This paper will discuss a highly successful and cost-effective direct-marketing/image campaign at MCTs Central Division that returned $299,000 in monthly revenue in six months on an initial investment of $16,000. The program was the result of secondary research performed in the Vertical Marketing Department at the Central Division Headquarters of MCI Telecommunications in Chicago, Illinois and was designed and implemented by that department in conjunction with its advertising agency, Griffin & Boyle, also a Chicago-based firm. Library and field research on the insurance industry and the departments knowledge of the industry indicated that insurance providers were concerned with productivity increases and not necessarily cutting costs. The research also indicated that the industry was relationship-oriented and hence slow to change vendors. A program was developed which would break through the barriers of entry to the executive suite and allow MCI to present applications-oriented solutions to the C.E.O, President, and Vice President levels within the targeted companies. This program, which involved a series of targeted, applications-oriented mailings over a series of four months and integrated the participation of the sales force, is applicable to any niche-marketing situation where price is not the primary decision factor and the niche is relationship-oriented. Follow through by the sales force is also a necessary component of such a program.
The focus in this paper is a discussion of the effects that can be achieved from marketing research if an appropriate interactive marketing decision making model in personal computer spreadsheets is developed. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part discusses the role of marketing technology in facilitation marketing decision making. Since product life cycles are getting shorter and environmental changes more frequent, marketing decision making has become more complex. Common sense, which used to help managers in decision making, is no longer appropriate as they face new circumstances that render this method too risky. Nowadays, when the decision has to be made under such uncertain circumstances in searching for optimal outcomes, a manager should at least have an awareness of the possible outcomes of alternative decisions. New developments in computer technology, both hardware and software, that facilitate data management and analysis, and advances' in marketing science, notably in research methodology and decision making models, offer a new and systematic approach for rational marketing decision making. New technology offers a very user friendly interface to using marketing science for decision making by taking care of the complexity of the research procedure and internal model construction. This eliminates the prerequisite for high technical skills among users. The second part of the paper describes the need for an analytical approach to facilitate decision making in product concept testing by using personal computer spreadsheet models. Conjoint analysis is in high demand for measuring utility functions for product features to estimate future market share for a new product. A pro forma business plan in the PC spreadsheet can be used for business analysis via simulation using market share based on conjoint measurement. This model enables the forecasting of relevant business outcomes (sales, market share, contribution, profit-NPV, ROS, etc.) at different levels of consumer preferences for alternative product attributes, and for different possible response of competition, as well as changes in environmental factors. Using this interactive decision model to define the ranges of consumer preferences that promises the best outcome, considering the cost involved, the manager can contribute significantly both in the definition of the required information and in the design of the marketing research as well
This paper shows how the findings were used to change the specifications for the buildings, incorporating into the design additional features found to be important to the potential users, to plan for the provision of additional facilities important to respondents, and to help shape the promotional material, the new brochure, and the video. Both the sales brochure and the video highlighted the research findings and stressed how the research had been used to fine-tune the planning of the whole project. Finally, the research findings were presented to potential buyers and letting agents at a series of breakfast meetings.
In this paper the authors, drawing on the experience of one of the worlds leading telecommunications suppliers, outline the role an organisations salesforce can play in helping to develop and shape marketing strategies. BT operates the fifth largest telephone network in the world and currently serves over 21 million customers in the UK, handling almost a hundred million calls each day. The company employs almost 190 people in the UK and owns or leases over 8 properties, in addition to operating the largest commercial motor transport fleet in Europe (with 73 vehicles). It is against this backdrop that BT is continually attempting to assess customers' needs and requirements and develop marketing strategies that will give the company an edge in the market place. This is a difficult task for any large organization, but one that is made particularly problematic given that the classic approach to marketing does not necessarily lend itself to the challenges facing BT.
The paper is divided in three parts. The first part creates the base by defining a background of our companies, of our economy and typical starting positions at the beginning of the transformation process. These are important information for the second part, which creates a fancy of the situation of our companies at the introduction process of marketing and its methods and activities. Understanding of those facts is the base for the third part, for characterisation of the position of marketing and marketing research, as one of marketing activities, in Czechoslovak firms. There are also several assumptions and suggestions there for the following development of marketing research in the branch of business-to-business marketing.
