PROGRAM : BECHELOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (BBA)
SEMESTER : 01
COURSE NAME : DBB1104- MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Assignment set-1
Q No-1: Macro environment include variables which directly or indirectly exert an
influence on the business. Do you agree or not? Justify your answer in detail.
ANS-1 :
Yes, I agree that macro environment include variable exert an influence on the business.
Macro environment is type of external environment which is beyond the control of an
organisation and influence the organisation as opportunities or threat. Successful organisations
grasp the opportunities for benefit of the organisation and covert threats to the opportunities
also. Following is the type of macro environment which exert an influence on the business:
1-Demographic Environment : Demography means the study of population in terms of
Gender, age, caste, religion, beliefs, size density etc.. By this study marketers came to know
about the people who are of major interest to them.
Louise G Pol says : “The first environmental fact of interest to marketers is population because
people make up Market”
2-Political Environment : Political environment strongly influence the marketing decisions.
The constituent of political environment are laws, statutes, political parties etc. Business
legislations enacted in the country relate to various areas such as licence to the industries,
restricting unfair trade practices, regulating production, supply and distribution of food
products, consumer protection etc.
3-Technological environment : The technology is changing very fast. Marketers should
change themselves accordingly to be relevant in the market. Development made in the field of
computer, electronics, internet, software has changed customer life style, buying patterns and
accordingly marketing style has changes to internet promotions, online selling, distribution
pattern etc.
4-Economic and legal environment : Marketers are required to follow the rules and
regulations of the country in which they are operating. Main laws which can affect the business
are : Minimum wages laws, pricing caps, environmental laws, advertising laws, worker safety
laws, union laws, copyright and patent laws, antimonopoly laws, business investment favour
laws, Sunday closing laws, municipal licence laws etc.
5- Global Environment : Global environment affects the business decisions of an organisation
because there are different laws, political environment, economic conditions, rules and
regulations etc for each sovereign country. The organisation is bound to follow these rules and
regulations which may be different from the home country of the organisation. The
technological environment of different countries such as machinery used, raw material
availability, technological acceptance of consumers also affects the business decisions and
organisation has to plan accordingly.
6- Natural Environment: The natural environment consists natural resources where the
organisation operates. Marketers need to evaluate the availability of raw material, pollution
levels, government intervention in using natural resources and plan their activities accordingly.
Marketers should strictly adhere to the rules and regulation of the government while designing
their marketing plan and this leads to an organisation to make their plan to eliminate hazardous
waste, optimise energy consumptions and recycling of the waste.
Thus, the macro environment exerts an influence on the business.
Q No-2: Define Product Mix. As every human being has different phases in life, alike
product follows. Elaborate the statement with suitable examples applicable in each stage
of PLC.
Ans-2 :
Product Mix : Product mix is the set of all product lines and items that a particular seller offer
to sale to buyers. Product mix has 4 main characteristics or dimensions:
1- Length – total no of products for sale
2- Width – total product lines
3- Depth- total products in each line
4- Consistency: how closely all product lines are related in production, distribution,
channels etc.
Product Life cycle : As human being has a life span and different stages in the span, each
product has it’s own life. The time span Since introduction of product in to market and till it is
removed from the market is called product life cycle. Every product moves from five phases -
1- Introduction of the product.
2- Growth
3- Maturity
4- Saturation
5- decline
1-Introduction Phase : In this phase product is introduced in the market for sale. Greater
Investment is required in this phase and starts with slow sales. Profit may be low as investment
in promotions and advertising required for stimulating the demand.
2-Growth Phase : In this phase sales starts increasing rapidly and people starts accepting the
products. Simultaneously competitors also come in market to compete with the organisation.
3- Maturity Phase : In this phase sales increases but at slow rate compared to growth phase and
competitors also make presence in the market.
4-Saturation phase : In this phase sales is at its highest label and further some times goes up
and down both.
5-Declining phase : This is the time when some new technologies comes in the market and
people starts attracting to that and sales of the product slowing getting down.
We can understand this by the example of Nokia phones model 2110 :
Introduction phase: 1995-2000 and sales of these phone was very low due to high cost of
phones and calling rates.
Growth Phase : Year 2000-2002 the sale was increasing rapidly and parallelly Motorola, Sony,
Panasonic, Samsung and other brands also started giving competition to Nokia.
Maturity Phase : It was time in 2002-2004 for Nokia GSM phones sales was still growing but
technology of colour phones was also introduced in the market and phones were getting tough
competition from the competitors.
Saturation Phase : Year 2004-2005 were the saturation for the model and other models with
colour options were introduced in the market and the sale started fluctuating.
