Professor Rajagopal
Mexico
rajagopa
Dr. Rajagopal has contributed to the existing literature on various concepts related to marketing education, through his papers published in refereed international journals. His contributions to the theories of marketing include cognitive perspectives of consumers and functional factors in marketing. Dr. Rajagopal has contributed new concepts towards consumer behavior, brand management, selling process and marketing strategies.Here is the brief discussion on his theoretical contributions:
Dr. Rajagopal in his book "Consumer Behavior:Global Shifts and Local Effects", has discussed the new concepts around eleven Ps comprising product, price, place, promotion, packaging, pace (perceived competitive dynamics), people (front liners), performance, psycho-dynamics (word-of-mouth, social networking and grapevine effect), posture (personality, brand image, corporate reputation and trust), and proliferation. He argues that these factors actively influence consumer buying decisions. Hence, firms should build the customer value in reference to all P-factors for long term competitive advantage in the marketplace. View Model
Increasing competition in the global marketplace has put forth several issues for emerging firms to sustain their business. The local firms in the region face the higher threat for survival along the larger and stronger firms. Such firm constantly suffer from the dilemma on whether and how to compete or alternative how to lean towards merger with potential firms. Aflie Kohn has also addressed this issue in him book "No contest: A case against competition" published by Houghton Mifflin, 1992. Dr. Rajagopal has developed a theoretical construct on both competition and cooperation, that local firms face amidst growing competition. This model has been the guiding tool towards offering management training to SMEs in developing countries. View Model
Customer portfolio management has emerged as an important tool for designing market segments and competitive strategies for emerging firms. Many management thinkers notable Cunningham, Fiocca, Shapiro, Krapfel, Sheth, and Zolkiewski had developed theories on customer relationship and portfolio management during 1982-2000. Dr. Rajagopal along with Sanchez R., upon reviewing the previewing the previous theories, have developed market environment related and value based customer portfolio management models as an extension to those models formulated earlier. The customer portfolio models of Rajagopal and Sanchez have also been examined in various research studies conducted since 2003. View Models
Dr. Rajagopal has made substantial contributions towards brand management notably on brand architecture, brand life cycle, brand score card and brand performance. His contribution on brand metrics as a tool to measure performance of the brand has won the Highly Commended Award of Emerald Literati Network (Emerald Journal Publishers) in 2009. Dr. Rajagopal has discussed the concept of 5As, which constitute appraisal, awareness, acquaintance, association, and allegiance for measuring effectiveness of the brand. He has also developed a taxonomy of less known brand stratification comprising of analogues brands, agitating brands and tensile brands. Such theoretical frame work in brand management is considered as a significant contribution to the literature.
The bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) concept has emerged as a new school of thought in business management founded by Professors C K Prahalad, Garry Hamel, and other contemporary to them. They focused on the concept the also consumers with low per capita income who are at the bottom of the pyramid of socio-economic strata should have the opportunity of buying global brands. Dr. Rajagopal has developed a model illustrating the management of brands at the bottom of the pyramid segment. This is a pioneering contribution on branding in the context of bottom of the pyramid management thinking. View Model
Dr. Rajagopal has given many new insights in brand management. The concept of Brand Gravity has been developed by him as a new paradigm that guides the manager to position a brand with competitive advantage. Rajagopal has argued that brands can become far better guides to consumers' future purchases if appropriately designed and positioned in the marketplace to drive consumer pull as a gravity factor. He has categorized brand gravity into vertical and horizontal thrusts that affects the brand performance as well as consumer perceptions on associating with the brand. The vertical thrust of the brands is supported by the luxury concepts,breakthrough technology, unique selling proposition and high brand equity while horizontal trust of brand can be created by the companies through point of sales promotion despite apparent risk in acquiring and retaining customers. This concept has also been identified as Brand G-Force . The concept of brand gravity is new to marketing literature.
Peter Drucker, first proposed the metaphor of the manager as a symphony conductor and argued that each institution of society, including business, must pursue its specialized function in the same way that each player in an orchestra must play his part.
Professor Rajagopal has elaborated the metaphor given by Drucker in his conceptual paper published in Journal of Transnational Management has developed the Symphony Paradigm to contribute to art of management of firms engaged in manufacturing and marketing by guiding integrated interaction in their planning, communication and management strategies to ensure sustainable growth and competitive advantage in the marketplace. The Symphony Paradigm explains that the role players in an organization function on three different platforms- Front stage, Center Stage, and Back Stage. The symphony paradigm allows firms to integrate multiple tasks in marketing strategy administration and control in order to improve the managerial efficiency and performance of the business firm. Often in a competitive marketplace, it is impossible for firms to predict market situations clearly ex-ante (before the strategy implementation) because of the opportunistic behaviors of competing firms in the absence of effective governance. The symphony paradigm explains that managers can develop relational platforms for effective interactions among various levels of development of marketing strategies. The model exhibited in the Figure illustrates that behavioral and managerial determinants provide a framework of contextual variables and relational characteristics that need to be considered in corporate efforts to control market opportunism.
Speaking on new ideas
Dr. Rajagopal has given many new insights in brand management. The concept of Brand Gravity has been developed by him as a new paradigm that guides the manager to position a brand with competitive advantage.
Conceptual Model of Brand Thrust under Brand Gravity
Dr. Rajagopal addressing his theoretical contributions in the International Conference on Business Growth in Emerging Markets held at Institute of Public Enterprise, Hyderabad during December 15-16, 2011
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Professor Rajagopal
Mexico
rajagopa