Month: October 2020

Unethical issues in sales

Without sales, businesses die. This unvarnished truth drives businesses and salespeople to work hard at securing sales. Unfortunately, the drive to sell or pressure from management to increase sales volume often leads salespeople to use unethical sales techniques to bolster short-term numbers. Ethical sales techniques produce enduring and profitable relationships with customers, while unethical sales techniques damage those relationships and long-term profits.

Unethical Technique: Excessive Fine Print

Some businesses bury warranty limitations, performance guarantees and other information that might undermine customer confidence in the fine print. Customers only discover this information when something goes wrong and they want a refund, repair or alteration to the product. The company informs the customers that their requests are not covered, not possible, or require an excessive fee to accommodate. This deliberate obfuscation may lead to short-term sales that a more honest approach would miss, but at a significant loss to the company’s reputation over time.

Unethical Technique: Bait and Switch

A classic unethical technique, the bait and switch promises customers one thing and offers them something different at the store or on delivery. For example, a grocery store promises to sell porterhouse steaks at half the regular price. Customers arrive only to discover the store is “sold out,” except the store never stocked porterhouses from the advertised brand at all, or only has a few available that are gone quickly. Instead, it carries a more expensive brand it hopes the customer will purchase instead.

Unethical Technique: Misrepresentation

Misrepresentation takes many forms. Salespeople may misrepresent the capabilities of a product to secure the sale. The salesperson might misrepresent the actual costs of a product or offer a promotional price as though it were the recurring cost. Misrepresentation also takes the form of pretending the customer can expect product upgrades sooner than the company can possibly institute the upgrades.

Unethical issues in marketing

Ethical marketing involves making honest claims and helping to satisfy the needs of customers. Besides being the right thing to do, ethical marketing can have significant benefits for your business. For example, if customers believe you’ll live up to your word, brand loyalty will develop, customer retention will increase and your customers will tell others of their good experiences, according to the book “Marketing,” by James L. Burrow. Unethical marketing activities, in contrast, can destroy your business’s reputation and possibly lead to legal troubles.

1. Misleading Advertising

Outright false advertising is illegal. For example, reporting that your product is safe for people to use when it isn’t can land you in serious trouble. Misleading advertising might not rise to the level of false advertising, but it’s unethical and can hurt your reputation with the public. For example, if you claim your product is much better than it actually is, your company will appear untrustworthy. While it’s important to put your best foot forward in marketing, avoid crossing the line by making dishonest or exaggerated claims.

2. Exploitation

Manipulating people by exploiting their fears is unethical. For example, exaggerating the risks people face so you can sell them insurance is a form of manipulation, as is tricking your customers into buying overpriced or useless extended warranties. This approach is called the “fear-sell” tactic and is especially nefarious when it targets people who are disadvantaged in some way. For example, the fear-sell tactic is often used by insurance salesmen to trick low-income earners into buying unnecessary insurance, according to the book “Critical Marketing,” by Mike Saren and colleagues.

3. Spam

Delivering a sales message to potential customers is part of a marketer’s job, but it’s unethical to flood consumers with an onslaught of advertisements especially when they have not given you express permission to contact them. For example, email spam and robo-calling using automatic dialers to contact many people without permission, typically are unethical marketing activities. Further, these practices might anger customers rather than attract them to your business.

4. Pushy Sales Tactics

It’s a salesperson’s job to convince customers to buy a product, but being overly aggressive is unethical. For example, suppose a customer seems interested in a purchase but asks for more time to consider the deal. An unethical salesperson might bully the customer into making a quick decision, perhaps by lying about how the deal will expire soon or how another customer is interested in the same item. The line between being persuasive and being a bully isn’t always clear, so it’s more ethical to focus on helping customers make informed decisions rather than focusing on making the sale at any cost.

Unethical issues in advertising

In modern times, advertising has been playing a significant role in our socio-economic life. It is considered an effective and cost efficient tool for communication. Though advertising is used for non-economic purposes, it is highly used to attain business objectives. In this era of globalization and deregulation, advertising has acquired a new status. Technological advances have added new feathers to the entire gamut of advertising, and hectic competition has made advertising more powerful in the process of attracting and holding customers. As a result, advertising has been the victim of criticisms and abuses. Different social thinkers and other organisations throughout the world express their serious concerns on the role advertising plays. It is normally believed that most of the advertisements today are the embodiment of unethical practices. Most of the advertisements are viewed as offensive, indecent, vulgar, repulsive, and against public decency. More particularly, it affects children negatively. The present paper makes an attempt to examine the attitudes of consumers regarding advertisements. The paper is based on an empirical study with a sample size of 100 respondents consisting of university teachers, students, and the common consumers. Appropriate statistical tools have been used for analysis and interpretation.

