Higher Business Management 2010

Advantages of Market Segmentation

2010-01-08T02:24:00.000-08:00

Less money lost advertising to everybody rather that just to one specific segment.

You can charge more for your product or service, because it is exactly what this specific segment requires.

It may be the only product of this type on the market therefore there is no competition.

The customers are all satisfied, because the get the product they want.

They can make a more specific product for their target market and therefore can make it more expensive to buy.

Ensuring product is sold in appropriate places, appropriate promotions are offered.

What is the role of Trade Unions and ACAS

2010-01-08T02:22:00.002-08:00

Trade Unions

A trade union (or labor union) is an organization of workers who have banded together to achieve common goals in key areas, such as working conditions. (copy and paste much CHEEETERS)

The main service a union provides for its members is negotiation and representation. There are other benefits people get from being members of trade unions.
· Negotiation
· Representation
· Information and advice
· Member services

ACAS

The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service is a publicly funded agency that gives advice to both employers and employees on industrial relations problems. It offers guidance, upon request where there is an argument between a worker and an employer. It produces helpful Codes of Guidance on issues such as disciplinary procedures.

The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) is a Crown non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom. Its purpose is to improve organisations and working life through the promotion and facilitation of strong industrial relations practice.

Explain the various means of sampling

2010-01-08T02:22:00.001-08:00

Random sampling – people are stopped at random to fill in surveys

Quota sampling – surveys are sent to hand picked people and the percentage represents the population of the UK

Employment legislation

2010-01-08T02:21:00.001-08:00

Health and safety at work act 1974

To make further provisions for securing the health and safety and welfare of a person at work, for protecting others against risks to health of safety in connection with the activities of someone at work.

Race relations act 1976

The parliament if the UK established the race relations act in order to abolish discrimination on the grounds of race, colour and ethnic religion.

Equal pay act 1970
The Equal Pay Act 1970 is an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament which prohibits any less favourable treatment between men and women in terms of pay and conditions of employment. The law came into force in 1975. it has been amended on a number of recent occasions.

Explain measures organizations can take to ensure they produce a quality service or product.

2010-01-08T02:20:00.000-08:00

Quality Assurance – At certain point s in the production process products are checked to ensure that they meet agreed quality standards. All aspects of production - is the process of comparing the business processes including cost, cycle time, productivity, or quality to another that is widely considered to be an industry standard benchmark or best practice. It provides a snapshot of the performance of your business and helps you understand where you are in relation to a particular standard.

Quality Control – the product is checked at the end of production.

Quality circle – people from different areas of the company from managers to cleaners have a meeting to express there concerns about problems in the company and try to find a solution to the problem

TQM – The Product is checked at every stage of the production process to ensure that all the duds are dumped at the start of the process and all of the unfaulty products continue on and are eventually sold faultless to the customers which saves reputation as the customer will buy a good product.

Benchmarking
The process of comparing the business processes and performance metrics including cost, cycle time, productivity, or quality to another that is widely considered to be an industry standard benchmark or best practice. Essentially, benchmarking provides a snapshot of the performance of your business and helps you understand where you are in relation to a particular standard. The result is often a business case and "Burning Platform" for making changes in order to make improvements. The term benchmarking was first used by cobblers to measure people's feet for shoes. They would place someone's foot on a "bench" and mark it out to make the pattern for the shoes. Benchmarking is most used to measure performance using a specific indicator (cost per unit of measure, productivity per unit of measure, cycle time of x per unit of measure or defects per unit of measure) resulting in a metric of performance that is then compared to others.

Describe a selection process which may be used to ensure the best applicants are appointed.

2010-01-08T02:18:00.001-08:00

· Interview
· Application Forms
· Attainment tests
· Aptitude tests
· IQ Tests
· Psychometric tests

TEACHER COMMENT

This is not describe!

Carousel Questions on the 7th January

2010-01-08T02:15:00.000-08:00

After this post there will be some answers generated and developed by students for some revision questions.

PESTEC

2009-11-18T05:15:00.001-08:00

Political factors: new legislation can restrict the sales on a particular item therefore affecting the sales of that particular product. For example: Age restrictions for sales of alcohol and working hours, minimum wage which would affect their profit

Economical factors: the state of the ecomony can affect the sales of an organisation, for example, people won't have as much money to spend in the economic downturn.

Social factors: Ethnicity , Religion , lifestyle, age, gender, if something goes out of fashion it will no longer sell & the company will have to develop a new product.

Technical factors: Internet would be effective as its easier to obtain goods from online and their website should be laid out efficiently and made easy to read, however, it is costly and time consuming to train emplyees how to use it. The computer hardware also needs updating regularly. Email is also good as it is fast and effective however, it is prone to viruses and may distract employees.

