Volume XXXIX • Number 11  • November 2009

Brand Strategies For Globalization

Branding is one of the most powerful tools in the marketing arsenal and important aspect of business strategy. Some times it is considered to be merely an advertising function. Branding is a process to establish competitive advantage and expressing corporate values and identities. Branding is a form of rhetorical instrument to persuade people to think differently. Acquisitions and Organic growth are two basic directions in the process of brand building. Branding is a subset of an over all marketing plan which, in turn, is a subset of the overall business plan. US companies have been successful at creating brands to secure global market leadership and mitigate risk.

Organised Retailing In India : Issues and Challenges

The modern Indian consumer is seeking more value in terms of improved availability and quality of commodity, pleasant shopping environment, financing options, trial rooms for clothing products, return and exchange policies, competitive prices and above all a good parking facility. This has created a rapidly growing opportunity for organised modern retail formats to emerge in recent years and grow at a faster pace. Inefficiency in the traditional supply chains offers further opportunity for the organised players to draw on this large market even though lack of consumer culture, and low purchasing power restricted the development of modern formats. Migration from unorganized to organised retailing is slowly and surely being witnessed in India especially after the opening up of economy in the late 90’s. This article tries to pinpoint the issues and challenges being faced by this sunrise sector.

Weekends are multiplex time for many metro-dwellers. Where better to go than to kick start the movie’s promotion well, within the cinema halls themselves.In a number of product categories, the multiplex option is being considered for media plans. Therefore, multiplexes are selling themselves, and the space within, in the most innovative ways possible. Even BPO and ITES information technology enabled services companies have been using this option seriously.

The Effect of Management Styles and Employee Behaviour On Customer Satisfaction In The Electronic Manufacturing Industry In Malaysia

The objective of this study was to identify the effect of Management Styles and Employee Behaviours on Customer Satisfaction in the Electronic Manufacturing Industry in Malaysia. The study examined three Management styles namely Authoritarian, Participative and laissez-faire management styles and four Employee Behaviour factors namely patience and acceptance, team player, employees’ self perception of themselves and interpersonal relationships. The theoretical framework has been drawn out and questionnaire was designed based on the factors chosen. The data collected were analyzed by using SPSS program which provide relevant analysis such as reliability analysis, frequency analysis, and regression analysis. Ten hypotheses were developed to study the relationships between management styles and employee behaviour on the customer satisfaction in the Electronic Manufacturing Industry in Malaysia. The entire hypotheses were successfully tested with SPSS and three hypotheses were accepted. The regression analysis result shown that the most significant factors affecting employee behaviour is the authoritarian management styles. Participative management styles and the laissez-faire management styles found to have no significant effect on employee behaviour. In contrary to this, participative management styles found to be the most significant factor affecting customer satisfaction. Authoritarian and laissez-faire management styles found to have no significant effect on customer satisfaction. However among four identified employee behaviours namely; patience and level of acceptance, work as a team player, perception of self, and interpersonal skills; only self perception found to be the significant factor affecting customer satisfaction.

Usage of Different Statistical Methods On a Single Data and Its Implications On Managerial Decision Making

Application of statistical tools in research has assumed significant dimensions in recent times especially in marketing research. This is mainly because of the availabity of statistical software packages like SYSTAT, SPSS, MATLAB, and LISREL etc. The sponser of the research depends on the outcome of the research to arrive at several decisions, which may be critical to the company’s financial performance. Hence it becomes obvious that the research agency should take all care in interpreting the statistical outputs. There may be several application tools to analyze and interpret the collected data. The results may vary depending on the tools used and interpretations of outputs. The decisions based on these findings may ultimately affect the performance of the companies.This research is an attempt to understand these aspects of statistical applications. The researchers have used forward and backward multiple regressions on the single data to find out the variations in the interpretations of the outputs.