Advertising is considered unethical when

• It gives false information.
• It degrades the rival’s product or substitute product.
• It makes exaggerated or tall claims.
• It is against the national and public interest.
• It gives misguiding information,
• It conceals information that vitally affects human life.
• It is obscene or immoral.

Forms of Unethical Advertising

1. Alcohol Advertising

Alcohol advertising is banned on broadcast and print media in India. But we can find manufacturers of alcohol advertising for Soda, in an effort to keep the brand name afresh in the minds of the consumers.

2. Tobacco Advertising

Tobacco advertising is considered an unethical advertising practice. All cigarette advertisements should carry a Statutory warning that Smoking is injurious to health in order to highlight the risks involved. But in reality, the advertisers release very colorful and catchy advertisements of cigarettes that give an impression, especially to the youth that smoking cigarettes is indeed graceful.

3. False Claims

(a) If an air-conditioning company advertises that it uses imported compressors in their machines for ensuring better performance while actually using an indigenously manufactured one, then it is a case of false claim.

(b) Advertisements offering mixtures and substances that claim to possess the ability to prevent people from ageing are categorized as unethical.

4. Exaggerated Claims

Such claims include those that make an assurance which may not be true. For example, if a shampoo manufacturer claims that their product will remove dandruff in hair forever even when used only once, is a case of an exaggerated claim.

5. Unverified claims

The language used in such advertisements will be quite ambiguous. For example, if a company advertises that its product offers instant hi-energy drink for children. But the question arises what do we mean by instant hi-energy drink and what are its parameters? And also if there is no scientific verification of the energy it possesses, such advertisements are included under unverified claims.

Ethics

• It is the art and science of determining good and bad or right or wrong moral behavior.
• It is a science of moral duty or the science of ideal human character.
• Right things are called as ethics.

Service Marketing ethics

• Service Marketing ethics means a standard by which a marketing action may be judged “RIGHT” or “WRONG”.
• It the area of applied ethics which deals with the moral principles behind the operation and regulation of service marketing.
• Ethics in service marketing applies to different spheres such as in product, pricing, Placing (Distribution), promotion & advertising etc…

Ethical Marketing

Ethical marketing is less of a marketing strategy and more of a philosophy that informs all marketing efforts. It seeks to promote honesty, fairness, and responsibility in all advertising. Ethics is a notoriously difficult subject because everyone has subjective judgments about what is “right” and what is “wrong.” For this reason, ethical marketing is not a hard and fast list of rules, but a general set of guidelines to assist companies as they evaluate new marketing strategies.

Why we need ethics in marketing?

• To develop more positive attitudes
• To develop Values or trust with key stakeholders
• To build good image.
• To helps to remain long time in a business

Many people buy diet pills even though they are rarely, if ever, effective. This is because some diet pill companies use exaggerated and manipulative claims to essentially trick customers into buying these products. If that same company committed to using ethical advertising they would probably go out of business. However sneaky their business model may be, it is not illegal and it is keeping their doors open.

For companies looking to improve the image of a brand and develop long-term relationships with customers, this kind of unethical behavior can quickly lead to failure. Customers do not want to feel manipulated by the brands they like. Companies can use ethical marketing as a way to develop a sense of trust among their customers. If a product lives up to the claims made in its advertising, it reflects positively on the entire company. It can make the consumer feel like the company is invested in the quality of the products and the value they provide customers.

It is impossible to claim that any company is completely ethical or unethical. Ethics resides in a gray area with many fine lines and shifting boundaries. Many companies behave ethically in one aspect of their advertising and unethically in another.

Dove soap, for instance, ran a widely seen ad campaign featuring “real” models. The ad was meant to promote realistic body images and encourage girls to love the way they looked even if they were not supermodels. However, other Dove ads both during and since featured stereotypically beautiful models whose images have been altered to hide imperfections. Dove marketed ethically in one campaign and unethically in another. This illustrates how difficult it is to do the right thing in all circumstances. What is most important for any company that claims to practice ethical advertising is to make it a fundamental feature of their marketing process. With every decision they must ask themselves “will this sell” and “is this the ethical way to sell it?”

Who Employs Ethical Marketing?

Every company has the opportunity to engage in ethical marketing. Any business, from the smallest mom and pop store to the biggest multinational corporation can choose to be open, honest, and fair when they advertise to their customers. When done in a thoughtful way, ethical marketing can be an economical and effective form of advertising. Similarly, unethical advertising doesn’t guarantee higher sales or lower advertising costs.

