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pCommerce: Why to BRAND your offer?

When Commerce around people become the next big thing, be the big fish there.

pCommerce: Why to BRAND your offer?

Thursday April 20, 2017,

3 min Read

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‘Human Capital’, we hear this word quite often, is this only the economic value of an employee’s skill set? The world renowned economist Theodore Schultz when he coined the term ‘human capital’, believed like any other type of capital; it could be invested in through education, training and enhanced benefits that can drive the economy. This underlines the fact that human capital is instrumental for any organisation’s success as any organisation is as good as its people.

As being one of the major stakeholders in the pCommerce space, recruiters always look for a reliable resource (a brand) which they can bank upon, just like someone looking at a Dell, HP or an Apple while buying a laptop. How to build such a brand for the people-commerce is the next big question. All the education institutes and the skill development centres round the globe aspires to be one with such a brand recall.

So what makes and educational institution place a notch higher than its competitors? Without any second thought it would be the educational experience they have to offer, and this experience offer comes with a price (fee) associated with it. Price (fee), quality, image and services all these augments to the brand equity of an institute. Ultimately the valued of the brand is defined by those who are being served. One of the most widely used strategy for developing a brand is to make and deliver unique promises. Some of them can be:

• The first thumb rule would be to state the truth always, as in today’s tech-savvy era, anyone can find out whether what the institution is saying is real or just a bland tag line. Evidence based claims and promotional statements can thus give that credibility to the institution which aspirants and other stakeholders seek. In the long run this would supplement the growth of the establishment as the satisfied students will have a personal interest in helping to grow the reputation of their Alma mater.

• Symbiotic associations with industry and other institutions can work quite well for both the students and faculty. The exchange of ideas and exposure to a much more comprehensive perspective would help in developing a “beyond syllabus” content for the curriculum.

• Focusing on faculty mentoring with some form of alignment designed to accustom them with institutional mission, policies, procedures and culture. This would make things clear in the minds of the faculty on what the institution as a brand demands and what he/she can deliver in such terms.

• Promoting quality research; Harvard, Stanford and Oxford Universities earned their reputation through their research outputs as these are critical to the economic and social development of the society.

• Alumni are the biggest assets and the real interface with corporate for an institute. Networking is the order of the day. This can help in leveraging assorted basket of companies and would ultimately prove brand's acceptance cutting across diverse sectors.

As reinstated by the term PCommerce, people are just like any other marketable entity and the branding can be done on the lines of POD and POP of the institution creating the same. Rachit Jain, CEO of Youth4work, “What helped e-commerce platform to leapfrog the ‘brick and mortar’ stores is obviously the convenience and kind of experience it delivers to user, bringing everything to your fingertips through few mouse clicks. If the same thing emulated pCommerce would be the next big thing, bringing technology to the forefront. Showcasing the product (the people) to the needy in the most convenient way they demand, putting data intelligence to practice would be one thing which can push this industry to leaps and bounds.”