Satya S.
Assistant Professor
R.V.Institute of Management
Bangalore
ss.manuscript@gmail.com

Tourism is the world’s largest and fastest growing industry. As more and more economies are relying on tourism as one of their growing sectors, tourism industry is receiving its recognition and importance. The tourism industry is highly employment intensive and can earn significant revenues including foreign exchange. It offers immense socio- economic development potential. It generates high levels of economic output, with minimum capital investments. India’s tourism potential is unlimited. It is a land of colorful contrasts; modern projects of science and technology, the wild grandeur of the Himalayas, the historical monuments, forts and palaces, the varied flora and fauna, a wide variety of costumes and a diversity of customs make India a desirable destination for domestic and foreign tourists.

India is a vast country with a burgeoning population that is more than 1 billion and is next only to China. Around 72% of the Indian population is living in rural areas and forms around 12.2% of the world population, an indication that about 120 million households live in rural India out of which most of them are dependent on agriculture and agri-related activities for their livelihood and many of them are illiterates and people below poverty line (BPL). Though the lifestyles of the rural masses have undergone a sea change with the increased infrastructural facilities, application of modern techniques in cultivation, and better access to urban areas, the situation in India is still not rosy. However, of late the situation has changed drastically with even Multi National Companies (MNCs) competing keenly for a share in the rural markets. This is welcome news for the rural consumer who has been ignored by the corporate world from time immemorial. Rural Marketing can be defined as the activities taking place in rural markets to influence the rural consumers to buy specific products or services for satisfying their needs and wants by conveying messages through print, electronic and mass media. There are several peculiar characteristics that can be observed in the rural markets and in rural consumers. With the advent of modern sophisticated technology, media coverage has been far and wide. Due to increased audio and visual media coverage, sending messages to the masses in a set of capsules each depicting a particular factor, a product or service has been possible. The surface transport is one area where vast improvements can be noticed with improved roads, transportation and other means, the changing life style of a ruralite is being increasingly felt. Small and big means of transport have allowed the rural consumer to shop for his goods and services beyond his village boundaries. An important aspect of this development is that the rural consumer is slowly realizing the number of products, brands and services available in the market, a scope which was unnoticed earlier. The two-wheeler market in India is the biggest contributor to the automobile industry with a size of Rs.100, 000 million. The two-wheeler market in India comprises of 3 types of vehicles- namely motorcycles, scooters, and mopeds. Foreign collaborations have been playing a major role in the growth of the Indian two-wheeler market, and most of them are Japanese firms. The modern two-wheeler firms in India have been manufacturing new categories of two wheelers such as Step Thrus and Scooterettes. These have been produced by combining two or more two-wheeler segments.

The Indian retail market, which is the fifth largest retail destination globally, according to industry estimates is estimated to grow from the US$ 330 billion in 2007 to US$ 427 billion by 2010 and $637 billion by 2015. Simultaneously, modern retail which presently accounts for 4 per cent of the total market is likely to increase
Inevitably, modernization of the Indian retail sector will be reflected in rapid growth in sales of supermarkets, department stores and hypermarkets. This is because of the growing preference of the affluent and upper middle classes for shopping at these types of retail stores, given the conveniences they offer such as shopping ambience, variety and a single-point source for purchases.Department stores are usually part of a retail chain. The reasons behind the increase of Department stores are improved shopping standards, convenient stocking / display, shopping blend with entertainment. These are increasing with rapid pace in the Kurnool district. There is opposition to their plans, it has argued that livelihood of the traditional formats of low-cost retailing such as the local grocery shops, owner-manned general stores, paan/beedi shops, convenience stores, and handcart, pavement vendors, small scale and rural vendors would be threatened. The study concentrates to which extent it is going to create economic impact of Department stores on small vendors particularly with respect to Kurnool District in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

The paper deals with the study of customer service offered by a Head Post Office, a government venture, establishes and run by the Central Government of India. The study is purely based on primary data and empirical evidence. A questionnaire has been prepared and used to collect the opinion of the respondents. Conclusions have been drawn on the basis of tabulation, classification and analysis of data with help of statistical techniques. The study reveals that customer service of the studied post office is somewhat satisfactory. There is some scope and need to improve the service to reach the excellent level.