February 24, 2015

Developing Enterprisewide or Company Wide Marketing Orientation




Market or customer focused companies understand customers better and serve them better. Customer is the reason why there is a job for any person in an organization.

How can enterprisewide marketing orientation be developed?
___________________________________________________________

Market or customer focused companies understand customers better and serve them better. Customer is the reason why there is a job for any person in an organization.

How can enterprisewide marketing orientation be developed?



1. CEO behavior: The CEO is the chief customer officer. He has to demonstrate strong customer focus, convince his top management team to be customer focused individually, then communicate with his employees to show customer commitment.

2. Appointment of a marketing task force: Marketing is the sole responsibility of marketing department. Companies have to appoint a crossfunctional team to bring in companywide marketing involvement. Marketing plan is not the plan of marketing department, It is the plan of the company marketing team.

3. Learn from Others who developed marketing orientation: Engage consultants who had prior experience in this task.

4. Reward customer orientation: Reward people for their customer orientation. Identify metrics for measuring customer orientation.

5. Hire marketing experts: If needed, hire persons from marketing oriented companies.

6. Conduct training programs: Conduct marketing training programs. Provide knowledge. Explain the desired attitude. Give opportunity to people to do action. Let them serve customers or interact with customers with the newly acquired knowledge. Let the employee reflect on his behavior. Provide a mentor to help him reflect. Customer orientation becomes a skill when a person practices the indicated behavior, reflects on it and refines his behavior with his own insights aided to some extent by skilled mentors.

7. Practice companywide marketing planning systems: Employ a large number of persons in marketing planning.

8. Establish a marketing excellence recognition program for people in non-marketing functions.

9. Think of converting into a customer segment or market centered company.

10. Implement process organization.

References

Philip Kotler, Marketing Management, Prentice Hall, USA.

Theory of Market Orientation - Market Orientation: Construct and Propositions


Planned Revision schedule for marketing chapters is in February and March

Originally posted in
http://knol.google.com/k/narayana-rao/developing-enterprisewide-or-company/2utb2lsm2k7a/1413


Updated  24 Feb 2015, 4 Dec 2011

February 21, 2015

Profit Center Management


1968
Left alone, each profit center should be expected to maximize its own value system. It is the central authority's responsibility to optimize the combination of profit centers.
https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/Classics/corporate_strategy_portfolio_management_operations_profit_centers_and_decentralized_management/

Companies should express profit objectives for both the profit center and its manager in terms of absolute dollars of profit for the planning period, which are based on the projected potential of existing resources to generate cash flow.


Estimating Profit Performance from Similar Profit Centers
Spring 1981
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02723572#page-1

From profit center to strategy center management ☆
Walter Schertler
Engineering Costs and Production Economics
Volume 12, Issues 1–4, July 1987, Pages 267–273
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0167188X87900875

Measuring Profit Center Managers
John Dearden
September 1987
https://hbr.org/1987/09/measuring-profit-center-managers



February 6, 2015

Zero Defects Program



Zero Defects Programs were launched in USA during early 1960s.

They got back into prominence during the TQM days once again.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for Zero Defect Zero Effect Manufacturing in India. Productivity Week in India is being celebrated with the theme.


Interesting article to refer to:


http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/us/100years/stories/zero-defects.html

The Quest for Zero Defects
http://www.qualitydigest.com/april05/articles/05_article.shtml


A Guide to Zero Defects
Office of the Assistance Secretary of Defense
Washington D.C.
1965
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a950061.pdf


Zero Effect: How to Green Your Facility
http://www.industryweek.com/environment/zero-effect-how-green-your-facility

Zero Impact Manufacturing Initiative
http://www2.unitar.org/cwm/publications/cw/tw/tw10/written/business/Ashok_Sharma_Cleantech_International_Foundation.pdf


Dupont Zero Impact Initiatives - Presentation by Dupont
http://www2.dupont.com/Building_and_Construction/en_US/assets/downloads/K23919-aiming-for-zero.pdf

Challenge to Design a Housing Complex that will have the samecaron emissions as forest
http://continuingeducation.construction.com/article.php?L=5&C=206



Indian References

http://www.hindustantimes.com/sanjoynarayan/imagining-a-zero-effect-economy-for-india/article1-1255763.aspx


Ananta Kumar - Minister
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=111433

http://niesbud.nic.in/docs/Seminar-on-Zero-defect-Zero-Effect.pdf

http://www.cii-iq.in/?option=com_content&view=article&id=199&Itemid=685


Sai Electricals
http://saielectricalspvtltd.blogspot.in/2014/08/zero-defect-and-zero-effect.html



Zero Defect Zero Effect Manufacturing in India


Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for Zero Defect Zero Effect Manufacturing in India. Productivity Week in India is being celebrated with the theme.