Enviromental Factors: Green campaigners can boycot the store to influence them to sell 'enviromentally friendly' products and threated to stop shopping their if needs are not met. Try and reduce transport costs to recuce pollution by allowing factories to be closer by. The company needs to make ethical decisions and not exploit the environment or their workforce.

Competitive: If competitors lower prices, Ikea will also have to lower prices to stay popular & this may reduce overall profits. Research may need to be done into developing a new product if other competitors bring out a more pupular & renewed product.

Describe how both horizontal & vertical intergration helps an organisation like irn bru become larger & more profitable?

2009-11-18T05:13:00.000-08:00

If Irn Bru take over Coca-Cola they can gain all profits from Coca-Cola and their market share. They become involved with more people,coca colas contacts and customers which means they have less liability.

They can also broaden their customer network. For vertical intergration, if Irn Bru buy unto their bottle suppliers they no longer need to pay for transport costs which maximisises profitablitity. They benefit by making bottles for other companies which increases their profit.

If they bought out a small chain store they could sell their products cheaper than rivals, making their product more appealing.

HORIZONTAL: If Irn Bru had to merge with a company on the same level of production for example another fizzy drinks company- Coca Cola, they would become a stronger company with a wider target market. Stronger work force is created.

VERTICAL:By not paying transport expenses, this increases the profit for the company

Nokia are concerned about poor sales of their new 3G phone.

2009-11-18T05:12:00.000-08:00

· Make product cheaper than similar phones by cutting costs such as amount of materials used.
· More user friendly, easier to use, step by step tutorial.
· More applications etc.
· More memory storage.
· Advertise online, on TV, celebrity influence/endorsement.
· Free software updates.
· Better contract deals than other similar phones.
· Free insurance.
· Add features to make it more suitable for an undifferentiated market
· Make it more stylish by providing a range of covers & accessories to suit an undifferentiated market.
· Selling online.
· Get customer feedback so they can improve the product.
· Lower the price so it is more affordable, and therefore more people could buy it.Introduce better contract deals than others with the phone.

Richard Branson is launching Virgin Galactic. Describe how a manager could evaluate the effectiveness of a decision.

2009-11-18T05:11:00.002-08:00

Using market research he can see how popular this would be, which would allow him to see how many sales he can make & which market it will target. This will enable him to perhaps style his product towards a more differentiated market.

He could look at sales figures to show how much it will cost to be a part of Virgin Galactic & see if it is profitable for Richard.

He could send out questionnaires, carry out surveys, polls to analyse how effective the service is to the public & this would also enable changes to be made if it was re-launched. For example if prices were too high changes could be made to the re-launched product to make it cheaper & increase sales.

Find out the profit margin which is an essential figure that shows you how much money the product made.

Carry out surveys, gather customer feedback and look at sales figures to see what needs to be improved in the product or service.

Describe how 5 different stakeholders of Tunnock's could influence the organisation

2009-11-18T05:11:00.001-08:00

o Customers can influence a business by no longer buying the product and moving their business elsewhere.

o Employees can demand a wage rise or take action, strike, work to rule, protest

o Managers can influence an organisation by hiring and firing staffing. They can also be responsible for important decision making.

o Owners: They could expand the business to an international market to make profits larger, build more shops which would mean transport costs would be reduced not having to transport goods as far. The owner may decide to shut down the business as they have the first say & this may result in major loss of jobs.

o Government: The government can introduce new laws & raise taxes which may deprive a business of making certain decisions. Build a ready made factory rent free for a year to give them a head start. They can give grants & money for every person they employ. They could issue grants which will help with the costs of the business.

Workers: could go on strike.

Banks could influence a business by not lending money to them, making it difficult to function & create any profit.

o Suppliers: The suppliers could stop supplying businesses with stock , they could also increase their selling prices which means the business would have to put their prices up.

Explain the benefits to an organisation of using market segmentation.

2009-11-18T05:09:00.000-08:00

They can increase profit potential by keeping costs down and not targeting unwanted customers. They can get ahead of the competition in specific parts of the market They can target their marketing towards customers who are most likely to buy their products.

They can improve the service which the offer to the customer. They can identify their most valuable and least valuable customers.

By doing market segmentation, it splits up the market into different groups with similar interests and it targets the market that you aim to. This in turn saves money for the company because they don't target customers that are not interested. This gains more profit for the company as they are not targeting the wrong customers.

Market segmentation also makes the company more competitive with other companies and also improves your position in the market as it shows that the company is strong.

1. Measurable: - it should be possible to determine the values of the variable used for the segmentation.

2. Relevant: - it should justify the expected profits and the growth potential.

3. Accessible: - the target customers must be reachable and servable for the organisation.