Some companies operate according to lofty personal principles. For these companies, advertising in an ethical way is a natural and necessary extension of their corporate character. Corporate responsibility can be a major selling point to consumers who are interested in more than just price and quality. Companies that are known for treating workers fairly, sourcing sustainable materials, environmental stewardship, and charitable donation have to reflect these principles in their marketing efforts. .

For other companies, ethical marketing will be little more than an opportunity to boost their credibility. Domino’s pizza, for example, carried out a well known advertising campaign in which they showed consumers pictures of real Domino’s pizzas without the studio photography that makes them look so perfect. This was a refreshing look behind the artifice of much advertising, but this did not signal a more open and honest relationship between Domino’s and the pizza buying public. The campaign was considered an attention seeking stunt at best.

The Indian Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry is a sunrise sector for the economy and is making significant strides. Proving its resilience to the world, Indian M&E industry is on the cusp of a strong phase of growth, backed by rising consumer demand and improving advertising revenue. The industry has largely been driven by increasing digitisation and higher internet usage over the last decade. Internet has almost become a mainstream media for entertainment for most of the people.

Media is consumed by audience across demographics and various avenues such as television, films, out-of-home (OOH), radio, animation, and visual effect (VFX), music, gaming, digital advertising, and print.

The Indian advertising industry is projected to be the second fastest growing advertising market in Asia after China. At present, advertising revenue accounts for around 0.38 per cent of India’s gross domestic product. By 2021, Indian media and entertainment industry will reach Rs 2.35 trillion.

India ranks 15 in the world in the music industry and is expected to enter the top 10 music markets by 2022.

Market Dynamics

The M&E industry will grow at a CAGR of 13.5 per cent during FY19-FY24. It is expected to reach around Rs 3.1 lakh crore (US$ 43.93 million) by 2024.

India’s advertisement market is projected to grow 10.62 per cent y-o-y to Rs 85,250 crore (US$ 12.06 billion) till 2021. India’s advertisement spending touched Rs 67,603 crore (US$ 9.67 billion) in 2019, up 11 per cent y-o-y. Digital advertising has emerged as the third largest advertising medium in India. It generated revenue worth Rs 15,467 crore (US$ 2.21 billion) in 2019. Digital will contribute 29 per cent of the ad market size by 2021.

The online video market in India is estimated to reach US$ 4 billion by 2025, with subscription services contributing more than US$ 1.5 billion and advertising adding US$ 2.5 billion.

The Indian film industry reached Rs 100 billion (US$ 1.43 billion) in 2019. Increasing share of Hollywood content in Indian box office and 3D cinema is driving the growth of digital screens in the country. India’s video streaming industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 21.82 per cent by 2023.

Recent development/Investments

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow in the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) sector (including Print Media) for the period April 2000 – March 2020 stood at US$ 9.20 billion as per the data released by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

• In 2019, the sector witnessed a total of 21 mergers and acquisition (M&A) worth US$ 240 million.
• Shipment of TVs in India increased 15 per cent annually to reach the highest-ever level of 15 million units in 2019.
• In April 2020, Hotstar, owned by the Star network, was rebranded as Disney+Hotstar. It plans to localise Disney+ movies and shows by dubbing or adding subtitles in Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.
• Bharti Airtel’s direct-to-home (DTH) arm Airtel Digital TV and Dish TV merged by end of August 2019.
• As stated in Union Budget 2019-20, Government was to launch a dedicated channel for start-ups.
• Spotify will launch lite version for low-end Android phones in India.
• As of January 2019, Zee Studios launched a digital content arm Zee Studios Originals, to globally produce premium, original content and create new (IPs) Intellectual Properties for all digital platforms.
• As on July 2019, SonyLIV, India’s first premium video on demand platform (VOD) crossed the 100 million app download on Play store.

Government Initiatives

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is set to approach the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, with a request to Fastrack the recommendations on broadcasting, in an attempt to boost reforms in the broadcasting sector. The Government of India has agreed to set up National Centre of Excellence for Animation, Gaming, Visual Effects and Comics industry in Mumbai. The Indian and Canadian Government have signed an audio-visual co-production deal to enable producers from both the countries exchange and explore their culture and creativity, respectively.

The Government of India has supported M&E industry’s growth by taking various initiatives such as digitising the cable distribution sector to attract greater institutional funding, increasing FDI limit from 74 per cent to 100 per cent in cable and DTH satellite platforms, and granting industry status to the film industry for easy access to institutional finance.

Road Ahead

Indian M&E industry is on an impressive growth path. The industry is expected to grow at a much faster rate than the global average rate.

Growth is expected in retail advertisement on the back of several players entering the food and beverages segment, E-commerce gaining more popularity in the country, and domestic companies testing out the waters. Rural region is also a potentially profitable target.

