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12/12/2009: "Latha Sukumar from MCIS talks to my class on "Why Marketing is important for not-for-profit organizations""

On March 17 2009 Latha Sukumar, Executive Director of MCIS, a not-for-profit organization, gave an excellent talk to my class. MCIS provides interpretation and translation services to police departments in 100 different languages. I had asked Latha to talk about "Why marketing is important to a not-for-profit organization?"

First, she dispelled some common myths associated with not-for-profits (e.g., they cannot make a profit). Then, she provided a great example of how she used marketing principles to segment, target, and position interpretation services for the police. Click here to see her talk.

Under the heading on "product strategies" Latha very effectively illustrated the differences between goods and services and gave examples of how, being a service organization, she had to adapt her marketing strategies to appeal to her target market.

You can use her talk as part of Chapter 1 to introduce the notion that marketing is important to all organizations. I think she does a really good job of summarizing "What is marketing" in around 30 minutes! Alternatively, her talk can also be used in Chapter 5 on product strategies to highlight the differences between goods and services and implications for marketing strategy.

Please send me your thoughts and comments at asirsi@schulich.yorku.ca I look forward to hearing from you!