Rajagopal (professor)

Rajagopal is a Professor of Marketing at the EGADE Business School. He teaches various topics of marketing in undergraduate, graduate, doctoral and executive development programs at the institute.

He is Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce, London and Fellow of Institute of operations management and Fellow of Chartered Management Institute. He holds doctoral degree from Pandit Ravishankar Shukla University, India.

Rajagopal has held key positions in many premier management institutes in India including Institute of Rural Management Anand and Administrative Staff College of India. .

Honors and awards

 * Article entitled "Measuring brand performance through metrics application" authored by Rajagopal which is published in the international refereed journal "Measuring Business Excellence " has been chosen as a Highly Commended Award Winner at the Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2009. This award is instituted by the Emerald Group Publishing company and Editorial Team nominates what they believe has been that title’s Outstanding Paper and up to three Highly Commended Papers from the previous 12 months.
 * Outstanding Conference Award conferred by the Business and Economics Society International, Worcester, MA USA in the annual conference of the society at Lugano, Switzerland during July 15–19, 2009.
 * Conferred the honor of Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce, London, w. e. f.  September 20, 2006
 * British Council Fellowship through Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, 1994
 * Doctoral Fellowship of Indian Council of Social Science Research, Government of India, 1983
 * Doctoral Fellowship, Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of India, 1980–82
 * National Merit Scholarship- Ministry of Education, Government of India, 1977–79

Theoretical Contributions
Dr. Rajagopal in his book "Consumer Behavior:Global Shifts and Local Effects", has discussed the new concepts around eleven Ps: product, price, place, promotion, packaging, pace (perceived competitive dynamics), people (front liners), performance, psychodynamics (word of mouth, social networking and grapevine effect), posture (personality, brand image, corporate reputation and trust), and proliferation. He argues that these factors actively influence consumer buying decisions. Hence, firms should build the customer value in reference to all P-factors for long term competitive advantage in the marketplace. Customer portfolio management has emerged as an important tool for designing market segmentation and competitive strategies for emerging firms. Many management thinkers notable Cunningham, Fiocca, Shapiro, Krapfel, Sheth, and Zolkiewski had developed theories on customer relationship and portfolio management during 1982-2000. Dr. Rajagopal along with Sanchez R., upon reviewing the previewing the previous theories, have developed market environment related and value based customer portfolio management models as an extension to those models formulated earlier. The customer portfolio models of Rajagopal and Sanchez have also been examined in various research studies conducted since 2003.

Increasing competition in the global marketplace has put forth several issues for emerging firms to sustain their business. The local firms in the region face the higher threat for survival along the larger and stronger firms. Such firm constantly suffer from the dilemma on whether and how to compete or alternative how to lean towards merger with potential firms. Aflie Kohn has also addressed this issue in him book "No contest: A case against competition" published by Houghton Mifflin, 1992. Dr. Rajagopal has developed a theoretical construct on both competition and cooperation, that local firms face amidst growing competition. This model has been the guiding tool towards offering management training to SMEs in developing countries. Dr. Rajagopal has made substantial contributions towards brand management notably on brand architecture, brand life cycle, brand score card and brand performance. His contribution on brand metrics as a tool to measure performance of the brand has won the Highly Commended Award of Emerald Literati Network (Emerald Publishing Group) in 2009. Dr. Rajagopal has discussed the concept of 5As, which constitute appraisal, awareness, acquaintance, association, and allegiance for measuring  effectiveness of the brand. He has also developed a taxonomy of less known brand stratification consisting of analogues brands, agitating brands and tensile brands. Such theoretical frame work in brand management is considered as a significant contribution to the literature. He has also developed a taxonomy of less known brand stratification consisting of analogues brands, agitating brands and tensile brands. Such theoretical frame work in brand management is considered as a significant contribution to the literature. The bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) concept has emerged as a new school of thought in business management founded by Professors C K Prahalad, Garry Hamel, and other contemporary to them. They focused on the concept the also consumers with low per capita income who are at the bottom of the pyramid of socio-economic strata should have the opportunity of buying global brands. Dr. Rajagopal has developed a model illustrating the management of brands at the bottom of the pyramid segment. This is a pioneering contribution on branding in the context of bottom of the pyramid management thinking.

New Insights
Brand Gravity

Dr. Rajagopal has given many new insights in brand management. The concept of Brand Gravity has been developed by him as a new paradigm that guides the manager to position a brand with competitive advantage. Rajagopal has argued that brands can become far better guides to consumers' future purchases if appropriately designed and positioned in the marketplace to drive consumer pull as a gravity factor. He has categorized brand gravity into vertical and horizontal thrusts that affects the brand performance as well as consumer perceptions on associating with the brand. The vertical thrust of the brands is supported by the luxury concepts, breakthrough technology, unique selling proposition and high brand equity while horizontal trust of brand can be created by the companies through point of sales promotion despite apparent risks in acquiring and retaining customers. This concept has also been identified as Brand G-Force. The concept of brand gravity is new to marketing literature.

