About Book:

  The nineties have ushered in a new era in the history of the Indian market. The new economic policies, introduced in July 1991, changed the popular perception about the Indian market. The magic of liberalization, apart from withdrawing restrictions or the pledge to remove barriers, created an atmosphere of free-market economy India with a population size of 900 million people with appetite to absorb all Kinds of products and services found a taste of real competition to retain or capture this huge market opportunity. Consequently, marketers now offer a host of products. In any product field, consumers now get a wide choice or options with different connotations of quality. Therefore, the prime issue before the students of marketing management and the practicing managers is how they should cope with this new situation. In other words, everybody is keen to know the nuances of Product Management in the new market environment.

     The feedback I gathered from the users of the first edition of this book invariably show that it served as an excellent text book with theory as well as practical insight into the field of product management in India. However, as the wind of change started blowing all over the Indian market, I found it necessary to revise the book with latest statistics, modify the conceptual part as and when necessary and added a number of products like shampoo, cosmetics, washing machines, lubricants, credit cards etc. which have gained prominence in recent times. Similarly, 1 chose to drop products such as tea, cigarettes, toothpaste, tyres, paper, cement. photocopiers, which have not faced any major new competition in recent times.

The book has been revised to incorporate the new environment created due to major liberalization in the economic policies. While retaining the basic structure of the book the same as before. I have offered current data, made thorough revision in the form of further illustrations and pruned the text at many places.

 The book is organized in three parts. Part I: The Macro Perspective(Chapters 1-3). Chapter 2 highlights the emerging panorama of the Indian market Chapter 2 focuses on the new competition and throws light on selective strategic response from the marketers. These two chapters will acquaint a reader with an overview of the Indian market. Chapter 3 titled “Product Management-A Preview” is a new feature. It tries to show the anatomy of a product, especially that of consumer goods. It examines several characteristics of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and associated strategies adopted by marketers for attaining growth. Moreover, it explores various issues relating to product line management

Part II: Conceptual Issues (Chapters 4-12). Chapters 4-6 cover the theme of branding, segmentation, positioning and differentiation with the help of numerous examples. Chapters 7-11 deal with operational issues like marketing of new products, decisions on distribution channel, advertising planning, pricing concepts, and sales management. At the end a brief coverage is given about the utility of Marketing Research (Chapter 12).

Part III: Product Market Analysis (Chapters 13-26). The Indian t scenario, and key strategies adopted in managing 14 selected products, tame toilet soaps, shampoos, cosmetics, wrist watches, refrigerator, television, wad machines, two-wheelers, passenger cars, lubricants, paints, air-conditioners, per computers and credit cards are discussed. All these product-market analyses consi completely revised material. The book ends with a brief discussion about New Challenges for marketers in India.

I do hope that the new edition of this book would be equally useful to teachers, students and practitioners of marketing. Any constructive feedback to improve the contents of this book would be most welcome.