Declining phase : As the new technology of colour options was very rapidly accepted by
customers the models sale declined very fast and with in a year company has to stop the
production this particular model and other models with colour options were introduced in the
market by the company.
Q no-3: State the benefits of modern marketing concept. Enumerate how does the
understanding of marketing concepts gives immense benefits to an organisation?
Ans 3 :
The benefits of Modern Marketing Concepts:
In the modern marketing concepts, the marketers focus on customer wants, needs and
expectation which enables them to design their product in line with these wants, needs and
expectations and thus the marketer can deliver the desired satisfaction to more effectively and
efficiently than competitors.
The following are the benefits of modern marketing concepts:
1- It points out that long term success is assured to an organisation only if the needs
of the market are recognised, and the customers needs considered at top in all
business activities.
2- It clearly suggests that marketing risks can be reduced by knowing and
understanding the market.
3- It helps organisation to react quickly to capitalised to market opportunities.
4- It assures the effective marketing, which ensure to accomplish organisational goals.
Production concept helps organisation to reduce their operational cost and thus to reduce the
product cost. Most Japanees organisations work on expanding their customer base and increase
production and reduce the production cost to become more competitive.
Organisations which follow product concept, focus on their product to focusing on the selected
segment of the customers and feel them precious by providing the exclusive products.
The selling concepts is followed by those firms which sales such products for which common
people do not priorities to buy such as insurance, health insurance etc. Also, the firms which
have excess capacity of manufacturing also focus on the selling concepts to sell their products
and get benefited.
The marketers such LIC follows the social marketing concepts where they focus on rural and
weaker section to get adequate financial security by their insurance policies.
Thus, different companies / marketers use different concepts of marketing and get benefits in
achieving organisational goals.
Assignment set-2
Q No-4: The factors which determine consumer behaviour can be grouped into major
broad categories. Elaborate categories in detail.
Ans4 : The factors which determine consumer behaviour can be grouped into following major
broad categories:
1- Personal determinants
2- Sociocultural determinants
3- Psychological determinants
4- Personal determinants
1-Personal Determinants : There are two main factors which influence an individual
consumer :
1.1-Consumer demographics: The factors such as age, income of people, education
level influence the consumer’s buying behaviour. For example, low-income consumer’s
tendency is to buy low-cost items which may be non-branded and medium and high-income
consumer will go for branded high-quality products.
1.2-Consumer psychographic: These are the factors such as attitude, life style, self
image of the buyer. From the same demographic condition, there may be different choice of
two buyers. One may like branded clothes while other may go for unbranded. This all depend
on psychology of the person.
2- Sociocultural determinants: Following are the Factors of sociocultural determinants
2.1- Social Factors: A person is greatly influenced by the society where he lives. Starts
from family to relatives, friends, office colleagues etc. all influence his behaviour of buying
the things. For example a person want to upgrade his small car to big car as all his friends have
big car.
2.2- Cultural Factors: Culture refers to the norms or rules or conduct which has been
taught to the individual from childhood. A persons culture influences food, clothes, locality of
residence, practices. For example a person’s religion decides the festivals and the buying
pattern accordingly.
2.3-Environmental Factors : Consumer’s behaviour is influenced by the advertisement
he/ she watch on television, social media, internet, print media etc. So environmental factor is
also the important factor and influence the consumers behaviour.
3-Psychological determinants: Psychological factors of human behaviour were analysed by
Maslow and Freud who have analysed the deep seated needs of the human beings which leads
to characteristic behaviour. Following are the psychological factors which affects the buyer’s
decision :
3.1- Perception: A person see the advertisement all around him, listen from friends,
colleagues about the things, which creates a perception good or bad about the things and affect
the buying decision of an individual. Companies try to create favourable perception by
advertising, writing columns and using other online means.
3.2-Learning : A human tendency is to learn new things always. Companies use this
quality of a human buy showing the advertisement. This affects the buying decision of an
individual.
3.3- Memory : Buyer’s decision is affected by based on what is in the memory. An
individual see the advertisement on roads, internet, news papers repeatedly which stores in the
memory and affect in buying the things.
3.4-Motivation: It is the process of marketing where marketer convince to customer
that the thing which is being provided to him is a need of him. Marketer motivates the buyers
the if he or she buys his products that this will benefit him to solve his problems or will full fill
his need.
3.5- Attitude : Buyer’s attitude effect a lot in his buying decisions. A buyer may have
positive or negative perception about the thing. Such as if a person do not like a particular
country and the product is manufactured in that country, buyer may not buy that product though
the product has good qualities as per his requirement. This is called negative attitude.
