Marketing 4.0 – Are Indian Academic Libraries Ready for Future Transition?

Abstract

According to Kotler –“Marketing 4.0 is a marketing approach that blends online and offline platforms. In today’s digital world it is important to have the presence online; at the same time it is extremely important to have a human interface to understand the customers’ perspective. Marketing 4.0 is a combination of style with substance”. The paper studies the transition of library from a traditional setup to a digital setup. The research aims at understanding the antecedents of marketing 4.0 with reference to Indian academic libraries. Further the paper examines the challenges in the process of transition and empowerment of librarian in facilitating the transition. Mix research method which is combination of qualitative and quantitative research was adopted for the study where structured questionnaire was used and interviews of the respondents were taken. The respondents include students and librarians of Indian academic libraries. The result shows that the respondents have varied expectations inspite of the challenges from Indian academic libraries and are positively inclined towards transition. The study has several implications for libraries which are facing constraints in the process of future transition.