Food Retailing: Indian Perspective
Food Retailing in India is witnessing a progressive change with the emergence of the hypermarkets/supermarkets and rapid expansion of organized retail sector in India across various parts of the country. With the world’s second-largest population and rising composition of Middle-Income group, India has emerged as the world’s most attractive retailing destinations especially in the Food […]
Retail Mechanism – How does retail work ?
Retailing is defined as the process of selling merchandise to the consumers for their end use in small quantities. The retailer sells products to the end-users either in single units or in small quantities as per their need and capability. Retailer ……………………………. Consumer (End – User) Retailing How does retail work ? Let […]
Stages in Consumer Decision Making Process
An individual who purchases products and services from the market for his/her own personal consumption is called as consumer. To understand the complete process of consumer decision making, let us first go through the following example: Tim went to a nearby retail store to buy a laptop for himself. The store manager showed him all […]
Conjoint Analysis – Meaning, Usage and its Limitations
Introduction During the sixties, when researchers tried to understand consumers’ decision making process, they used a simple questionnaire or a form. Respondents would generally answer what was on the top of their minds or what they assumed the researcher wanted to hear. However, this did not always correspond to their actual purchase decisions. For example, […]
Is Multi Level Marketing (MLM) for You ?
Who doesn’t like the thought of having a few extra bucks on hand ?. Most of us try to think of alternative methods besides our jobs and profession to earn some extra money in order to be able to realize our long cherished goals and wishes. This happens to most of us. While some who […]
As the world has moved towards globalization, businesses and Organisations have had to keep pace with the external environment. We have seen the emergence of large Business Organisations and Multi National Companies who have business presence in multiple sectors and are present in markets across the globe. Such Organisations are structured differently and promote de-centralised style of functioning.
As far as the production is concerned, they set up factories {or source through contract manufacturers} in countries where the costs of raw materials as well as the cost of labour is cheap. From such locations they service the nearby regions as well as export to the countries where they have markets. However on the marketing front, they usually have Business Units at local or country level as well as at Global Head Quarters. The Bus are designed to work as independent Profit Centres.
Such a structure brings into the Company the concept of Suppliers and Buyers internally too. The BU in charge of a particular country would have the freedom to negotiate and demand services and products from the supplier facility on mutually agreed terms or source from alternate supplier. The same concept exists in most of the medium scale and large scale organisations.
The typical structure in the Organisation consists of the Board or Management which oversees, directs and guides the overall business policies and decisions followed by Profit Centres and Supplier Units besides the Cost Centres or Support functions including HR, Legal, and Administration etc.
When the business Organisations are spread over multiple facilities and overseas, the complexities of management calls for enhanced Relationship Management. The manufacturing facilities would need to engage with the Business Units to build relationship and understand the BUs as well as their requirements failing which they could end up manufacturing and supplying something that is not wanted in the market.
It becomes important for the Management to set up clear process and guide the Relationship Management at all levels to ensure smooth operations. In multi location setups management of relationship becomes an essential factor for achieving business objectives.
The ownership of creating the platform for managing relationship lies with the overall Management which is overseeing the Global operations.
The amount of time and effort that is invested into building Relationships between the various business units will result in smooth and profitable business failing which there can be colossal losses in terms of defective supplies or loss of business opportunities.
Total Quality Management concept has been the most popular tool that the Companies have used to build seamless bridge between internal customers as well as external customers too. TQM concept ties together the Customer and Marketing to the Production and Quality thus establishing effective process that helps define and manage Relationships between all internal as well as external stake holders in the business.
TQM helps define the Customer needs, wants and perceptions and build a process aimed at building products and services that will satisfy the Customer and thereby help build revenues.
Companies like GE that have made strides in marketing are seen to have embraced TQM as their corporate philosophy governing all the businesses. This helps to create a perception in the minds of the customer, be it an individual customer or a business organisation with regard to the supplier company that presupposes a favourable relationship where customer satisfaction and delight is guaranteed.
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