In any business, a solid marketing strategy is critical to building a brand, attracting new customers and maintaining loyalty. The hospitality industry is no different. Because customer loyalty is key, marketing managers and executives devote a lot of time and resources to building brand awareness and creating ongoing, interconnected campaigns. These marketing efforts usually include both print and digital collateral that target former guests while also attracting new clientele. However, this particular industry has a unique set of challenges that must be overcome. Understanding the importance of marketing in the hospitality industry can help you get ahead and stand out in the competitive job market.

The Basics

Hospitality sales are different from consumer goods sales because marketers must sell tangible as well as intangible products. In many cases this means that they are marketing services rather than goods, and success hinges on creating the right feeling in the consumer. For example, a resort will want to cultivate a relaxing, fun atmosphere that is recognizable to customers and inspires those same feelings in the consumer.

Because the hospitality industry is mostly made up of tourism and other experiential services, a consistent brand identity is also very important. Marketers want to ensure that brand recognition exists so that customers will use their services again and again. Repeat customers bring in a sizeable portion of revenue, so marketing strategy must be split between maintaining relationships with past customers while seeking out new ones.

Strategies for Success

Companies in the hospitality industry use various methods to develop and maintain an effective marketing plan. The following are some of the general strategies that marketers use for brand success.

Research

Customers choose hotels and other hospitality services for a variety of reasons. From location to facilities and perks, companies have to be sure that they’re providing what buyers are looking for. The role of marketers is to identify what factors make customers choose a particular hospitality service, and this requires extensive research. By speaking to current and former guests, monitoring customer reviews on websites, reviewing industry data and more, marketing professionals learn what makes a hospitality service stand out, as well as how it can be improved.

Awareness

If potential customers don’t know about a service, they can’t purchase it. That’s where brand awareness comes in. Marketers make sure information on hotels, resorts and restaurants is easy to find and up-to-date. They can do this by buying ad space on relevant travel sites, creating an engaging website and collaborating with other, noncompeting hospitality services in the same market.

Promotion

Another smart strategy for attracting customers is to run promotions during certain times of the year, usually when business is slower. Introducing incentives and offering incentives are just some of the ways that marketing professionals achieve this. Have you purchased a Groupon for a spa weekend? That’s promotion at work.

Relationships

To ensure high levels of repeat business, good customer relationships are vital. Not only do repeat customers usually promote a service through word-of-mouth and social media, but they also create a stable revenue base. One way to build relationships is through customer loyalty programs, which reward customers who regularly use a particular hospitality service.

A transnational strategy is a set of planned actions defined by a company to have operations in markets abroad. This term generally applies to the methods and structures that allow a firm to initiate and maintain functions in foreign countries while preserving central coordination at one specific location.

Transnational Strategy Mean in Business

A transnational strategy is assumed to take advantage of the benefits provided by simultaneous operation in multiple countries. The objective might be to expand sales, to produce at lower cost or to achieve economies of scale. There is a central coordination or headquarter and several decentralized organizational structures located abroad.

The complexity and size of the relationships among the different sites depend on the specific business model. The degree of control maintained by the central office also varies from one company to another.

It is necessary to have uniform business policies and technologies but at the same time enough capacity to adapt to the conditions of every foreign operation. The ultimate goal is to improve the overall corporate performance through the concurrence of resources and markets available in several countries.

Example

Prisma is a large Spain-based manufacturer of mid-cost furniture. It has two production facilities located in Spain and they export to several foreign markets. After some research and analysis, the Board of Directors concluded that a production and marketing facility placed in Asia would allow the company to have lower costs and to expand sales significantly in that region.

But the Board also identified that design professionals were massively available in Latin America at low cost. The firm then designed a transnational strategy to be implemented in five years. The strategy included three new manufacturing facilities in countries abroad and only one of the original production sites in Spain. It also embraced a design and innovation division placed in Latin America and marketing and sales structures in some European, Latin American and Asian countries. The ultimate objective was to diminish the average unit cost and increase sales substantially.

Common Characteristics

Businesses focused on meeting a specific need in single-sales transactions, rather providing a range of products or services as part of a comprehensive solution, are likely to adopt a transactional strategy. A defining characteristic is that the relationship between the business and customer typically lasts only as long as it takes for the sale to be completed. For example, a mortgage title company typically fulfills a single need issuing title insurance and the often more businesslike relationship between a customer and the company typically ends at the end of the transaction. In contrast, a bank focuses on serving a customer’s short- and long-term financial needs and therefore works to establish a lasting relationship with customers.

