Marketing Leaders: Interview with Ashish Babu

Watch this exclusive interview with the CMO at Tata Consultancy Services, Europe & UK, Ashish Babu, while he discusses his role as a marketing leader today.

Ashish Babu has worked in a variety of senior marketing roles across different industries for more than two decades. He has held five senior marketing roles in his 14 years at Tata Consultancy Services. 

In an interview with Peter Stojanovic, Ashish provided valuable insights when discussing the core principles of marketing and the role of the B2B marketer today.

The core principles of marketing

Ashish believes we are in the process of an “evolution”. He likened the shift from physical to hybrid working as a sprint, arguing that the company had to think up new experiences to accommodate these new changes. “The virtual world has opened up to another level of evolution where our customers want to be treated differently”, he said. 

In terms of the changes made, Ashish highlighted how people are going into the office less, keeping traveling to a minimum and spending more time online. 

On the other hand, he thinks that as a marketer, things are still fundamentally the same. It’s still about “convincing a customer or a buyer to work with us or partner with us”, according to Ashish. While this is a priority, he wants marketers to get better at understanding their consumer’s needs. This, in his opinion, is a work in progress. 

B2B and B2C experiences

His argument is that we’re not convincing one individual to buy into a marketing strategy - you’re trying to appeal to a whole group of people. Ashish feels that creating opportunities and engaging with people should be a top priority. 

“Create an environment where they can actually meet you”, he commented.

Differences to the marketing role

“Our consumers are changing consistently and they want to be dealt with in a different way”, said Ashish. He argued that with changing customer mindsets, marketers must also make sure they are being consistent and continue to provide them with better experiences. 

Ashish’s advice to marketing leaders is to focus on the human aspect. He pointed out that they are marketing to humans, their “mission” and “passion”. Using every piece of data available about the target audience and consumers is essential for generating an experience that is easy to consume. He commented that “it goes back to the fundamentals”.