In the thumping victory that Narendra Modi has led the BJP to in the Lok Sabha elections lay five critical management lessons on how to succeed.
These are:
1.Positioning:
For any company or endeavour to succeed, it has to offer to the people something new, something that will catch their eye and something that they need. Here, Narendra Modi was already a known factor, but the way he repackaged himself and sold himself to the masses in a brand new package which promised them "better days ahead". Considering the way things have been over the last 10 years, who wouldn't buy that line?
2. Social media management:
This election wasn't fought on the grounds, but on the social media. As part of his campaign policy, he got his party's top leaders to get on to Facebook and Twitter and get in touch with the younger generation. In fact, his social media management went to such heights that an India Today survey found that the internet had become saffron. As they say, he who gets the social media right, gets the cake.
3. Timing:
Modi began his campaign at a time when the common man was feeling the pinch in his wallet and the bite of his ragged shoe which he had run so thin that he could count the cobblestones under his shoe-covered feet. The ad campaigns and the promotional activities that Modi undertook - Chai pe charcha, 3D hologram speeches - connected him to more people than the Congress could ever dream of. By the time the electoral campaigning ended, Modi is said to have met a whopping 234 million voters out of a total 814 million voters.
On Facebook, he had more than 13 million likes and on Twitter, he had more than 3.9 million followers.
4. Communication Strategy:
With a three-month course in PR and image management backed by experts from a PR agency, Modi created some of the most resounding punchlines to back his campaign. Punchlines such as "Janta maaf nahi karegi" and "Ab ki baar Modi sarkaar" caught the imagination of the voters. The two slogans had two different targets. The first slogan was aimed at the oppressed common man who was finding it difficult to make both ends meet with the ever-rising inflation. The second was aimed at the younger generation, a generation of nearly 10 million first-time voters who had got tired of hearing about scams, scandals and what not.
5. SWOT: Usage of Strength/Weakness/Opportunity/Threat
There's nothing like a missed opportunity. Either you get the opportunity and dance on it, or you lose it forever. With the Congress lackadaisical governance at the Centre, Modi saw the opportunity coming his way a long time back and he made the required preparations for it. The Congress went on making blunders while Modi kept on learning from their mistakes and using their mistakes to his and his party's benefit.
The rest, as they say, is history