Focus and Objective

A pure transactional strategy and corresponding marketing efforts focus first on converting potential buyers into paying customers and second on maximizing each sale. This strategy relies solely on product, pricing, placement and promotion the four Ps of marketing to deliver value and create a positive perception about the business in the minds of prospective customers. The main objective is increasing sales through product availability and value-based perceptions.

Pricing Strategy

Price is the most important of the four Ps in a transactional strategy. This can work for and against the business depending on circumstance and the ability to control inventory costs. A main issue is that transactional strategies can require the business to adopt a defensive pricing strategy. Because value perceptions are essentially based on price, customers may abandon your business if a competitor lowers prices unless you follow suit. Defensive pricing strategies taken to an extreme can, in a worst-case scenario, threaten the future of a business by eroding profit margins.

Consumer Environment

A marketing strategy that doesn’t include relationship-building activities can be less expensive for a small-business owner to implement. Customers are viewed as a means to an end, rendering such things as a customer service department and a trained sales staff essentially unnecessary. While this strategy may be successful when consumer demand is high and the economy is expanding, it may fall short if demand lags or the business can’t further reduce costs or prices.

The service sector produces intangible goods, more precisely services instead of goods, and according to the U.S. Census Bureau, it comprises various service industries including warehousing and transportation services; information services; securities and other investment services; professional services; waste management; health care and social assistance; and arts, entertainment, and recreation. Countries with economies centered around the service sector are considered more advanced than industrial or agricultural economies.

The service sector, also known as the tertiary sector, is the third tier in the three sector economy. Instead of the product production, this sector produces services maintenance and repairs, training, or consulting. Examples of service sector jobs include housekeeping, tours, nursing, and teaching. By contrast, individuals employed in the industrial or manufacturing sectors produce tangible goods, such as cars, clothes, or equipment.

Among the countries that place heavy emphasis on the service sector, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and China rank among the top. In the United States, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) produces a monthly index that details the general state of business activity in the service sector. This index is regarded as a metric for the overall economic health of the country because approximately two-thirds of U.S. economic activity occurs in the service sector.

According to the CIA World Factbook, the following countries are the largest by service or tertiary output as of 2018:

• United States: $15.5 trillion
• China: $6.2 trillion
• Japan: $3.4 trillion
• Germany: $2.5 trillion
• United Kingdom: $2.1 trillion
• France: $2.0 trillion
• Brazil: $1.5 trillion
• India: $1.5 trillion
• Italy: $1.4 trillion
• Canada: $1.2 trillion

The Service Sector in the Three-Part Economy

The service or tertiary sector is the third piece of a three-part economy. The first economic sector, the primary sector, covers the farming, mining, and agricultural business activities in the economy. The secondary sector covers manufacturing and business activities that facilitate the production of tangible goods from the raw materials produced by the primary sector. The service sector, though classified as the third economic sector, is responsible for the largest portion of the global economy’s business activity.

Technology in the Service Industry

Technology, specifically information technology systems, is shaping the way businesses in the service sector operate. Businesses in this sector are rapidly placing more focus on what is becoming known as the knowledge economy, or the ability to surpass competitors by understanding what target customers want and need, and operate in a way that meets those wants and needs quickly with minimal cost. In nearly all industries within the sector, businesses adopt new technology to bolster production, increase speed and efficiency, and cut down on the number of employees required for operation. This cuts down on costs and improves incoming revenue streams.

• The service sector is the third sector of the economy, after raw materials production and manufacturing.
• The service sector includes a wide variety of tangible and intangible services from office cleaning to rock concerts to brain surgery.
• The service sector is the largest sector of the global economy in terms of value-added and is especially important in more advanced economies.

Demand and supply management continues to be a challenge for service managers. Despite the importance of this aspect of management and the impact it can have on profits, little is understood about this sometimes-ambiguous aspect of service management. Indeed, interviews show that although services use many demand and supply management options, managers do not think of this area as a whole rather working at individual pieces without necessarily recognizing how these pieces fit together.

Is it possible for services such as banks, retail establishments, and restaurants to influence when customers will desire their services? If so, how can services gain the understanding necessary to accomplish this? What options are available? On a broader scale, how should services approach the area of Demand and Supply Management (DSM) and integrate the decisions between both domains?

DSM may be both the most troublesome management problem for services and the single greatest determinant of success. Managers agree that if demand could be smoothened (thereby allowing supply to be more closely matched to demand) it would have a positive impact on profits.

This text defines, summarizes and categorizes a large number of DSM practices. This is a more comprehensive treatment than found in current literature and provides structure to this little understood area. Information from interviews with service managers gives insight into the use and value of the various options. Secondly, using empirical data from a bank, we show that it may indeed be possible for services to impact the timing of their demand, sometimes with very little cost.

