Volume XXXVII • Number  11 •November  2007

Significance of Bottom of Pyramid for Corporate India

“Sell to the poor if you want to be rich” were the words spoken by the experts in Rural Marketing. Every marketer loves to reach out to the fat wallets where the selling is obvious, easy and conspicuous. But there is a segment arising alongside that doesn’t claim to be glamorous on the outside but has an invisible power and an untapped capacity to spell riches for the targeting marketer if tackled in the right manner – subject to their needs, requirements, aspirations, purchasing power, preferences, culture, social conditioning, etc. This segment began to be noticed by the corporate India in a very serious and potential manner only in the last few years - - although there have been isolated examples of company-specific efforts to convert their poverty to balance sheet gains.

M.Guruprasad
Assistant Professor
Aicar Business School
Neral,Maharashtra
mguruprasad@aicar.net

Sujit Patnaik
Research Executive
Consumer Research
GFK Mode

Satisfaction Derived by the Users of Clinic Plus Shampoo in Coimbatore

Long as well as healthy hair has been the dream of many people. People have been using various products in order to have healthy and lengthy hair. Shampoos are one among such products used by all classes of people since a long time back for the purpose of maintaining a healthy and lengthy hair. Many companies have been producing different varieties and flavours of shampoos to suit the varied requirements of the different classes of consumers. Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), a pioneer in the field, has been offering a variety of shampoos for the consumers. Clinic plus is one of the leading and fast moving brands marketed by HLL. 

Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) is India's largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods company, touching the lives of two out of three Indians with over 20 distinct categories in Home and personal Care Products and Foods and Beverages. They endow the company with a scale of combined volumes of about 4 million tones and sales of Rs.10, 000 crores. HLL is also one of the country's largest exporters. The company has been recognised as a Golden Super Star Trading House by the Government of India. HLL meets everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene, and personal care with brands that help people feel good, look good and get more out of life. Hall’s brands - like Lifebuoy, Lux, Surf Excel, Rin, Wheel, Fair & Lovely, Pond's, Sunsilk, Clinic Plus, Pepsodent, Close-up, Lakme, Brooke Bond, Kissan, Knorr-Annapurna, Kwality Wall's – are household names across the country and span many categories - soaps, detergents, personal products, tea, coffee, branded staples, ice cream and culinary products. They are manufactured in close to 80 factories. The operations involve over 2,000 suppliers and associates. HLL's distribution network, comprising about 7,000 redistribution stockists, directly covers the entire urban population, and about 250 million rural consumers. 

Hence the present study has been conducted by the researchers with the primary objective of measuring the extent of variation in the level of satisfaction derived by the users of Clinic Plus Shampoo in Coimbatore and the factors which influence the satisfaction derived by the respondents. The study also offers constructive suggestions for improving the satisfaction derived by the users of the shampoo.

Dr.R.Vijaykumar
Dr.N.Raman
Department of Management Studies
S.N.R.Sons College
Coimbatore,Tamil Nadu

Prof P.V.Prabha
Department of Management Studies
S.N.R. Sons College
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

Emerging Trends and Strategies in Indian Retailing

Retailing in India is slowly on the rise with changing consumer preferences and tastes and evolution of a global structure. Money is no longer a constraint. A gradual change in the retailing scenario is noticeable with regular shops making way to high end market malls and stores in urban areas. The cosmopolitan outlook projected by retail outlets with availability of almost everything under one roof makes retail outlets a star attraction for one and all. As Income levels increase radically resulting in higher disposable income, people continue to look for happiness in acquiring things albeit with greater vigor. Lifestyles are changing not only because of changing incomes but also because of the mind- boggling variety of goods that are now available for acquisition and consumption. Increased income is finding its way into the coffers of retailers who are able to offer more comfort, luxury and status to consumers. Providing consumer satisfaction has been replaced by providing consumer delight with marketers making indefatigable efforts to innovate not only in products, but also in the methods of marketing.

