Rachit Vats
Marketing

Speed to Market: GM bets on innovation

General Motors believes that speed to market is an artificially created phenomenon, and the marketers themselves are responsible for this

The first half of the Speed to Market seminar organised by agencyfaqs!, in association with ‘Dainik Jagran’ and Hughes, saw some industry stalwarts talk about their experiences. While Lloyd Mathias, director, marketing, Motorola, shared the mobile handset experience, Sanjay Kapoor, managing director, Genesis Colors, talked about the Satya Paul brand, and Anisha Motwani, director, marketing, General Motors, brought in the automobile context.

Motwani pointed out that there had been a 200 per cent increase in vehicle manufacturing over the past decade. From two manufacturers, their number had risen to 22. And the number of models had risen from just two to 72 during this while, she said.

Pointing to her own company, General Motors, she said that Chevrolet was merely four years old in India. However, it had already launched seven models – and each of the models has typically three to four variants.

Speed to Market: GM bets on innovation
Anisha Motwani
Motwani asked some fundamental questions about why this is happening. She found the answer in the way Indians lead their lives.

The pace of life itself is accelerating all the time. Children grow up far faster than they used to. A lot of things about life itself have become fleeting and there is just so much to try out in a world of abundance. This attitude of experimentation is also carried over to products that the consumer buys.

Because the consumer wants something new, marketers are compelled to offer it. However, in the rush to be the first with something new, marketers don’t ask themselves hard enough questions on what the offering actually means to their consumers.

Motwani said that to her mind, the traditional S-shaped lifecycle curve no longer applied. Today

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