Finally, decision making tools and suggestions for integrating DSM decisions are given. It is important to note that although the discussion should apply to some extent to all firms that provide services, it is primarily concerned with those services that cannot schedule customers. This is currently the area of greatest need, since firms that have the ability to schedule customers already have good tools available (e.g., yield management for airlines and hotels, network and integer programming formulations for trucking companies, scheduling heuristics for outpatient clinics).

Also, note that some services such as emergency services and insurance claim offices have virtually no ability to control demand. These types of firms are likely not at benefit from the demand management (DM) discussion, although the supply management (SM) presentation may be helpful.

‘All the activities and decisions management carries out in order to plan and implement how they will attempt to influence the level of demand for any service offered at any point in time’.

Some DM efforts are aimed at increasing demand, and some at changing the timing of demand. This paper looks primarily at those actions that change the timing of demand, although these efforts may also have the effect of increasing or decreasing total demand. Note that demand can only be managed if patterns (time and/or place) can be predicted and influenced.

While it is sometimes assumed that influencing demand is impossible (based on discussions with managers and researchers), we will see that all services we studied already use DM. At the same time, the potential for influencing when customers demand service is limited for services that cannot schedule customers. For instance, a bank likely cannot eliminate the large demand on paydays, and a supermarket cannot entirely reduce the peak resulting from customers stopping on their way home from work.

The effectiveness of various Demand Management Options (DMOs) will depend on the particular service industry, the location, and the customer base. For instance, a supermarket manager revealed that it is easier to influence the timing of demand at a store that has retired people as its primary clientele, since these people are not restricted to non-working hours.

A fast food outlet manager revealed that an outlet located downtown will generally have higher lunch demand but much lower dinner and evening demand than an outlet located in the suburbs. Despite these uncontrollable factors, services can be successful in encouraging customers to change their habits.

Almost all DM efforts represent an effort to smooth demand, to reduce the peaks and increase the valleys. In some cases this involves smooth demand for only one part of the service as occurs when a bank installs an ATM machine. The machine can handle few of the types of services the bank offers, but has the effect of reducing the demand for basic services during regular hours and increasing the demand after hours.

Service businesses, by contrast, can’t normally stockpile their output, because the time-bound nature of service delivery makes it impossible to inventory the finished service. For instance, the potential income from an empty seat on an airline flight is lost forever once that flight takes off, and the “room-nights” which constitute the basic unit of production for every lodging establishment are equally perishable.

Likewise, the productive capacity of an auto repair shop (facilities, personnel, and equipment) is wasted if no one brings a car for servicing on day when the shop is open. Conversely, when demand for service exceeds supply, the excess business may be lost. If someone can’t get a seat on one flight, another carrier gets the business, or the trip is cancelled or postponed. And if an accounting firm is too busy to accept tax and audit work from a prospective client another firm will receive the assignment.

But demand and supply imbalances are not found in all service situations. The horizontal axis classifies organisations according to whether demand for the service fluctuates widely or narrowly over time; the vertical axis classifies them according to whether or not capacity is sufficient to meet the peak demand. As a generalisation, capacity problems are more likely to exist today in service organisations that involve physical processes than in those that involve information-based processes.

What are the strategic implications for marketing managers in each instance? Organisations in point:

(i) Could use increase in demand outside peak periods, those in point.

(ii) Must decide whether to seek continued growth in demand and capacity, or to continue the status quo and those in point.

(iii) May need temporary de-marketing until capacity can be increased to meet or exceed current demand levels. Service organizations in point.

(iv) Face an ongoing problem of trying to smooth demand to match capacity, which involves both stimulation and discouragement of demand. It is the fourth category that offers the greatest marketing challenge.

Determining the Demand Pattern:

Managing demand is a major challenge for many service marketers, especially in people, processing and possession, processing services when opportunities to manage the level of physical capacity (represented by facilities or personnel) are tightly constrained. For many service organizations, successfully managing demand fluctuations through marketing actions is the key to profitability.

To determine the most appropriate strategy in each instance, we need to seek answers to some additional questions. Are demand fluctuations cyclical and, if so, what is the typical cycle period? What are the underlying causes of these demand fluctuations? Do they reflect customer habits or preferences that might be changed by marketing efforts? Or do they derive from decisions by third parties, such as employers and school setting working and classroom hours.

Alternatively, are variations in demand caused by more random events, such as weather conditions and health emergencies.

One way of smoothen the ups and downs of demand is through strategies that encourage customers to change their plans voluntarily, such as offering special discount prices or added product value during periods of low demand. Another approach is to ration demand through a reservation or queuing system, which basically inventories demand rather than supply. Alternatively, to generate demand in periods of excess capacity, new business development efforts might be targeted at prospective customers with a counter-cyclical demand pattern.

