The paper reports and analyses findings on how Ukrainian companies of different types of ownership adopted marketing concepts and organized their marketing activity during the transitional period from a command society to a market economy. Constraints to the adoption of marketing are identified and the correlation between company performance and the degree of marketing adoption is investigated. The study is based on the information collected through the survey of Ukrainian enterprises and used for a cluster analysis.
This paper looks at the development of a new brand in the consumer electronics durables field, Aftron, using brand equity research as a starting point. It examines the reasons for the development of the brand, the research used to understand the corporate equity of the company offering the brand, how the core values identified were 'transported' to the new brand, the launch of the brand itself and the monitoring of the brands performance in the market.
From a business point of view, Germany is made up of about 35 million households. These people purchase lots of food, cars, gelly babies, mountain bikes etc. And they buy lots of furniture to the value of more than 40 thousand million marks a year. The main question for individual manufacturers and retailers is not how to increase 40 to 45 thousand million marks. 'The main question for them is: How can I satisfy my customers and encourage them to purchase more of my products. This is where money comes from - especially since trying to win new customers becomes increasingly expensive. 'flic following paper tries to give an example of how current customers can be brick- walled. 'The first part of the paper includes a very short overview on the German furniture market as well as some general statements on customer satisfaction and customer retention. The main intention is to show: -how the study was designed to be profitable for both manufacturer and retailer, and - how the results of this study can be used to analyse the furniture market. It reveals how manufacturer and retailer can efficiently improve their performance - based on the philosophy: customer first.
The paper is divided into four main sections. The Methodology describes the data upon which the analyses were based and explains the theoretical background to the approach adopted. The Results are then presented to show how large and small drugs differ and the brand performance measures for a specific drug are presented and explained. The Discussion interprets these results in the light of the theory that has been developed in other markets and also discusses the underlying causes of the patterns of brand performance, the individual behaviour of prescribers. The final section looks at some specific Applications of the approach adopted and outlines some practical examples of how managers could use the concepts presented in this paper.
This paper describes a two stage customer satisfaction methodology that identifies the relevant attributes in products or services, evaluates their importance degree, qualifies the attributes from the point of view of their nature, evaluates the current performance, sets performance goals and finally identifies and evaluates the performance of the relevant competitors.
The paper aims at providing an overview of the results of the transformation process after five years, with the emphasis on failures rather than on achievements. The bias is deliberate, aiming at better exposing problems and resulting policy challenges currently confronted by the transition countries. The analysis is limited to six central European transition countries, chiefly because both their history and recent economic performance have been shaped by broadly similar factors, in contrast to the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia. Expectations raised by the collapse of communism are briefly summarized in section 2 and are followed in section 3 by a discussion of main outcomes of the transformation process. Section 4 concludes.
The paper will introduce some of the major marketing issues facing vendors of IT hardware and software. An increasingly competitive market environment is forcing such companies to consider the following key questions: What is the best mix of channels for my product? What branding strategy should I adopt? What pricing strategy will complement my brand strategy? How can determine if my company's interface with the end-user is the most appropriate? Where traditional market research can go far in answering many of these questions, IT Product Managers often find it difficult to monitor the performance of their products and brands in the market. How can they tell, for instance, if sales personnel in high street retailers are spontaneously recommending their products? How can they tell how much discounting key competitors are adopting at point of sale? How can they be sure that the channels to market consistently present their products in the best way? The mystery shopping technique allows many of these questions to be answered. Research International undertook its own telephone Mystery Shopping exercise amongst a variety of types of PC dealers. The purpose of this was to determine the relative strength of a variety of PC, software and printer brands in the market for entry-level systems. The paper will include findings from this survey (which was undertaken in the UK earlier this year). The results show the significant strength that a relatively small number of brands have built within the channels to market. The study indicates strong potential for mystery shopping in the business-to-business sector - particularly by manufacturers wishing to determine the effectiveness of channels to market in supporting their brands.
This paper questions some of the conventional approaches and ways that many manufacturers look at and use customer service research, in particular, Customer Service Monitors: The use of vague 'scales' to measure performance. The way the importance of different aspects of service is measured The way some Customer Service Monitors fail to reflect importance weighting It also looks at how mystery shopping and Customer Service Monitors (CSM's) results combined can be more useful to dealers and how integrated indices using CSM data, mystery' shopping data and internal performance data can provide an overall Customer Service Index which can give a clearer guide to dealers on how they are performing in terms of service delivery.
The pharmaceutical market of the Middle East today is characterized by its complexity and inability to offer trends towards global thinking. The Gulf crisis has certainly helped to exacerbate differences, market by market, throughout the region. This is particularly TRUE in the area of product registration, pricing and competitive attitudes. In view of such disturbances, a number of pharmaceutical companies have shown their limits in rapidly adapting to changing needs, changing health concerns, and, more broadly, their inability to "accompany" a move dictated by war, financial constraints and overall conservatism. Meanwhile, other firms have definitely capitalized on these very disturbances and have certainly proven that ad-hocracy can also be translated into sales performance and profits. Today, the Middle Eastern pharmaceutical markets have, to a very large extent, restored their structure and have resumed their business links. If one conclusion should be pulled out from these events, it is the compulsory need for a local approach, where the core questions should be: What kind of a market is it ? (private, tender, sophisticated ?) How much do I want to commit myself ? (long-term, short-term, pay back period ?) What do I need in this market ? This sort of approach will certainly help in clearly defining the opportunities by market and will help performance.
The paper argues that the small business market is a key sector for banks, providing the future base for the important corporate middle market and that there are opportunities for hunks to increase their business profitability in this sector while at the same time improving customer satisfaction. It shows how research can play an important role in the improvement of bank performance and profitability in the sector, at points ranging from service development and enhancement through relationship management to monitoring of performance. It provides evidence of a number of interesting trends and issues to be tackled including: -ways of increasing market share of new business customers -the impact of marketing action aimed at small businesses on a bank's reputation in other business sectors -identification of key market segments more likely to grow fast, and their special needs and priorities -the need to communicate the value of banking services to justify their cost -lack of small business understanding of service pricing. Conclusions include the need for better implementation of marketing and relationship management policies at the branch and local office level, opportunities to use new technology t0 add value and improve quality of service, the importance of monitoring all aspects of service quality and ways to strengthen relationships between banks and their small business customers.
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.
1993 and beyond there will be an ongoing harmonisation process of prices, presentations, patent terms, etc. in the pharmaceutical market of the EC. Individual industry and government actions and re-actions in addition will change the market environment. For the market researchers in this field, it will be a challenge to report on these changes, especially to make good trend analyses and prognoses. No real market relations and real trends can be outlined on the basis of sales values alone because the data reflect a mixture of exchange rate fluctuations, price or packaging changes, etc. besides the real market growth. New skills are required, especially for the measurement of marketing activities. The treatment days analysis is based on single dose units sold and average daily dosages. The treatment days are the common denominator for the sales data and will most probably lead closer to the real market and real development.