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Week 6&7 Gr2.HarshitVerma.PGFB2017

So, this week we have started our discussion with 4th and last P in 4P’s that is product. Under which we have talked about the marketplace identity which can be established upon three pillars and they are brand, product and service. A brand is considered as most valuable intangible asset that a business has and due to that it has became a priority for marketing executives. The we defined brand and brand equity after which we have moved towards CBBE pyramid which consists of six elements and they are named as Consumer brand resonance, Consumer judgements, consumer feelings, brand performance, brand imagery and brand salience. In order to achieve brand identity, the company should achieve two things and they are brand salience and brand awareness. Brand positioning depends upon or you can say lean on two pillars termed as brand performance and brand imagery. Now talking about the brand response which depends upon consumer judgements and the consumer judgements has certain parameters upon which it can measured and they are Perceived quality, Credibility, Relevance and Superiority. Finally, the company builds a relationship with their consumers and this connection translates into Behavioural loyalty, Active engagement, Attitudinal attachment and brand advocacy. We also talked about sustainability and its importance while building and designing a strategy. After which we discussed about the four types of industrial product lines and they are given below: -

1.     Custom built product

2.     Custom designed product

3.     Industrial Service

4.     Catalog products

In last we discussed about the four dimensions of a market definition and they are Customer function dimension, Customer segment dimension, Value added system dimension and technological dimension. New products that should be developed should consist of new technology and feature and apart from this they should be new for market. Then we studied about the classes of consumers/customers and they are as follows Innovators, Visionary, Laggards, Skeptics, Conservatives and Pragmatists.

In the last week, we started our discussion with the importance of CRM for B2B businesses under which we studied about the term collaborative advantage. The term collaborative advantage means developing innovative strategies with alliance partners. Types of relationships that exists in this space are continuum of buyer-seller relationships, transactional relationships, value added relationships and collaborative exchanges. Let us see the value drivers in collaborative relationships are value creation through core offerings, value creation within the sourcing process and value creation at the customer level of operation. The company should also see the customer profitability and customer retention as these things will help the business in growing up in a good pace. Apart from this, the management has designed some programs of RM and they are based on Financial, social and structural programs. In the end we discussed about some strategies which will help the business in dealing with Low relationship-oriented companies. We also learned about the concept of switching costs it is basically the cost of switch whenever a company switch from one goods supplier to other or you can say when a consumer switches from one company product to other company which provides same product.

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Week 5 Gr2.HarshitVerma.PGFB2017

So, this week we have started our discussion with market driven organizations and things that they focus upon are take an outside view, customer centred and they have an ability to see and predict the trend of market. We also discussed about the various hierarchy of strategies and they are Corporate Strategy, Business level strategy and Functional Strategy. Now talking about the roles in strategic decision making are Responsible, Approve, Consult, Implement and Inform. Then we studied about value network it is basically a network which enrich and complement the organizations example of this are Swiggy genie (which is a courier service). After this we moved our discussion towards balanced scorecard it is used to examine and measure the performance of each unit of business and used by manager in order to know about progress and areas of improvements. It measures the score on four different parameters and they are Financial, Customer, Internal business, Learning and growth. IMC that is integrated marketing communication is basically an approach used for creating a unified and seamless brand experience for customers across both traditional and non-traditional channels. The elements of IMC are Advertising, Website, Sales promotion, personal selling, direct marketing and many others. Then we discussed examples of Infosys and TCS that how these two giants communicate their message to their customers and other peoples. So, Infosys communicated its message on a global way whereas TCS conveyed the same message on a country basis way. Now let’s discuss that why do companies communicate? Because they do performance marketing communication and Halo building communication. Then we studied about its process and the communication mix and after discussing we got to know that personal selling efforts and personal communication efforts plays an important role in generating sales for B2B marketing as these efforts’ accounts for 70% of sales in B2B marketing. In last we have discussed about various budgeting practices and they are as follows: -

1.     Percentage of anticipated sales

2.     Objective and task

3.     Affordable

4.     Arbitrary

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Week 4 Gr2.HarshitVerma.PGFB2017

