COVER STORY
Customer Co-creation
-- Swati Singh
The world today is witnessing the launch of more products and services than ever before. Omnipresent connectivity has blurred geographic and industrial boundaries, while globalization and technological advancements have flooded the markets with goods, services and information. The vast proliferation of brands further adds to the complexity of the market place. To keep pace with this fast-paced scenario, marketers cannot rely on traditional methods of marketing alone, but have to seek new avenues of innovation and creativity. Co-creation is one such innovative marketing strategy that attempts to harness new ideas directly from the customers, by creating and maintaining a mutually beneficial firm-customer partnership. This article looks at various aspects involved in the co-creation process and highlights attempts made by various companies at utilizing co-creation to drive market growth.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
CRM
Do Not Say Yes When You Have to Say No: Should Marketers Espouse this Philosophy?
-- Shailendra Dasari
The customer is king. The customer comes first. The customer is the reason for your existence. These are common adages strongly associated with marketing. However, based on real life examples drawn from one's own experience, the author brings to light the limitations of adhering to this philosophy to its extreme, and advocates adopting a more realistic stance, i.e., "Do not say yes, when you have to say no."
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
TECHNOLOGY IN MARKETING
Social Networking Sites: Shifting Paradigm of Marketing
-- Shuchi Khandelwal
With the growing use of computers and the Internet, there is also simultaneous increase in the popularity of online social and consumer communities. Online social networking sites offer interactivity and connectivity, thereby playing a significant role in the rapid dissemination of information and ideas. This aspect has caught the attention of marketers, who are leveraging social networks to achieve exponential increase in brand awareness and brand image.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
SERVICES MARKETING
Measuring Service Quality in the Context of Indian Retail
-- Sathyanarayanan R S
Offering quality service in retail is highly imperative for retailers, as competition is getting stiffer day-by-day and customers are becoming more demanding and discerning. Creating unique customer experience is essential for retailers to woo customers and retain them in the long run. If the service quality is good, the probability of customers remaining loyal and patronizing a store through word-of-mouth is high. Hence, retailers should focus on improving customer service quality by carefully analyzing the perception and expectation of customers towards the store on various dimensions of retail service quality, and taking appropriate actions to improve the situation.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
SERVICES MARKETING
Travel and Tourism: A Service Marketing Perspective
-- Uma Krishna
As the production and consumption experiences are inseparable, it is impossible to sample a tourism service before purchase. Marketing of tourism is therefore based on trust, relationship and delivering value. The unique dimensions of services marketing, i.e., people, process and physical evidence, thus becomes crucial in the marketing of travel and tourism.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
CASE STUDY
The Demise of a National Icon
-- Gopal Saxena
This case study provides a detailed exposition of Bajaj Auto's changing strategies pertaining to the Indian two-wheeler market over a period of more than three decades. The material is presented in the backdrop of Bajaj Auto discontinuing the production of its longstanding workhorse and national icon - the Chetak scooter - in December 2005. The evolving market dynamics and Bajaj Auto's responses to the same are also explained in the context of relevant conceptual framework, making it a useful resource for classroom discussion.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
INDUSTRY FOCUS
India's Fruit and Vegetable Processing Industry: Emerging Out of the Cold Storage
-- Jacob Chandy
India is the world's largest producer of fruits and vegetables accounting for around 10% of global production. However, 35% of this is wasted due to post-harvest spoilage. Only 2% of the fruits and vegetables are processed in India, while this figure is in excess of 50% in many countries. An integrated cold storage system backed by unconventional sources of electricity, good rural roads, as well as better and faster processing facilities, would go a long way in reducing the wastage and also in adding further value to the produce that is otherwise getting wasted. This would also mitigate rural poverty to a significant extent.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
CONSUMER RESEARCH
Viewers' Feedback Regarding Malayalam News Channels
-- P N Raghunathan
This article presents the findings of a survey carried out in Kerala among viewers of Malayalam television news channels. This is preceded by a note on the development of television transmission in India over the years, which has eventually led to the current situation that offers hundreds of alternative channels to the viewers, thereby catering to every segment.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
MARKETING CHANNELS
Retailing and Wholesaling of Computers
-- A N Solayappan and J Jayakrishnan
This article explores various forms and facets of retailing and wholesaling in the computer industry, based primarily on the prevailing scenario in Chennai. Various types of computer retailing and wholesaling discussed in this article are _ online sales, corporate sales, market channel sales, outstation sales, sales to systems integrators, showroom sales, counter sales, exhibition sales and sales through telephone/mobile phone.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Global
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