What Srihari Gopinath teaches about B2B marketing

Very soon we're going to have a big boom in the way manufacturing is done and how that industry embraces transformation. So we have been working with Hewlett Packard Enterprise on the content marketing part and that's something really interesting in the B2B technology space. A bit about that, I mean your journey there, how do you use content marketing to sort of engage existing as well, talk to potential new clients. So thanks Radha, I think that's an important aspect of the whole B2B marketing and especially in the technology space.

There are a couple of aspects which the way we look at it and the way we evaluate on how content marketing has a role to play. One of the important pillars of taking content forward or how you craft your content strategy for branding or for marketing is on the market maturity. One is, so you need to evaluate how ready is the market to absorb and take the technology or the solution or the message that you have to give. Let me give you an example, right? So the payments industry per se is going through a boom here in the country.

We are far ahead of some of the other markets. And in that space that was possible because you had the environment, the space here was ripe for the adoption of payment systems. So for example, we work with some of the largest banks including, for example, the work that we have done with the State Bank of India. So when they launched their buddy app, which is the mobile wallet, we partnered with them, with the ecosystem of the solution providers there to help them ramp from 0 to 10 million wallets.

For this, what they require is robust infrastructure platforms and ability to partner with leading brands like TCS who are the other incumbents there in SBI. So the point here is after this, how can we take that message to other brands who are in a similar space? So that is where I think branded content becomes really important. So the content that you create, I mean, is this sort of great for sort of brand building or brand awareness purposes? Are you able to sort of actually connect it back to sort of sales conversion?

The relevance of brand and brand building activities is unquestioned, right? You need to have a strong brand if you intend to play in, if you intend to be a long-term player in the B2B space and especially in… At least be in the consideration set. Absolutely. So a brand is a reflection of the values that the company actually stands for, right? And so therefore, from the perspective of content marketing, in the B2B space, more often than not, what we have, you know, our experience is that when customers are successful,

when we can partner with customers in their, you know, in their journeys, helping them overcome challenges, you know, whether it is, you know, whether it is in the banking industry or whether it is in the retail industry or whether it is in manufacturing, right? Those customers then themselves will see the value of, you know, of this partnership. So digital transformation is something that is, of course, taking place across industries.

Many, many sectors are now adopting and figuring out what is the way forward and which is really the right set of technology they should be taking. But in your view, you have been working across industries. Which are the sectors that you feel are lagging behind that really need to sort of view this much more aggressively? And there is a lot of potential savings as well as efficiency, of course. India has now, you know, it is clearly on the path to become one of the countries with the, you know, with the highest number of,

highest number of smartphones, highest number of smartphone subscribers. When they have, when you have that in as the base, then it was a natural progression for the payments industry to kind of latch on to that, saying that now you have an ability to reach this many millions of people, so can they transact? So that was the innovation which happened. At the same time, if you look at industries like manufacturing, right, which are capital intensive. So these are manufacturing plants have been established, they have been running for decades.

It is very difficult to make a change. And shutting down a manufacturing plant. There is a lot of cost involved in making. Yeah. So to modernize those, you know, so to bring those manufacturing industry to, you know, to a point where now you have that ability. You know, industry, you know, there is, you know, there's this whole industry 4.0, which is, you know, which is revolutionizing how manufacturing is done. With the adoption of IoT, with the adoption of better networking technologies.

So we have our Aruba, you know, which is our networking brand and the fastest growing networking brand. And the solution sets that Aruba is partnering with some of the largest manufacturers here in the country. We are able to overcome some of those challenges. So that industry is also catching up. You know, very soon we're going to have a big boom in, you know, in the way manufacturing is done and how that industry embraces transformation.

So really the last question, and a much lighter question out of all this, tell us a bit about Srihari outside of the workplace. So traveling is an important, is important to me and my family. Other than that, you know, sports, any kind of sports is something I like to indulge in. Whether it is football, table tennis, cricket, volleyball. Running is something that I've loved. So you're actively into sports even today? You find the time for it? Yeah, you, yeah. Not as much as you like.

Till recently, yeah, even, you know, football was something that was happening on a weekly basis, but not anymore with an injury now. But hope to get back to it soon.