Determining what strategy is appropriate, requires an understanding of who, or what is the target of the service. If service is delivered to customers in person, there are limits as to how long a customer will wait in line; hence strategies designed to inventory or ration demand should focus on adoption of reservation systems. But if the service is delivered to goods or to intangible assets, then inventorying demand should be more feasible, unless the good is a vital necessity.

It is necessary to have a clear understanding of demand patterns to manage fluctuating demand effectively in a service business, which are as follows:

(1) Charting Demand Patterns:

First, the organisation needs to chart the level of demand over relevant time periods. Organisations that have good computerised customer information systems can do this very accurately. Others may need to chart demand patterns more informally. Daily, weekly, and monthly demand levels should be followed, and if seasonality is a suspected problem, graphing should be done for data from at least the past year’s data.

In some services, such as restaurants or health care, hourly fluctuations within a day may also be relevant. Sometimes, demand patterns are intuitively obvious; in other cases patterns may not reveal themselves until the data are charted.

(2) Random Demand Fluctuations:

Sometimes, the patterns of demand appear to be random there is no apparent predictable cycle. Yet even in this case, causes can often be identified. For example, day-to-day changes in the weather may affect use of recreational, shopping, or entertainment facilities.

Although the weather cannot be predicted far in advance, it may be possible to anticipate demand a day or two ahead. Health-related events also cannot be predicted. Accidents, heart attacks, and births-all increase demand for hospital services, but the level of demand cannot generally be determined in advance. Natural disasters such as floods, fires, and hurricanes can dramatically increase the need for such services as insurance, telecommunications, and health care. Acts of war and terrorism such as that experienced in the United States on September 11, 2001, generate instantaneous need for services that can’t be predicted.

AT&T was faced with a sudden increase in demand for services to the military during the Gulf War. During this period, 500,000 U.S. troops were deployed to the Middle East, many without advance warning. Before their deployment, these men and women had little time to attend to personal business, and all of them left behind concerned family and friends. With mail delivery between the United States and the Middle East taking more than six weeks, troops needed a quick way to communicate with their families and to handle personal business.

Communications with home were determined by the military to be essential to troop morale. AT&T’s ingenuity, responsiveness, and capacities were challenged to meet this unanticipated communications need. During and after the Gulf War crisis, more than 2.5 million calls were placed over temporary public phone installations, and AT&T sent more than 1.2 million free faxes to family and friends of service men and women.

(3) Predictable Cycles:

In looking at the graphic representation of demand levels, is there a predictable cycle daily (variations occur by hours), weekly (variations occur by day), monthly (variations occur by day or week), and/or yearly (variations occur according to months or seasons)? In some cases, predictable patterns may occur at all periods. For example, in the restaurant industry, especially in seasonal tourist settings, demand can vary by month, by week, by day, and by hour.

If there is a predictable cycle, what are the underlying causes? The Ritz-Carlton in Phoenix knows that demand cycles are based on seasonal weather patterns and that weekly variations are based on the workweek (business travellers don’t stay at the hotel over the weekend). Tax accountants can predict demand based on when taxes are due, quarterly and annually.

Services catering to children and families respond to variations in school hours and vacations. Retail and telecommunications services have peak periods at certain holidays and times of the week and day. When predictable patterns exist, generally one or more causes can be identified.

(4) Demand Patterns by Market Segment:

If an organisation has detailed records on customer transactions, it may be able to disaggregate demand by market segment, revealing patterns within patterns. Or the analysis may reveal that demand from one segment is predictable, while demand from another segment is relatively random. For example, for a bank, the visits from its commercial accounts may occur daily at a predictable time, whereas personal account holders may visit the bank at seemingly random intervals.

Health clinics often notice that walk-in or “care needed today” patients tend to concentrate their arrivals on Monday, with fewer numbers needing immediate attention on other days of the week. Knowing that this pattern exists, some clinics schedule more future appointments (which they can control) for later days of the week, leaving more of Monday available for same-day appointments and walk-ins.

5. Elements to Shape Demand Patterns:

There are many marketing mix elements. Those have a role to play in stimulating demand during periods of excess capacity and in decreasing it (demarcating) during periods of insufficient capacity. Price is often the first variable to be proposed for bringing demand and supply into balance but changes in product, distribution strategy, and communication efforts can also play an important role. Effective demand management efforts often require changes in two or more elements jointly.