In this week we have started our discussion regarding the value that the businesses or companies seeks from their customer or clients. So, we have got three heads under it and they are Money, Reputation and Hassel-freeness. It totally depends upon the company that on which way they intend to move forward with. According to my perspective if a company has started then they should chase the clients which can give them good cashflow so that they build up their company and generate good amount of profit which can be used for expansion purposes. Then we talked about marketer’s dilemma, it is scenario where marketers or marketing strategist focuses more upon “what is” instead “what could be”. If they focus only in the existing market then they are going to miss the new market acquisition and to reduce this the marketers should focus upon three different type of consumer group and they are Undershot customer, Overshot customer and non-consuming customers. Many marketers miss the right opportunities as they focus on undershot customers more than overshot and non-consuming consumers. The businesses divided the market into two environments named as micro and macro environment. Macro environment consists of four factors and they are geographic, customer type, customer size and product and Micro environment consists of four factor and they are purchasing criteria, purchasing strategy, importance and personal characteristics.

We moved our discussions towards the barriers of segmentations or you can say problem that one faces while segmenting the market are as follows: -

1.     Buying dynamic barriers

2.     Investment pattern barriers

3.     Market size barrier

4.     Personal selling dominance

5.     Standardization trend barriers

Then we studied methods for forecasting demand and there are two methods for it and they are Quantitative and Qualitative.

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Week-3 Gr2.HarshitVerma.PGFB2017

So, this week we started our discussion with the term “Reverse auction”. Reverse auction is technique or strategy used by buyer to evaluate multiple sellers at a single point of time. It is used to find out which seller is providing good quality material at the lowest possible cost. We also gained insights about the strategic approach for reverse auction and that is, preempt the auction, manage the whole process and walk away if you don’t want to participate in it. Then we moved our discussion towards centralized and decentralized purchasing. In centralized purchasing the purchase of required material is done by central offices and after that they ships or transport the required amount of material to each branch, it is more standardized process which provides standardization at every point of process and one of the best results for this are Hotels at Mckinsey. In decentralized purchasing the company allows their regional stores or offices to buy the material as and when they require it. It helps in maintaining the production schedule smoothly. The example for this is reliance fresh which buy from the local farmers. Then we studied about the clues which one should use for identifying powerful buying center members and these are isolate personal stakeholders, follow the information flow, identify the experts, trace the communication flow and understand your purchasing role. Then we discussed about the concept risk reduction and under that we discussed about the two component of perceived risk and they are uncertainty about decisions and magnitude of consequences associated with making a wrong decision. Then we discussed about how to mitigate risk perception some ways are Brand building, testimonials, after sales support, return policies, warranties and indemnities. Then we had a guest talk with Mr. Vinayak Pant. He is working as an AGM Strategist and Brand Development at Jagran Prakashan Ltd. As the session moves forward, he discusses and explains that what is the actual difference between B2B and B2C channel. According to him the major area or key metrics through which we can differentiate these two channels of market are pricing, advertising technique and channels of distribution. Then we discussed about the value map for deciding upon the price or pricing policy for a product or service. So, his value map has 2 horizons upon which it measures the value of the product and the horizons are Relative price and Relative quality or performance. Upon these 2 horizons we have categorized products into 5 types and they are Premium, Economy, Average, Better value and Worse value. Moving ahead in the journey of understanding pricing, we discussed about the how the price for a product or service is set up.

Then we discussed about the pricing objective. So, the objectives about which a company thinks before setting up a price are profit maximization, survival, market share maximization, market skimming (which means setting up a premium price so that the cost of establishment can be covered at an early stage) and product quality leadership. After knowing all about it we moved our discussion towards the other side of coin and the other side of price for a product is “Demand”.  Now talking about the demand determination or how the demand is determined and derived. So, the demand can be derived through the following factors when the price tends to be inelastic are Low competition, high urgency, high differentiated products, difficulty in comparison between products, high switching cost and the price is being shared by multiple buyers. Then we discussed about the pricing based on competition and for understanding we have studied some area or reason which are used in this space and they are as follows 1) Structure of the market, 2) Sustainable competitive advantage, 3) Threat of new entrant and 4) Fixed and variable cost variations with scale. Towards the end we discussed about the pricing methodologies, so there are different kinds of methods for setting and deciding up a price for a product. The various kind of pricing methodologies are as follows 1) Cost plus Markup pricing, 2) Profit margin or target return percentage pricing, 3) Perceived value pricing, 4) Value Pricing and 5) Auction. So, Perceived value and value pricing model can be used in the case of hotel and restaurant or you can say in hospitality industry. In the we discussed some examples like Boeing & Airbus, ICICI Bank & Maruti Suzuki and etc. These are the key learnings that, I got from today lecture which was fulfilled with practical knowledge.