February 4, 2015

Best Management Books of 2014



Eight Noteworthy Business and Management Books Of 2014

by  Steve Denning, Forbes Contributor on radical management, leadership, innovation & narrative


Over the last few years, a number of books have set out to describe the dramatically changed goals, practices and metrics of the emerging Creative Economy. Here are eight new additions to the canon that came to my attention in 2014. The books make a substantive contribution to clarifying and institutionalizing the paradigm shift from the Traditional Economy to the Creative Economy.







1.     Tilt
Tilt: Shifting Your Strategy from Products to Customers bv Niraj Dawar (Harvard Business Review Press, October 2013)

2.     Zero to One
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel Crown Business, September 2014)

3.     How Google Works
How Google Works by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg (Grand Central Publishing (September 2014)

4.     Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy
Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy: Markets, Speculation and the State by William H. Janeway (Cambridge University Press, September 2012)

5. The Management Shift
The Management Shift: How to Harness the Power of People and Transform Your Organization For Sustainable Success by Vlatka Hlupic (Palgrave Macmillan, November 2014)

6.     Seeing What Others Don’t
Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights by Gary Klein (PublicAffairs, June 2013)

7.     Decision Making For Dummies
Decision Making For Dummies by Dawna Jones (For Dummies, September 2014

8.     Leading the Life You Want
Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life by Stewart D. Friedman (Harvard Business Review Press, September 2014)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/12/14/noteworthy-books-of-2014/

Business


Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance, by Julia Angwin, Times Books, RRP$27
Engaging story of a concerted and often difficult quest to protect her own and her family’s privacy.
. . .
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, WW Norton, RRP£17.99/$26.95
The book is about the impact of digital change on our future job prospects and prosperity.
. . .
Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch, by Nick Davies, Chatto & Windus, RRP£20/ Faber, RRP$27
It was a finalist for FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year. Revelations about the structure, motivation and governance of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. It is a sharp guide to the causes and profound consequences of the phone hacking scandal.
. . .
Shredded: Inside RBS, the Bank that Broke Britain, by Ian Fraser, Birlinn, RRP£25
The book is about the implosion of Royal Bank of Scotland . It brings out the author’s evident, and justified, anger at the way in which one bank brought the British financial system to the brink of catastrophe.
. . .
The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World, by Russell Gold, Simon & Schuster, RRP$26
Compelling tales of communities and individuals whose lives have been transformed, for good or ill, by the latest resource boom.
. . .
A Bigger Prize: Why Competition Isn’t Everything and How We Do Better, by Margaret Heffernan, Simon & Schuster, RRP£14.99/ PublicAffairs, RRP$27.99
Our obsession with competition is undermining the potential benefits of co-operation and collaboration is the theme of  this book, The author points out in detail how competition can lead to inferior results – and genuine suffering – in business, sport, education and scientific research.
. . .
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, by Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, RRP£20/$35
It is about the daring and exploits of earlier technology innovators, from Ada Lovelace to Alan Turing and how it provided a foundation for the breakthroughs of later innovators.
. . .
Flash Boys: Cracking the Money Code, by Michael Lewis, Allen Lane, RRP£20/ WW Norton, RRP$27.95
Activities of the world of algorithmic traders.
. . .
The Shifts and the Shocks: What We’ve Learned – and Have Still to Learn – from the Financial Crisis, by Martin Wolf, Allen Lane, RRP£25/ Penguin Press, RRP$35
Martin Wolf is The FT’s chief economics commentator. The book is on continuing economic crisis. The book makes uncomfortable reading for bankers, financiers and policy makers.

Think Like a Freak
by Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner

Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators and Icons Accelerate Success
by Shane Snow

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
by Peter Thiel

The Obstacles in the Way: The Timelsss Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
by Ryan Holiday

Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder
by Ariana Hffington
Theme: Apart from money and power, you need physical and mental happiness.