There are two reasons companies are in business: To produce goods and to make money. The more goods or services a company can provide, the more money they can make, it’s that simple. One common complaint of managers is that employees don’t make enough strides toward meeting goals on their own, or worse, that the employees lack the initiative to know what needs to be done next. Because of this, companies large and small are always looking for ways to encourage their employees to be more self-motivated and productive. Productivity of employees can make or break a business. Hardy, highly motivated employees can bring a company to new heights whereas employees who never seem to do anything can tumble a business into the ground. Productivity is a vital component of making a business successful.

Project Management Increase Productivity

Properly managed projects will assign tasks to every available resource. Project managers don’t just assign tasks, they also assign deadlines. Deadlines, unfortunately, are a necessary evil. There’s always one or two employees who don’t need them, but for the rest of us, deadlines are motivating in and of themselves. Deadlines get things done.

Another reason that project management leads to more productivity is that there is no ambiguity when it comes to what a particular resource should be doing at any given time. This means there is less time for employees to spend hem-hawing over what might need to be done or slacking because they believe they have nothing to do. With clearly defined milestones, deliverables and objectives, there is no room for ambiguity within project management.

There are also a lot of checks in project management. Between resource analysis, the project plan, constant reporting and monitoring from the team and project manager, there are very few surprises in a properly managed project. The project manager will be well-aware when a project is slipping behind schedule, when an important deliverable is missing or when someone has become overwhelmed through over allocation.

There’s nothing more important to a small business than its employees. If your employees are happy, their productivity will increase, and that’s exactly what you need to help your business grow.

Making small changes to habits will drastically improve the levels of productivity and office efficiency in your business. This will allow you to get more quality work done in a shorter period of time as well as reduce the amount of time spent on unnecessary tasks.

Here are eight top tips on how to get the most out of your employees and ensure that their productivity is kept to a maximum:

1. Be Efficient

Consider how your business is currently operating, and be open to the potential of changing the way you work. Remember that it’s equally as important to make short-term and long-term lists as it is to prioritise tasks, especially in a small business.

Is there a better way that staff members could structure their day to enable them to achieve their daily goals? Provide each member of staff with a plan and encourage each to make a list to ensure he or she completes prioritised jobs on time and stays on task all day, resulting in efficient working.

2. Delegate

Delegation comes with an element of risk, but increased responsibility is important for improving the morale and job satisfaction of your staff. Give responsibilities to qualified employees that have a proven track record with success in a certain field, and trust that they will perform the tasks well.

If you allow employees the chance to gain skills and leadership experience, it will benefit your company and provide your employees with a sense of achievement and direction in their own careers.

3. Reduce Distractions

Social media can be a huge productivity killer, but it isn’t practical to have a no-phone policy. Instead, try to keep employees focused and engaged while allowing them breathing room.

Encourage employees to turn off their mobiles but take regular breaks during which they can be free to check their phones. This will ensure that the time spent at their desk is more productive.

4. Have the Right Tools and Equipment

Providing employees with the right tools and equipment is important so they can perform their duties efficiently and on time. There’s nothing more counterproductive than spending time waiting for paperwork to print because you haven’t got a fast printing device.

High-quality, modern programs and equipment make a massive difference not only to the workforce but also to how your company is perceived. Save time and effort by using equipment such as an MFP, which can work as printer, scanner, copier and fax machine.

5. Improve workplace conditions

A comfortable working temperature is between 68 and 70 degrees F (20-21 C). An environment that’s too hot or too cold distracts from concentration, as employees will spend more time walking around to get their coats or an electric fan. Ensure both heating and air-conditioning systems are in working order for when the relevant season comes around.

6. Offer Support and Set Realistic Goals

A common problem for managers is having no clear, strong sense of whether their employees are high-performing or not.

Do your employees need an incentive to stay on track? Help them by offering goals that are achievable. Provide clear direction to supervisors and employees to help clarify expectations. This will help to increase their productivity, as they will have a clear focus and clear goals.

7. Practice Positive Reinforcement

Encourage, motivate and reward. Tell employees they are doing a good job and give constructive criticism. Most importantly, offer personal incentives for doing the job well – could they get a free holiday or a free takeout coffee for performing above and beyond their roles?

You should clearly indicate success of one employee to other staff to cultivate a sense of fulfillment to motivate others. When you motivate your employees to work harder and receive rewards in return, they’re more likely to put increased productivity high up on their to-do list.

8. Ensure Employees Are Happy

A stressful workplace will not yield results. Workers that constantly operate under highly stressful conditions are found to be less productive and have higher levels of disengagement and absenteeism … They need to be happy!

Showing employees how much the company appreciates, respects and values them on a personal level is gratifying – and often overlooked.

If you want your staff to work to the best of their ability, try out a few of these tips and enjoy the benefits.