Folly of Measuring, Evaluating and then Consulting

I have recently attended a presentation by a brand consultant who graduated from a highly ranked western Business School and during the presentation boasted on his decision to decide working in Asia where he can work actively to spur growth of Asian Brands into “successful” brands like Nike and Apple. He started the presentation with a note emphasizing on scarcity of leading Asian brands among fortune 500 list and counted a few “successful” Asian brands like Samsung and Sony to highlight the dearth of similar brands in Asia.

This presentation was organized as a part of Marketing Management course for MBA students and MDM (Master in Development Management) students were invited as guests. Sitting in the last row helped me not only in listening and thinking about presentation but also in observing the happenings in room during the presentation. I like last row as a teacher (as opposed to first row that disconnects one from all who are sitting behind).

As an academic (who are generally blamed as having lack of practical knowledge and wit for applying theories), I was wondering on the premises and frameworks of the consultant. I carefully concentrated on his hypotheses, theories and models he was using in his arguments. (Actually, academics are not inexperienced in practice, but they love to analyze all aspects of theories and practice with critical perspectives and persons like me love to do that as compared to just start applying anything blindly or in haste!)

The reason I have emphasized on the term success in the first paragraph of this writing is to highlight it because this term was the yardstick of all the premises and keystone of frameworks used by the consultant. For the argument that Asian brands are not as successful as western brands, we need to first ask the question – What is the meaning of success? We tend to forget the context due to influence of “seemingly successful” theories and examples from west who created lists like fortune 500 and hundreds of theories in marketing and business management using their own context and perspectives.

One point that I like in the initial part of his presentation is about habit of Asians to consider anything originated from west as ‘superior’ to Asian products. And, this seems to be true. Expanding it further, we Asians have also started liking and using the western ideas, theories and perspectives while forgetting our context. That’s why, the yardstick “success” that may be seen as an outcome is easily adopted by Asians as a valid criteria of measurement too.

After the presentation, I was expecting that at least one student will ask about the meaning of “success” as implied by the presenter. As Asians, do we really think that being in Fortune 500 list is the only “success” for the brand? A brand like Creative that produced portable music system (like ipod) was compared during the presentation with Apple. Creative was labelled as a failure against Apple because the whole world is aware about ipod (even I wrote “music system like ipod” in the previous sentence). I was wondering what might happen if companies like Creative become like Apple. (Well, this assumption is already faulty because I have ignored the context already. Apple is situated in US with particular setting of geography, economics, politics, technology, culture and demographics and Creative is situated in another setting. But for the time being like the consultant did, let us forget the context foe some time). If Creative becomes Apple, there will be an impact on all its operational costs that includes marketing operations. It may lead to increase in price of the products by Creative. Now, we need to ask, are the target markets of Creative and Apple products same? How many of those who purchase Creative products will ever purchase an Apple product or vice-versa? We know the answer. If Creative becomes Apple, who will become Creative? And if there is no Creative, how will their target markets get the products? One may argue that any other company may become Creative after seeing the gap in market. But, then that company may be measured against Creative or Apple and another consultant may try to justify the failure of that company of not being able to act like Creative. Are you able to see the loop? And, this indicates the folly of consultants and many practitioners.

In addition, a major chunk of business men in Asia and Asian managers are already exposed to western theories and frameworks which are considered universal. I doubt about the existence of anything as “universal” except the term itself. Management is about knowing the context first. We also teach our students the importance of External and Internal analyses. And, I always emphasize that internal analyses is as important as external analyses. It means the peculiarities of a company, culture of the community and environment of the setting where the company is situated is of utmost importance.

The moment we forget the context and start measuring the actions and results on a criteria that seems ‘universal’ like being in Fortune 500, we get diverted from the reality. Why businesses exist? To be in Fortune 500? Why brands exist? To be in Fortune 500? Or, being in any list like Fortune 500 is a byproduct? And, why only Fortune 500? Why not Social 500? Environmental 500? Caring 500? Employer 500? Sustainable 500? Innovative 500? (It is another argument when we discuss why all the companies in Fortune 500 do not remain consistently there).

One can argue that all the lists suggested above will lead to financial success ultimately. The folly of this argument is the thinking that ultimate destination/success is the financial success. And, this leads to definition of “success”. Is there any universal definition of success? Do Asian Businesses strive to be financially success in the same manner as western businesses? These led to further questions in my mind when I was listening the presentation.

As an academic I was questioning his premises and frameworks and at the same time some research questions were being developed inside my academic brain. For many practitioners, the presentation was great and was very insightful. Well, it was insightful for me too, but in another way – how a practitioner – a consultant from west is trying to convince Asian businesses about the measurement of success of Asian brands based on western concepts of Brand Equity and inclusion in Fortune 500 list. And, he has been successful up to some extent. He was able to influence most of the young minds of MBA students and most of the application oriented minds of practice oriented faculty members, but I noticed the discomfort among MDM students during the presentation (II could notice them because I was sitting in back). For my academic mind, if arguments lack context and the so called management frameworks do not include basic conceptual nuances in such a manner that it immediately becomes applicable to the field of “Management” as such that can be applied to fields like managing the society, managing the family, managing the community and managing the business, it starts escaping from my whole hearted and brained acceptance. And, this may also explain the reason that MDM students were not able to relate to the presentation much.

Do we have alternatives? May be not much. I was influenced with some points in presentation. How much it is important to “Care why”, as compared to “Know what” “Know how” and “Know why” in a job. The problem is this “Care Why” is missing from management education among Asians. As mentioned by the presenter, we accept western products blindly. Yes, we have been accepting western management ideas and frameworks blindly. And this will continue unless there are academics and teachers enough in number who start caring why - questioning, analyze theories critically and developing the students capability to emphasize on context, different perspectives in depth, and let them construct their own learning while building their own models and frameworks. I doubt we are doing this in Asia. But, west have been successful in doing this and that’ why we prefer to read Porter and not the work of Sun Tzu. And, there may not be any harm in this in a long run. We are already moving to era of convergence where our views and ideas are also converging to the dominant views and ideas. But, there will always be an “academic” sitting in the last row of presentations wondering on ideas of presenter, critically analyzing arguments and highlighting follies later.