Symphony Paradigm in Management

Peter Drucker, first proposed the metaphor of the manager as a symphony conductor and argued that each institution of society, including business, must pursue its specialized function in the same way that each player in an orchestra must play his part. Professor Rajagopal has elaborated the metaphor given by Drucker in his conceptual paper published in Journal of Transnational Management has developed the Symphony Paradigm to contribute to art of management of firms engaged in manufacturing and marketing by guiding integrated interaction in their planning, communication and management strategies to ensure sustainable growth and competitive advantage in the marketplace. The Symphony Paradigm explains that the role players in an organization function on three different platforms- Front stage, Center Stage, and Back Stage. The symphony paradigm allows firms to integrate multiple tasks in marketing strategy administration and control in order to improve the managerial efficiency and performance of the business firm. Often in a competitive marketplace, it is impossible for firms to predict market situations clearly ex-ante (before the strategy implementation) because of the opportunistic behaviors of competing firms in the absence of effective governance. The symphony paradigm explains that managers can develop relational platforms for effective interactions among various levels of development of marketing strategies. The model exhibited in the Figure  illustrates that behavioral and managerial determinants provide a framework of contextual variables and relational characteristics that need to be considered in corporate efforts to control market opportunism.

Research papers and innovative teaching practices
Rajagopal has strong research orientation. He is very methodological in conducting the research. He has a high quality track record of research which is evident from numerous publications including research papers in international refereed journals, working papers, books on marketing, business case studies, distance education material and simulation exercises. Working papers are available with Social Science Research Network and Research Papers in Economics for the scholars interested to conduct future research on the subject. He is editor in chief of a refereed quarterly journal “International Journal of Leisure and Tourism Marketing” published by Inderscience Publishers, UK and holds the status of Member of Editorial Board of international refereed journals including Journal of Retail and Leisure Property (Palgrave Macmillan),Innovative Marketing (Business Perspectives ) and Journal of Tourism (University Suceava, Romania). Rajagopal has been appointed also as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Business Competition and Growth, published quarterly by the Inderscience Publishers of United Kingdom.

Publications include:


 * Conceptual Analysis of Brand Architecture and Relationships within Product Category, Journal of Brand Management, Volume 11 (3), February, 2004, 233-247
 * Analysis of Customer Portfolio and Relationship Management Models: Bridging Managerial Gaps, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, Vol. 20, No.6, June, 2005, 307-316
 * Measuring Customer Value and Market Dynamics for New Products of a Firm: An Analytical Construct for Gaining Competitive Advantage, Global Business and Economics Review, Vol. 8, No. 3-4, 2006, pp 187–205
 * Innovation and Business Growth through Corporate Venturing in Latin America: Analysis of Strategic Fit, Management Decision, Vol.44, Issue 5, 2006, 703-718
 * Trust and Cross-Cultural Dissimilarities in Corporate Environment, Team Performance Management-An International Journal, Vol. 12, No. 7-8, 2006, pp 237–252
 * Leisure Shopping Behavior and Recreational Retailing: A Symbiotic Relationship of Marketplace Strategy and Consumer Response, Journal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing, 15 (2), 2007, pp 5–31
 * Buying Decisions towards Organic Products: Analysis of Customer Value and Brand Drivers, International Journal of Emerging Markets, Vol. 2 No. 3, 2007, pp 236–251
 * New Product Development and Seasonality Effect in Food Products Retailing, Journal of Food Products Marketing, 14 (4), 178-199, 2008
 * Dynamics of Buyer-Supplier Co-dependency for Optimizing Functional Efficiency, International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, Vol.4, Issue 4, 399-416, 2008
 * Organizational Buying and Sales Administration in the Retail Sector, Journal of Retail and Leisure Property, 7 (1), 2008, pp 3–20
 * Time Sharing at Leisure Facility Centers: Analysis of Sales Performance Indicators, Journal of Retail and Leisure Property, Vol. 7 (3), 248-262, 2008
 * Outsourcing Salespeople in Building Arousal towards Retail Buying, Journal of Database Marketing and Customer Strategy Management, 15 (2), 106-118, 2008
 * Point-of-sales promotions and buying stimulation in retail stores, Journal of Database Marketing and Customer Strategy Management, 15 (4), 249-266, 2008
 * Place Branding Architecture for Eco-tourism, International Journal of Leisure and Tourism Marketing, 1 (1), 58-69, 2009

In view of the above research insights, Rajagopal has developed many innovative and interactive learning approaches that are being practiced in the courses of International Marketing and International Commerce Strategy delivered by  Rajagopal.

Special assignments
Member, Working Group, Command Area Development, Tenth Five Year Plan, Planning Commission, Government of India, 1999–2001