#b2b #insights

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Week-2 Gr2.HarshitVerma.PGFB2017

So, this week kick started with an amazing guest lecture given by Mr. Mukesh Sharma, who is currently working as Head of sales for Modular switches division at C&S electric. He explained and briefed about the Channel management. He defined a channel as a mean to access and it acts as a bridge between consumers and company. Then we learned about different kind of channels like distributors/stocking agents, agents and CFA which are present in B2B marketing. He also said that there is no B2B market all of the market is working on B2C and he explained this with the help of example of Amrapali. He also explained the need and requirement for a channel and some of them is mentioned below: -

-        To transfers the products to consumers and also, they supplement the efforts of the company

-        It helps in making faster delivery and stocking points.

We also discussed about the procedure and steps involved in channel management. division. Then we discussed about the selection and retention criteria for a channel. The selection criteria for a channel that company looks upon are past performance, network strengths, financial health and competence and quality of the channel partner. Now talking about the retention criteria or things that a company sees while retaining a channel are training of channel, recognizing their contributions, ease of operation and brand strength. After discussing this all we learned about the 5C’s of channel management that sir has learned or gained from his practical knowledge. So, the 5C’s are Communicate, Close connect, Clear, Commitment and Consistent. These are the 5C’s of channel management which can be used for managing a channel effectively. He also told us about the most successful mantra for designing and managing the channel is to have “WE” approach while designing or implementing an idea for a channel because it’s not about you only it’s always about them so you have to take all things collectively.

After this we moved and continued our discussion over organizational buying behavior under which we learned various types of forces that influences the buying decision for a company/business. So, the forces that affects these decisions are listed below: -

1.     Environmental forces

2.     Organizational forces

3.     Group forces

4.     Individual forces

Then we moved ahead and started a discussion regarding the strategic priorities in purchasing from buyer point of view. So, the things that a buyer will think before purchasing goods or material from any new vendor are as follows: -

·       Reputation of vendor

·       Flexibility

·       Inventory

·       Delivery Schedule

·       Pricing of Product

·       Variety in same product range

·       Trust in competence

There were several factors but consider that the above-mentioned factor are primary factors that will help buyer in selecting the right kind of vendor or seller. We also learned about TCO (Total cost of ownership). For example, if you like eating biryani’s and there is joint in South Delhi and you live in East Delhi so the total cost of owning or eating that biryani will not only include the cost of biryani but it will also include the cost of your travelling to that place and the sum total of cost will be the actual cost for you of eating biryani over that joint. TCO includes their types of cost Acquisition cost, Usage cost and Possession cost.

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Week-1 Gr2.HarshitVerma.PGFB2017

We started the course by discussing who can be a consumer ?. So for every company or industry the consumers are different for example in case of PVR the consumer can be viewers, advertisers or producers and while in the case of Maruti the consumers can be dealers, travel agencies or corporates. As we move down the line we understand the need for B2B marketing, it helps institutions in getting best rate and generate profitability for both the businesses. We also discussed the concept of values, it is based upon two things which are listed below:

1. Why do people look for you

2. Why do people prefer you over others.

Then we discussed a case for a analytical company which had conducted a research over the diesel consumption in the telecom company, through this we understanded the concept of organizational buying and various hierarchy of interest group. An organizational buying group mainly look upon three things and they are as follows: 1. Who are they 2. What they seek 3. What marketer can do ?

There are various interest group involved in an organizational buying like Actual user, Technical evaluators, Commercial & Purchase, Profit center head, Top management and last but not least Gate keepers and fixers. All these groups have their own kind of interest while buying or purchasing goods from a business or company.

Then we discussed about the three buying situations and they are

1. Straight Rebuy

2. Modified Rebuy

3. New Purchase

We also discussed the steps or the process of procuring the material and which method will be more costly from the buying company end and what is the reason behind that.

Apart from this we have discussed about just in time inventory management system under which a company orders raw material just in time when they receive the order. So in this the supplier has to take care of inventory and not the manufacturing company. Also both the party should have good relation between them so that this technique can work out in perfect manner.