Dear Friends & Fellow Visionaries, Ask what marketing means to ten people, and you will get ten different answers. However, a common theme bandied about in marketing is the impending and necessary shift towards more conscientious marketing. Professor Dr. Philip Kotler, whose book is the default reference for marketing students worldwide, once said that “marketing has evolved to be not only product-centered but customer-centered”. To build on this idea, one turns to Peter Drucker, yet another leader in the world of marketing who said that marketing is to “know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself”. The World Marketing Summit Malaysia 2013 (WMS 2013) is the culmination of Professor Kotler’s life’s work to turn marketing into a service unto society. Its inaugural Summit was held in Dhaka in March last year. In 2013, Putrajaya International Convention Centre will have honour of playing host to the second edition, where a plethora of subject matter experts will converge into Malaysia to discuss various societal challenges. These agents of change are on a mission to redevelop the marketing psyche to adopt communal, national and global perspectives that will translated into action towards achieving the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs that frame this Summit are comprised of development goals that 189 United Nations member states and more than 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by year 2015. The raison d’etre of the these MDGs are to advance an individual’s capabilities towards living a productive life regardless of their nationality. These MDGs transcend borders and the platform of the Summit aims to help participants work out how to tailor these goals to their country’s needs, as they vary considerably. Indeed, the Speakers who will be imparting their insight and foresight into these goals do so from years of experience, years of working the soil to produce good fruit. These are the ones who have been on the ground, interacting with stakeholders and whose lay of the land has been made keen and astute due to a multitude of trials and tribulations. Let us sample a few select choices from this palette of erudite Speakers. In the matter of Eradicating Extreme Poverty and Hunger (MDG1), for example, Keynote Speaker, Sara I Mohamed, CEO of Al Bashayer Investment Co., UAE, voted twice as Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Arab will take the floor and speak of Eradicating Poverty Through Impact Investment – and here is a woman who once said that, “Religion doesn’t stop us from what we want to do with our current careers and self-development. As long as we’re ethical and follow Islamic principles, which I understand to be the same basic principles as any religion, then women can accomplish success”. And how would she know? She currently manages an extreme successful Company with average 34% annual growth and with a ROE above 100%. Or consider the case of Dr. Ashok Khosla, Founder, Development Alternatives Group (DAG), India, Nobel Prize winner for Environment, who will be speaking about the importance of Achieving Universal Primary Educations (MDG2) in the thrust to save planet earth. This gentleman is today’s most leading, visionary and knowledgeable environmentalist and he is Co-Chair of the UN’s International Resource Panel. He is also the World’s first Social Enterprise DAG that has had impact on more than 80 million people lives. He is also Vice-Chair of Zeri, Member of the China Council and so forth. Together with Professor Roger Revelle at Harvard he discovered the correlation between population growth and climate change in 1963 and they created the world’s first environmental course wher Al Gore was one of the students. Adding to our list of Philanthropy heavyweights is Sanjit “Bunker” Roy, the founder of Barefoot College, voted by Times Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. The College is a 40 year old community based organization who is a great believer in the bottom up approach. He believes the MDGs are doomed to fail if the global poor earning less than $1/day are not consulted or involved in the decision making process. The top down approach has failed. The barefoot model of demystifying technology and empowering illiterate rural women in the process of decentralizing decision making process has so far spread to 54 of the least developed countries. He will be speaking on the 3rd MDG on Promote Gender Equality and Empowering Women. The Barefoot College believes in the lifestyle and workstyle of Mahatma Ghandhi stressing on the power, relevance, importance and urgency of inclusion, involvement, simplicity, compassion, tolerance and trust to bring lasting sustainable change in society. On MDG 4 – Reduce child mortality and MDG 5 – Improving maternal health, we have France’s icon and hero, Minister Dr. Bernard Kouchner. He was once described as such “Kouchner was never a humble man; in fact, it is easy to accuse him of being ambitious. When others would not have gone to places, he did, and spoke whatever he wanted about it. He forgot pleasantries, forgot pleasing everyone, and stuck to his morals, to the point that his own party fights with him. He is an almost no sense a perfect man. However, despite all this, he has saved countless lives, become a very popular (if radical) figure in his home country, gotten married and had four children, and created what has now become common sense: the fact that when people are in trouble, it is our duty to help them out no matter what”. Nelson Mandela once whispered to him , “Thanks for intervening in matters that don’t concern you”. Here is a man that famously said “We had to act. As doctor and as chief administrator of Kosovo, I would be derelict if I let this threat to the health of children and pregnant women continue for one more day”. As Founder and first President of Doctors Without Borders, Kouchner has led medical relief teams into the worst disaster areas and bloodiest war zones of our times, often defying ruthless armed combatants, to offer aid to the suffering victims without regard to their politics. This humanitarian breaks taboos and reveals matters that render us sleepless. Faced with globalized inhumanity burning the 21st century, he is introducing a new humanism without geographical or political borders. He does it not to open the gates of paradise, but to bolt the gates of hell. And that…is what makes him a hero. Closer to home (for Malaysian), we are honoured to have an elderly statesman, Yang Amat Berbahagia Tun Musa Hitam, 5th Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia. To many, Tun Musa hasn’t aged. There is an old world of charm to his mannerisms, a refinement that one sees only in the gentlemen politicians of the old. These days, Tun is spry corporate man and is still very well sought after for his views on politics and trade. Tun will be speaking on MDG 8 - Global Partnership for Development. Having served between 1990 - 1991 as Malaysia’s Special Envoy to the UN and since 1995 as Prime Minister’s Special Envoy to the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG); lead Malaysian delegation to the UN Commission on Human Rights from 1993 – 1998 and chaired the 52nd Session of the Commission in 1995, makes Tun most apt to lead the discussion. Tun is currently the Chairman of World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) Foundation. His pet subjects are empowerment of women and the training of youth, which he pursues with zeal in his position which he has held since its inception in 2004. Indeed, Malaysia will be fortunate to be at the forefront of the marketing paradigm shift with the involvement of these few and other visionaries that will make an appearance at the Summit; fortunate, for Malaysia will be there to greet a new shift in the world of marketing. For more information, please visit our website wmsmalaysia.org.
Posted on: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 09:17:31 +0000
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