Sonia Kukreja Hybrid Distribution System A company must manage a hybrid distribution system to avoid chaos and maximize efficiency. Responsibilities, relationships and compensations among various channel members must be made clear. A company received its distribution system in legacy. The company started its journey with serving a particular type of customers. The company probably targeted big businesses … Read more
Open Market Innovations A large number of companies are using licensing, joint ventures and strategic alliances to increase output from their innovation processes. They are including their customers, vendors and even their competitors in the innovation processes. This open-market innovation approach to innovation improves speed, cost and quality of innovation. It lets companies set realistic … Read more
Factors Affecting Decision Making Process of a Consumer Various factors influence the decision-making process of a consumer. Some of these are internal factors or personal influences that are individualistic in nature. These factors are not visible, though they influence the consumer to a great extent. Learning, perception, motivation, attitude, self-concept, etc. are some such factors. … Read more
Stages of Buying Process The buying process is divided into various stages – Need recognition, Information search, Evaluation of alternatives, Purchase and Post-purchase evaluation of decisions. Below are various stages of buying process: Problem Recognition The decision making process begins with the recognition that a problem exists. The problem may be functional like a slow … Read more
External Affecting Consumer Behavior Besides the internal factors, external factors also Influence consumer behavior. These factors are not individualistic,and are external to the individual. These factors include culture, subculture, social class, reference group and family influences. These factors are associated with the groups that the individual belongs to, and interacts with. Culture Culture refers to … Read more
Customer Portfolio Management A company’s marketing strategies ‘should encompass an entire portfolio of customers at different relationship levels. This process is called ‘customer portfolio management.’ ‘Customer portfolio analysis enables managers and researchers to capture a customer’s value contribution to a firm’s portfolio of relationships rather than analyzing a customer’s value to the firm in isolation.’ … Read more
Committee Organizational Structure A Committee or a task force is the most important form of a formal group appointed by the management to perform certain functions or tasks. Committees and task forces have become more and more necessary and important, as the organization grows larger and more complex. Because of collective information and analysis, committees … Read more
What is Relationship Marketing? Relationship marketing involves the creation of new and mutual value between a supplier and individual customer. Novelty and mutuality deepen, extend and prolong relationships, creating yet more opportunities for customer and supplier to benefit one another. Relationship marketing has been strongly influenced by re-engineering. According to re-engineering theory, organizations should be … Read more
What are Group Norms? Group norms are the informal guidelines of behavior and a code of conduct that provides some order and conformity to group activities and operations. These rules are expected to be followed by all the group members. These norms and rules usually develop gradually and informally as group members learn as to … Read more
Barriers to Successful Negotiation Below are few of the factors considered as barriers to successful negotiation. 1. Negative outlook towards the negotiation process: Your attitude during the negotiation-hostile or cooperative-decides the tone for the negotiation. Negotiation need not be confrontational. In fact, effective negotiation is characterized by the parties working together to find a solution, rather … Read more
Characteristics of Negotiation There are certain characteristics of the negotiation process. These are: There is a minimum of two parties present in any negotiation. 2. Both parties have pre-determined goals that they wish to achieve. 3. There is a clash of pre-determined goals, that is, some of the pre-determined goals are not shared by both … Read more
Approaches to Negotiation There are four different approaches to negotiation and the outcome of the negotiation depends on the approach. The various approaches to negotiation are as follows: Distributive Negotiation or Win-Lose Approach This is also called competitive, zero sum, or claiming value approach. This approach is based on the premise that one person can … Read more
What is Negotiation? In our daily life, we come across various instances of negotiations. A prospective employee may negotiate with his employer over his salary, a consumer may negotiate the price of the product with the salesman, and the management may negotiate with the workers union over work-related issues. It is through negotiation that parties … Read more
What is a Proposal? A proposal is a written document to persuade the reader for a suggested plan of action. For example, a proposal may aim to attain a grant from the government to carry out a survey on communication practices on organizations. Characteristics of Proposals 1. Proposals are persuasive documents as these try to … Read more
Competitive Strategy Success is achieved by choosing a generic strategy and following it. Below-average performance is associated with failure to achieve any of these generic strategies. The result is no competitive advantage, a stuck-in-the-middle position that results in lower performance. Firms need to understand the genetic basis of their success and resist temptations to blur … Read more