Best Business and Investment Books - Amazon Books Selection

http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=s9_dnav_bw_ir04_b?_encoding=UTF8&node=10207116011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-5&pf_rd_r=06V4PND18T7AJ35W5EQV&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1968818082&pf_rd_i=10207069011


Economics


Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit, by Charles Calomiris and Stephen Haber, Princeton, RRP£24.95/$35
The US has had 12 systemic banking crises since 1840, while Canada has had none. Is US system fragile by design?
. . .
Microeconomics: A Very Short Introduction, by Avinash Dixit, OUP, RRP£7.99/$11.95
Dixit demonstrates in this book that economists do at least know a great deal more than nothing about microeconomics: the study of markets, both their successes and their failures.
. . .
Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy, by Francis Fukuyama, Profile, RRP£25/ Farrar, Straus and Giroux, RRP$35
Fukuyama shows how the difficult balance between the state, the rule of law and democratic accountability emerged, then developed and, more recently, started to decay in the west. This is a work of political science and on political system and institutions. But the issues Fukuyama raises are of profound concern to economists, too, because economic institutions affect and are, in turn, affected by the political systems in which they operate.
. . .
Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises, by Timothy Geithner, Random House Business, RRP£25/ Crown, RRP$35
Geithner was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then Treasury secretary through the worst years of the financial crisis. Geithner argues in the book that the way the US handled the crisis, particularly its use of stress tests, is a model for the future.
. . .
How to Speak Money, by John Lanchester, Faber, RRP£17.99/ WW Norton, RRP$26.95
Lanchester, a best-selling author, came out with a personal reference book.
. . .
Thrive: The Power of Evidence-based Psychological Therapies, by Richard Layard and David Clark, Allen Lane, RRP£20
In this important book, the authors – one an economist, the other a psychologist – demonstrate both the human and economic costs of mental illnesses. These are far and away the most destructive set of ailments to fall on the young and middle-aged.
. . .
European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics are in a Mess and How to Put Them Right, by Philippe Legrain, CB Books, RRP£12.99
This is a book on the European malaise. Legrain argues compellingly that policy makers’ response to that crisis was and remains a disaster. He warns that the eurozone is still far from healthy
. . .
House of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession, and How We Can Prevent it from Happening Again, by Atif Mian and Amir Sufi, Chicago, RRP£18/$26
Professors Mian and Sufi argue that “economic disasters are almost always preceded by a large increase in household debt”.
. . .
War: What is it Good for? The Role of Conflict in Civilisation, from Primates to Robots, by Ian Morris, Profile, RRP£25/ Farrar, Straus and Giroux, RRP$30
Morris argues that war may bring peace, prosperity and progress. Through war, more powerful and effective states emerge and these in turn have produced the security that then allows people to become more productive. The thesis is disturbingly persuasive.
. . .
Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty, translated by Arthur Goldhammer, Harvard, RRP£29.95/ Belknap Press, RRP$39.95
This was the blockbuster success of 2014 and was named the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year. The book throws much light upon one of the most important questions in economics: what determines the distribution of income and wealth. With an abundance of data and some simple and powerful theories, Piketty has made an immensely important contribution to the public debate about current economic thinking.
. . .
The Dollar Trap: How the US Dollar Tightened its Grip on Global Finance, by Eswar Prasad, Princeton, RRP£24.95/$35
It is by now the conventional wisdom that the dollar’s primacy is coming to an end, with the Chinese renminbi the imminent successor. Prasad rejects this view. He argues that  dollar’s role as a store of value has if anything been strengthened by the crisis.


. . .
The Euro Trap: On Bursting Bubbles, Budgets and Beliefs, by Hans-Werner Sinn, OUP, RRP£25/$45
He rightly identifies the roots of the crisis in the huge divergences in competitiveness that emerged in the years leading up it. This view from Germany shows just how difficult it will be to make the eurozone work successfully, even if one disagrees with some of the conclusions.


http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d79f160a-76bb-11e4-8273-00144feabdc0.html



Marketing Management


"Contagious: Why Things Catch on" by Jonah Berger was named the best book of Marketing of 2014

