Volume XXXIX • Number  7  • July 2009

The Relevance of Personal Selling in Today's Marketing Scenario- A Theoretical Perspective

Personal selling is one of the oldest forms of promotion. Promotion, as part of the marketing mix, increases company sales by communicating product information to potential customers. The four basic parts of a firm’s promotional effort are personal selling, advertising, public relations, and sales promotion. Personal selling can be defined as personal communication of information to persuade a prospective customer to buy something – a good, service, idea, or whatever – that satisfies an individual’s needs. It is the personal selling process that allows marketers the greatest freedom to adjust a message to satisfy customers' information needs. Personal selling allows the marketer or seller to communicate directly with the prospect or customer and listen to his or her concerns, answer specific questions, provide additional information, inform, persuade, and possibly even recommend other products or services.

Measurement in Marketing : A Study on Construct Validation With Special Reference To Multirait-Multimethod (MTMM) Matrix

Marketing being a Social Science has to investigate and offer theoretical explanations, backed by empirical evidence, for the behaviour of consumers. This requires development of measuring instruments which can unequivocally assess the abstract nature of constructs relevant to marketing e.g. personality, attitude, consumption innovativeness, materialism etc. Construct validation is a significant step towards formulation of justified measurement instruments for such abstract marketing conceptualisations. The marketing researchers have been operationalising abstract concepts through measurement instruments in the form of questionnaires carrying relevant statements. However, these instruments need to go through a statistically appropriate process to determine their ability to capture the construct in totality. The attempt should be towards determining if the measuring instrument is able to represent the construct, the whole of the construct, and nothing but the construct. The present study provides a detailed discussion on the conceptual underpinnings and ensuing indispensability of construct validity. This is followed by an in-depth review of the marketing research literature on the construct validation process, which involves determination of reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity of the measuring instrument. The measures of reliability of a scale viz. Cronbach coefficient alpha and item-to-total correlation are discussed in the succeeding sections. The assessment of convergent and discriminant validity through Campbell and Fiske’s (1959) Multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) matrix has been profoundly delved upon, followed by an exhaustive evaluation of a modified, but more practical, version of Multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) matrix, as put into application by Ruekert and Churchill (1984).

Neural networks have the potential of accurately describing the behavior of extremely complex systems such as being encountered in decentralized logistics. Learned feed-forward is a great way to reduce dynamic tracking error of a feedback based decentralized logistics control system in those cases where logistics events recur. The present paper primarily proposes a possible interface of ANN into SD modeling offering a tremendous opportunity of developing an Experiential Expert System for logistics control, policy formulation and decision-making. Additionally, in the area of soft computational research targeting optimization solutions, ANN-SD-Genetic Algorithmic integration can also prove to be a potent framework for the optimization of logistical processes and decision variables. Hence, the research proposition suggested here on the whole highlights the prospective systemic interface and compatibility between System Dynamics, Artificial neural network and Genetic Algorithm.

Building Brands By Helping Others Win

A basic decision in marketing products is branding, in which an organization uses a name, phase, design, symbol, or a combination of these, to identify its products or services of a business and distinguish them from those of competitors. Brand is a means of differentiating a company’s products or services from those of its competitors. A good brand helps company charge premium price for their products or services, since customers prefers to buy good branded product and they will be loyal customers. There is plenty of evidence to prove that customers will pay a substantial price premium for a good brand and remain loyal to that brand. Therefore, it is important for the companies to build brand. At this juncture it better remember MacDonald’s quote that is emphasizing the relationship as an importance factor in building a brand “…it is not factories that make profits, but relationships with customers, and it is company and brand names which secure those relationships”. Businesses that invest in and sustain leading brands prosper whereas those that fail are left to fight for the lower profits available in commodity markets. In the globalised business environment every business wants to be a customer's first choice. Therefore building and managing a brand can play a significant part in making that happen.

Export Marketing in Bangladesh: Problems and Prospects

Exports from developing countries has increased substantially in recent years. Bangladesh, as a developing country, also tried to access to international markets through following the export marketing strategies. However, business organizations in Bangladesh are facing dearth of knowledge about export marketing problems and remedies in this regard. The present study tried to accumulate the existing scattered information and literature to provide some guidelines for the export marketers and the policy makers. Future research incorporating on more empirical data and facts were suggested for helping the business organizations to improve the export performance of in Bangladesh.

Agricultural development has been associated mainly with an increase in the production of cereals. In India majority of the people have less than one hectare of land. Due to small holdings these cultivators are unable to meet the basic requirements for their livelihood. While on the other hand, growing urbanization and income levels resulted in an increased purchasing power, higher literacy there by health and nutrition concerns and changes in life style might have provided an impetus to an increased demand for this sector. Scarcities of resources in terms of livestock lead to the need for major Policy reforms in the dairy sector. India dairy sector during past 6 decades had shown consistent growth trends which in turn resulted in its best ranking in world dairy scenario, which is only possible with balanced growth of livestock and proper dairy infrastructure development throughout the country.

The role of children in the buying process has increased over the years. Though a lot of research has been done in the West in understanding children’s purchase influence, the need is also felt in the Indian context. This paper attempts to understand the role and influence of children in buying apparel. The opinion of the parents was also taken. The results indicate the growing importance of children in terms of taking their own decisions and also the discrepancy in the views of the parents and children.

The paper entitled Marketing Research on Consumer Pull and Dealer Push of Branded TMT bars is aimed at exploring consumer pull and dealer push of branded TMT bars in concurrent with steel industry. The paper carries the details about what steel as a product, global overview of steel sector along with domestic steel industry journey since from 1907 and discusses how the steel industry evolved overtime through policy changes as well as reforms taken by the government pre liberalization and post liberalization period. The paper holds the details of objectives and as well as scope and significance of steel sector to the developing India. 

The television is a wonderful means of mass communication invented by J.L.Baird in 1926. Now our home has become a Cinema Hall. A Television is an audio-visual medium which enables us to hear and watch a variety of programmes, both live and recorded. The industries which produce the electronic devices and appliances for the use and conveniences of their customers are known at the Electronic industries. This industry manufactures varied forms of essential electronic appliances such as televisions to satisfy the wants of mankind. Now –a – days, televisions have become an essential item for mass based usage. They are manufactured in different sizes so as to meet the needs of various groups of people. They are usually rated with internal total mechanism and the television mechanism.

 Dr.N.Kathirvel
Lecturer in Commerce & Management
Karpagam University
Coimbatore,Tamil Nadu
pnk70_samy@yahoo.co.in