommended reading
for many Marketing courses. The book comes with a useful CD that helps
in the better utilization of the book.
Freda Joseph Swaminathan
Professor
FORE School of Management