Inc.Com List






1. The Art of Social Media
Subtitle: Power Tips for Power Users

Authors: Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick

2. Growth Hacker Marketing
Subtitle: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising

Author: Ryan Holiday


3. Spin Sucks
Subtitle: Communication and Reputation Management in the Digital Age

Author: Gini Dietrich

4. The Power of Visual Storytelling
Subtitle: How to Use Visuals, Videos, and Social Media to Market Your Brand

Authors: Ekaterina Walter and Jessica Gioglio

5. 5. What Great Brands Do
Subtitle: The Seven Brand-Building Principles That Separate the Best From the Rest

Author: Denise Lee Yohn

6. Decoding the New Consumer Mind
Subtitle: How and Why We Shop and Buy

Author: Kit Yarrow

7. Hello, My Name Is Awesome
Subtitle: How to Create Brand Names That Stick

Author: Alexandra Watkins




8. Global Content Marketing
Subtitle: How to Create Great Content, Reach More Customers, and Build a Worldwide Marketing Strategy That Works

Author: Pam Didner

9. Hooked
Subtitle: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

Authors: Nir Eyal

10. Unconscious Branding
Subtitle: How Neuroscience Can Empower (and Inspire) Marketing

Author: Douglas Van Praet

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/top-10-marketing-books-of-2014.html

Strategic Management


J.-C. Spender
Business Strategy: Managing Uncertainty, Opportunity, and Enterprise
(Oxford University Press, 2014)

Sanjay Khosla and Mohanbir Sawhney
Fewer, Bigger, Bolder: From Mindless Expansion to Focused Growth
(Penguin Portfolio, 2014)

John P. Kotter
Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World
(Harvard Business Review Press, 2014)


What are your suggestions for best book in various management subjects? Write as comment.



References

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d79f160a-76bb-11e4-8273-00144feabdc0.html
. . .


February 1, 2015

Word of Mouse - Are You Facilitating and Promoting it?




"Word of Mouse" is a phrase used by  Philip Kotler in his description of interactive marketing in 13th edition of his book "Marketing Management".  More about it.


Word of mouse is the online version of ‘word of mouth’ – the wide, user-driven spread of a message or communications agent. This is also being termed as ‘viral’, and its use online by businesses is often referred to as online viral marketing.

Advertisers are finding new ways to get consumers to buy into their brand and buy their products as there is clutter in the traditional media.

In particular, forward-thinking brands are using a specific viral marketing approach that generates widespread awareness and ultimately sells more. It features advertainment content.

This word-of-mouse approach is user-driven rather than advertiser controlled.  Its messages (and the brand behind it) are endorsed by influencers and consumers. Its agents are seeded via editorial, not advertising routes. It has no campaign cut-off point and it provides an ever-increasing return on investment. Yet, it also integrates well with traditional marketing, to give brands the best of both  approaches – ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’.

The most successful use of viral marketing is not stand-alone, but as an integrated part of a brand’s overall strategy. Its point is to create buzz and provide help in building brands, but other marketing and sales techniques have to follow.


Its main strategic purposes are the following.

.
To maintain or boost a cost-effective level of brand awareness during media-spend ‘downtime’, usually by releasing web-only viral material that retains brand and campaign themes.
.
To kickstart new communications – which often means releasing a web-first viral edit of a mainstream ad before it hits TV, to create buzz and exploit exclusivity.
.
As a stand-alone tool for brands that either cannot afford above-the-line marketing, or require only online
distribution to a widespread target group.

To leverage the word of mouse channel, a  story should be told in different way, i.e. in  a way appropriate to the peer-to-peer and file-sharing activities web users engage in.

So, understanding the place of word-of mouse in the overall mix and using it strategically rather than tactically, within the context of web users’ behaviour, are key to success of this approach.



Virgin Mobile and Mazda, have undertaken number of online viral campaigns.

Facilitating word of mouse involves developing a buzz angle, gaining influencer advocacy, and seeding campaign news and the viral agent (usually an ‘advertainment’ video clip) on the most influential, specialist seed routes – as core editorial, not advertising, content.

Unlike finite-period online ad campaigns, which target a brand’s core market, viral marketing aims to enable
the buzz and the viral agent to reach the widest possible number of online users (among which any brand’s target market lies). The approach  kickstarts buzz and viral spread – then it is up to users, who become brand advocates and free media channels as they pass the viral agent around via email, providing valuable  peer-to-peer brand endorsement.

