The Hindu Business Line : Marketing the police

The present-day policeman is generally viewed by the public with the same loathing as were his imperial predecessors; however, the authority wielded by the policeman has diminished considerably over time, rues Rohit Choudhary in ‘Policing: Reinvention strategies in a marketing framework’ ( www.sagepublications.com). The focus of the police, therefore, should be to create a customer-focused, high-performance, new-age entrepreneurial department, he says. Foremost among the ‘customers’ are the citizens and the community; and for this segment, police can achieve results through the use of control strategy (community empowerment) and customer strategy. A marketing approach can be applied to the ‘compliers,’ too, he adds. For instance, involve compliers in helping make the rules, provide facilities such as police help-lines, incentivise compliance, and offer feedback on the level of compliance, Choudhary advises.

He gathers the many actionable elements for marketing the police, and groups the variables into 8 Ps, thus: People (personnel in the organisation); product (customer offering); price (cost of policing); promotion (communication); pace (responsiveness); process (effectiveness of the systems); place (convenience); and politics (the interface of the organisation with the political environment).

Helpful read, for even the cops on duty.

D. Murali

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