Dr.M.N.Malliswari
Associate Professor
St.Francis College for Women
Hyderabad
mnmalli@yahoo.com

Text Messaging: An Emerging Marketing Tool

Text Messaging also known as SMS (Short Message Service), allows users to type short text messages in order to be displayed and received on the mobile phone. Additionally, the 2-Way Text Messaging, which is also known as MO-SMS (Mobile-Originated Short Message Service), allows messages to be sent through the phone. Messages can be sent from one phone to another by addressing the message to the recipient’s phone number. In addition, messages can also be sent to phone via special email address, carrier’s website or special messaging software. Moreover, majority of phones and carriers today allow users to send messages directly to an email address. Text messaging refers to sending short text messages from a mobile phone to other mobile phone users using the SMS standard.

Dr.K.Giridhar Gopal
Lecturer
Department of Business Administration
Dayanand College, Ajmer
Rajasthan

drkgiridhar@gmail.com

Women Empowerment through Self Help Groups: A Case Study in the North Tamil Nadu

Poverty and unemployment are the major problems of under developed countries, to which India is no exception. In India, at the end of ninth five-year plan, 26.1% of the population was living below the poverty line. In the rural area, 27.1% of the population was living under poverty. The overall unemployment rate is estimated to be 7.32%. The female unemployment rate is 8.5%. The rate of growth of women unemployment in the rural area is 9.8%. This is because of the low growth rate of new and productive employment. At the end of the IX plan, the rate of growth implemented by various schemes was to reduce poverty and to promote the gainful employment. But the more attractive scheme with less effort (finance) is “Self Help Group”. It is a tool to remove poverty and improve the rural development (Sabyasachi Das. 2003).

Dr.Vijay Pithadia
Asst.Professor
R.K. College of Business Management
Rajkot,Gujarat

Indian Banking: Changing Pattern of Employment and Issue of Employee's Efficiency in Global Era-Challenges and Opportunities

The paper analyzes the changes in employment pattern in banking sector in India in the post second banking sector reforms and analyzes the efficiency of the bank employees in the post liberalized and globalized era. The foreign banks account for insignificant proportion of total employment as compared to total banking sector employment. There is a structural shift in the employment in 2002 over the period 1999, where females are more concentrated in officer’s jobs in foreign banks on the other side, in case of public sector banks females are concentrated in clerical jobs. The study reveals that female employment is the highest in foreign banks, nationalized banks are providing maximum employment. Region-wise employment is maximum in southern and western region. All the employees of foreign banks are more efficient as compare to other bank groups (efficiency is far better than other bank groups). The downsizing of employees in bank groups is highly and significantly correlated with the labour efficiency. At the end, paper finds some challenges for the public sector banks and highlights some suggestions that may be helpful for lower efficient bank groups to meet these challenges efficiently.

Dr.R.K.Uppal
Head
Department of Economics
DAV College
Malout, Punjab

Rimpi Kaur
Research Scholar
DAV College
Malout,Punjab

Dainik Bhaskar: The Punjab Launch

Punjab is one market where the reach of Hindi dailies is more than that of the regional (Punjabi) newspapers. Recognizing this Dainik Bhaskar’ decided to enter the Punjab market after a successful run in Chandigarh and Haryana. Although the scope in this market is tremendous, the degree of competitiveness has changed over the last five years. Entering Punjab was a part of its overall expansion strategy and in future, the group also plans to explore the Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi markets. This case study focuses on the massive consumer hype generated by the Punjab launch of Dainik Bhaskar in October 2006 using direct marketing to establish a leadership position from day one. In the face of strong competition from well-known established newspapers in an already busy market sector, the launch of Dainik Bhaskar was not an easy task. The company did an extensive research to find out what the Hindi readers in Punjab want in a newspaper and used new and innovative marketing strategies during pre-launch and post-launch time to position the newspaper effectively in the market. The primary objective of this case is to study the different promotional activities undertaken by Dainik Bhaskar and to meet its launch objectives.

                                   Dr.Balram Dogra
Director
Apeejay Institute of Management
Jalandhar,Punjab

Navjote Khara
Dr.Rajesh Verma
Sr.Lecturer
Apeejay Institute of Management
Jalandhar,Punjab