Mazda and Virgin Mobile use our online tracking system to measure viral spread and user interaction with their brands beyond the initial seed routes, to quantify the impact of viral marketing on brand awareness. The main difference in their use of our approach is strategic.  Mazda’s activity is driven by and integrated with CRM activity; Virgin Mobile’s falls within the remit of its brand marketers. Both brands emphasise the importance of using viral seeding and developing creative strategies that ensure the material is appropriate for online audiences.

The results speak for themselves. Mazda’s ‘Parking’ campaign was rated the number one viral campaign of 2003 by Campaign in the UK and Germany, and delivered a measurable response from over one million
web users within only eight weeks.

James Kydd, Virgin Mobile’s brand director, claimed that viral marketing was used strategically,  as a key part of overall  marketing mix and it had made a big impact on the brand exposure for a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing methods in 2003.

If you get the approach right, word-of-mouse can be an extremely valuable addition to brand marketing. And if, as  Malcolm Gladwell said in The Tipping Point, ‘The most powerful selling of products and ideas takes place not marketer to consumer but consumer to consumer’, then bottom-up, peer-to-peer driven techniques like viral marketing need to be effectively used.


2015
How Not to Ruin Your Social Media Campaigns
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-media-fails-not-ruin-campaign/124027/


 http://www.dmc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Admap_Oct04.pdf

http://jiad.org/article105.html

http://www.inc.com/articles/2000/11/21063.html
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2003/aug/04/mondaymediasection.netmusic


2013, 2014
http://hamarketingpr.ie/voice/59/188/The-Power-of-the-Blogosphere-and-Online-Word-of-Mouth.html

Marc Ostrofsky - Book Word of Mouse
http://www.ibtimes.com/understanding-digital-world-how-you-can-use-tech-trends-get-ahead-make-bank-video-1421088


New Advertising Alternatives - 12 October 2013
_______________________

_______________________

Planned Revision schedule for marketing chapters is in February and March

Updated 1 Feb 2015, 2 July 2014


Evaluation and Control of Marketing Activities, Investments and Expenditures





Based on 13th Edition of Marketing Management by Kotler and Keller

Annual Plan Control


Sales Analysis
Microsales analysis

Market Share Analysis

Marketing Expense to Sales Analysis

Financial Analysis

Profitability Control


Marketing Profitability Analysis
Determining Corrective Action
Direct Versus Full Costing

Efficiency Control


Efficiency control requires the evaluation of efficiency of sales methods and techniques. It requires answers to the questions; are there more efficient ways to manage the sales force, advertising, sales promotion, and distribution.

Is the name efficiency control appropriate? Designing effective and efficient methods is the responsibility of managers. Others can evaluate the design of managers and then suggest improvements. In that context efficiency control is appropriate.

To improve the channel efficiency, management needs to search for economies in inventory control, warehouse locations, and transportation modes. While short term decision models are developed as tradeoffs, in the long term all relevant costs and yields can be improved. This fact was brought out by Japanese companies strongly into management thinking.

Strategic Control



The Marketing Audit
A marketing audit is a comprehensive, systematic, independent, and periodic examination of a company's or business unit's marketing environment, objectives, strategies, and activities, with a view to determining problem areas and opportunities and recommending a plan of action to improve the company's marketing performance.


The Marketing Excellence Review

In Table 22.13 Kotler and Keller gave characteristics of Poor, Good and Excellent Marketing Management Practices in 15 dimensions. The company can self assess where it stands of each of these dimensions and move towards excellent practices.


Planned Revision schedule for marketing chapters is in February and March


The Future of Marketing - Kotler and Keller Book Topic





Modern Marketing will evolve and the following trends were suggested Kotler and Keller for effective and efficient marketing.

# The demise of the traditional marketing department and the rise of holistic marketing function.
# The demise of free spending marketing and the rise of ROI marketing.
# The demise of marketing intuition and the rise of marketing science.
# The demise of manual marketing and the rise of automated marketing
# The demise of mass marketing and the rise of precision marketing

Marketers have to develop a new of set skills and competencies in areas such as:

# Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
# Partner Relationship Management (PRM)
# Datebase Marketing and Datamining
# Contact center management and telemarketing
# Public relationship marketing (including event and sponsorship marketing)
# Brand-building and brand-asset management
# Experiential marketing
# Integrated marketing communications
# Profitability analysis by segment, customer, and channel


Planned Revision schedule for marketing chapters is in February and March