Thus, all these factors determine the consumer behaviour and influence consumer decision.
Q No-5: Discuss the significance of relationship marketing. Elaborate the methods which
organization can adopt to enhance relationship with customers?
Ans-5
Relationship Marketing : It is the modern concept where marketers focus on customer
relationship building. It is done to achieve customer loyalty and increase interaction with the
customer. By improving loyalty of the customer organisation will able to retain the customer
intact with them, which result in increasing the sales of the organisation and thus generate
profits for the organisation.
Study shows that making new customers costs 5 times high to the organisation than to retain
an existing customers. So, in view of profit of the organisation also it is very important to
maintain good relation with existing customers.
It has been also found that two third customers have tendency to switch the brand with a small
difference with the existing brand. So, to keep addressing their issue through establishing
proper communication channel to maintain healthy customer relation and keep the customer
intact with the brand.
Marketers provide solutions to customer through their products and services and establish a
communication channel with customer to understand their requirement and full fill the
requirements by improving the products and services.
Organisation can adopt following methods to enhance relationship with customer:
1- Goodwill: Organisations create good will by providing good services and addressing
customer concerns and issues in the shortest time through proper channel.
2- High profile Visibility: Organisation need to show high profile visibility in the eyes of
the customer. The organisation need to project its brand in front of customer 7 to 10
times minimum through telemarketing, personal meetings, though mail, introductory
offers etc to register the brand in their mind.
3- Free gifts or discounts: Organisation can offer some free gifts or discounts along with
purchase of the products.
4- Trade Shows and road shows: Organisations can participate in the trade shows and
road shows to increase the visibility of the brands among customers.
5- Motivation to marketing team: Incentives, rewards and methods can be used to keep
motivating the marketing teams which work for customer delight and maintain good
relationship with customers.
6- Remembering Customer preferences: Organisations maintain customer data such as
marriage anniversary, birth days. Organisation can send them personal massages to
address this preference of the customer. This leads to the personal bonding with
customer.
7- Feed Back Systems : Organisation can establish the feedback system to know the
customer experience with the brand, sales executives, ambient of the store etc. this
certainly helps the organisations to improve their customer relationship.
8- Loyalty Points: Brans and stores can provide some loyalty points and offer some
products in return of the loyalty points to keep customers intact with the brand.
Thus, all these practices help organisation to maintain healthy relationship with customers
in this competitive environment which results as sustainable growth of the organisation
Q. No-6 : Discuss in detail sequence of steps follow in developing an integrated promotion
mix take any example of company at your choice.
Ans-6: Integrated Promotion mix or communication mix is the combination of all
communication or promotional methods available to reach to customer and target audience
such as sales promotion, direct selling, customer relations, internet marketing, advertising etc.
following are the steps involved in developing promotion mix :
1- Establishing Clear Goal and measurable objectives.
2- Understanding target audience
3- Evaluating communication options
4- Implementing communication tactics
Let us take example of Hero Motocorp Limited manufacturing motorcycles. The long term
goal of the organisation is “TO BE THE FUTURE OF THE MOBILITY”. This the company
has demonstrated through the Vison and mission statement. Further to achieve this company
has set measurable objectives such as sales growth for next financial year, budget allocation
for each activity, CSR objective etc.
Establishing target audience: The hero very well knows its target audience. Initially the
company focused on middle class people who were focusing on an economic transport for daily
commuting. Company manufactured 100CC bike and given the tag line “fill it, shut it and
forgot it”. This was for the high mileage at that time when Bajaj scooter was popular and other
bikes and scooter were far behind in terms of mileage. Further the company focused on young
boys and girls and developed the powerful bikes with dynamic design and sooters. The journey
is continue.
Evaluating Communication options: Hero has done excellent work on evaluating
communication options. Hero utilises all communication options such as television, social
media, sponsoring the public events, internet, e-shop etc. it also communicates with customer
on personal level through dealership marketing teams doing promotional and communication
activities with mobile vans. After sales and service feedbacks through survey forms telephonic
communication.
Implementing communication tactics: Hero moto has started the dealership concept in year
1980s when most of the two-wheelers were being sold by traders. Through this concept they
started communicating the audience on one o one basis and used the paper media and television
media to communicate about the product. Improving continuously company today has
implement all the current options such as internet, social media, email, sms, e-shop etc. The
use of these integrated promotion mix techniques resulting as it is world’s no1 company for
last so many years and continued.
Thus, every organisation should utilise these steps in developing an Integrated Promotion Mix
and should take benefit to achieve their organisational goals.