Most of the published reports about the effects of 1992 relate to consumer goods and services, to the neglect of the very large business-to-business sector. Success in the Single European Market will depend on a good understanding of a. the differences and similarities between marketing to businesses and to domestic consumers; b. the relatively complex structure of each customer's Decision-Making Unit; c. the characteristic ways of doing business in each EC (and other European) country, which will continue to differ long after 1992; d. the choice of communication channels through which buying decisions can be influenced. Implementing an effective marketing plan for Europe will for most companies demand changes in product offering, marketing mix, organizational structure and above all corporate attitudes, so as to profit from the new opportunities for integrated marketing communications campaigns. No systematic study of all these issues has yet been made, but reports have been published of individual aspects of business marketing or of specific countries. This paper collates the most useful of these and adds the practical experience of an international agency specializing in business-to-business advertising and marketing.
This paper describes the development and implementation of a research programme devised to evaluate the customer service and transit time performance of carriers within the international air express industry. More specifically, the research which was eventually commissioned by DHL, was designed to produce evidence which could be used in communications to disprove the commodity theory accepted by some buyers of the sector, that is, that all major suppliers offer near identical service standards, the sole differentiator being that of price. The paper gives a brief description of the air express industry, and examines the difficulties and challenges to be overcome in developing a robust and objective measurement system. It proceeds to examine the design considerations and the trade-offs that took place, to arrive at a methodology which provided statistically reliable findings capable of route-by-route analysis, at a reasonable price! The paper will then move on to examine the research technique in operation; how theory was turned into practice. The paper concludes with an evaluation of the successful use of this international research programme on two fronts: internally and in advertising/promotions.
This paper explores how Royal Mail International successfully used a performance monitor to more effectively focus on customer needs in an increasingly competitive market. The main objective of the research was the accurate measurement of customer perceptions across key destinations worldwide. This was achieved across customer types (business and private), posting methods (post office, post box and business collections), and Royal Mail International services offered (Airstream, Airmail, Swiftair and Swiftpack). Data was collected with respect to five different Offices of Exchange to provide a representative picture of service across the UK.
This paper is part of an international study. It discusses the behaviour of purchasing managers and the people they interact with throughout the purchasing process. After a brief description of the methodology used, the first part focuses on the behaviour of French purchasing managers in the paper/chemical industry. It shows that purchasing behaviours vary vastly according to the type of goods acquired, as well as to the importance of the purchasing decision for the firm's operations. The decision power of the purchasing manager varies accordingly. To people who aim at selling raw materials or industrial goods, it means the choice of the right interlocutor in the client company is of great importance. It also means it is not necessarily the best choice to have only one interlocutor in a single firm. The second part of the paper compares French results with previous results obtained in Canada and Hungary Behaviour differences between the three countries are not very great. Yet France is not more similar to either Hungary or Canada on the whole. It largely depends on the type of goods sold.
This paper reviews the contribution that market research can make to the analysis of market prospects for videotelephony products and services. It argues that assessment of markets for technological innovations, like the videophone, requires a broad approach to the choice of market research methods and sources and that market research professionals, clients and vendors, should not unduly limit the scope of market analysis.
This paper will be focused on the illustration of the use done by the subscribers of a multiclient study on the European market of Intelligent Building - vendors of technology and large owners of buildings - of the results of this study. A short introduction will illustrate the business of Intelligent Building as well as the main characteristics of the study.
The paper we are giving this afternoon describes, in outline form, a case study which illustrates how research can be used as an integral part of a TQM programme designed to achieve improved customer satisfaction and, ultimately, an enhanced sales performance. The paper will also illustrate, we hope, the special importance of customer service research in business to business markets by showing how the information obtained can enable a company marketing industrial, as opposed to consumer, products to differentiate itself from its competitors. This last point is particularly pertinent in business to business markets where products are often non-differemiated and where product-related aspects (such as quality and performance to specification) can be taken for granted; here, it is the service and marketing performance of competitors which is liable to determine the final selection made by the customer. The study was conducted for Castrol, a company which has committed itself to maximising customer satisfaction through a wide ranging TQM programme which has been implemented throughout the organisation. Castrol has recognised that excellence in customer service should represent the core of its TQM programme. Although the company has undertaken customer service research previously, the study which forms the subject of today's discussion represents the most wide ranging and detailed review of Castrol's customer service performance and is also the first research undertaking initiated as part of a formal TQM programme. The overall objective of the research was to help Castrol assess its customer service performance and identify those aspects of its service which needed to be improved or communicated more effectively to the market place.