- JOSEPH’S COLLEGE OF COMMERCE (AUTONOMOUS)
END SEMESTER EXAMINATION –APRIL 2011
M.COM – II SEMESTER
MARKETING STRATEGIES AND PLANNING
Time: 3 Hrs Max. Marks: 100
SECTION –A
- Answer ALL the questions. (10×2=20)
- Define Industrial marketing.
- What is Industrial Products?
- Define Market Segmentation.
- What is E- Commerce?
- What do you understand by consumer behavior?
- What is Channel distribution?
- Define the concept of customer relationship management.
- Give two examples for Sources of Primary data.
- What is Customer Service?
- Define Supply Chain Management.
SECTION – B
- Answer any FOUR Each carries 5 marks. (4×5=20)
- Differentiate between Industrial Marketing and Consumer Marketing.
- State the scope of Industrial Marketing Research.
- Discuss the main pricing methods of the manufacturer.
- Explain the various factors influencing channel choice.
- Discuss the process of Product Life Cycle.
- Explain disadvantages of e–commerce.
Section – C
III)Answer any THREE questions. Each carries 15 marks. (3×15=45)
- Define product development. Explain the stages involved in the process of
developing new products.
- Discuss the various dynamics of physical Distribution.
- Explain the various types of Marketing.
- Critically analyze the process of marketing research.
- What is Corporate Strategic? Discuss its various components and significance.
Section – D
- iv) Case Study – Compulsory question. ( 1×15=45)
22) “Consumer protection is so essential in today’s India” Elucidate with some recent case and example.
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ANSWER KEYS
Class: M.I.B Semester: IV
Subject: ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
SECTION – A (Answers – One or Two sentences) 10 ×2 =20
1) Organizational behavior (OB) is a term related to the study of the individuals and group dynamics in an organizational! Setting, including the nature of the organizations themselves.
2) Relatively permanent change in behavior which occurs as a result of experience or practice.
3) Change management can be defined as the effective management of a business change such that organizational leaders, managers and employees work in concert to successfully implement the needed technology or organizational changes.
4) Satisfying employees’ need is a prime responsibility of all organizations Reward is given to individual employee and also to organization as a whole. An employee can be rewarded on the basis of performance, speed and efficiency, loyalty and innovation.
5) Maslow Hierarchy of needs theory, Herzberg two factor theory, Theory Z
6) Communication means an exchange of facts, ideas, opinions, information or emotions by two or more persons.
- Group Dynamics is a process by which people interact face to face in small groups.
8) Leadership is process of influencing others towards the accomplishment of goals. It’s the ability of a manager to induce subordinates to work with confidence and zeal.
9) Perception is process by which an individual selects, organizes, and interprets stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture of the world.
10) Motivation is a factor which encourages persons to give their best performance and help in reaching enterprise goals.
SECTION –B 4 ×5 =20
Answer Any FOUR questions.
11) Importance of studying organsational behavior
Understanding of self and others
Motivation to human resources
Good Human Relations
Effective Communication
Effective Organizational Climate.
12) Team building
Team as groups of two or more people who interact and influence each other, are mutually accountable for achieving common objectives, and perceive themselves as a social entity within an organization.
Team building refers to shaping of the team for smooth functioning. Steven and Mary Ann Von have defined team building as any formal intervention directed toward improving the development and functioning of a work team. Thus, the process of team building aims at enhancing the effectiveness of a team.
Strategies and functions
- Projection into Future
- Linkage with Individual Goals
- Force Field Analysis
- Strengthening Positive Forces
- Reducing Negative Forces
- Monitoring
13) Perception Barriers
- Stereotyping
- Halo Effect
- Similar-to-me Effect or Projection
- Selective Perceptions
- Distortion
- Contrast Effects
14) Maslow hierarchy model of motivation theory
- Physiological Needs
- Safety needs
- Social Needs
- Esteem Needs
- Self Actualization Needs
15) Attitudes various Functions
According to Baron, Attitude is defined as, lasting evaluations of people, groups, objects, or issues- in fact, of virtually any aspect of the social or physical world.
- Adjustment Function: People tend to develop favorable attitude towards rewarding and beneficial functions as well as relationship. Similarly people develop negative attitude towards such functions and relationships, which shall attract punitive actions.
- Ego-defensive Function: Attitude can serve as devise for protecting self-image.
- Value-expressive Function: Attitude supports expression of core values.
- Knowledge Function: Attitude serves as standard or frame for understanding and interpreting people and events around them.
16) Conflict Management
Conflict is not confined at the individual level alone but is manifesting itself more and more in organizations. Employees have become more vociferous in their demands for a better deal. Various departments in an organization face a situation full of conflicts due to a number of reasons like goal diversity, scarcity of resources or task interdependence etc.
- Potential Antagonism
· Cognition and Personalization
· Conflictive and Conflict handling Behavior
- Aftermath
SECTION –C (Essay Type) 3 ×15 =45
Answer Any THREE questions
17) Mechanisms of Organizational Learning
- Experimentation and flexibility
- Mutually and team work
- Contingency and incremental planning
- Use of temporary system
- Competency building
18) Change management approaches and implementation
Change management can be defined as the effective management of a business change such that organizational leaders, managers and employees work in concert to successfully implement the needed technology or organizational changes
Change management could be -Organizational or individual.
Approaches
Psychology of the Individual Change Approaches:
- Social Psychological Change Approaches:
- Cultural Change Approaches
- Innovation approaches
- Global Change approaches
- Practitioner Approaches to Change
Implementation
- Analyze the organization and its need for change
- Create a shared vision and common direction
- Develop a non-threatening and preferably participative implementation
- Process
- Create a sense of urgency
- Support a strong leader role
- Line up political sponsorship
- Craft an implementation plan
- Develop enabling structures
- Communicate with and involve people and be honest
- Reinforce and institutionalize change
19) Perception
Individuals are exposed to varieties of stimuli of the environment. They process these stimuli and interpret them. The process of receiving information and making sense is known as perception. It refers to the way the world sounds, looks, feels, smells, tastes to the individual.
Various processes
- Stage 1: Perceptual Inputs of Stimuli-
- Information, Objects, Events, People etc.
- Stage 2: Perceptual Mechanisms-
- Selection, Organization, Interpretation
- Stage 3: Perceptual outputs-
- Attitudes, Opinions, Feelings, Values
- Stage 4: Pattern of Behavior
20) Herzberg’s two factor theory.
Frederick Herzberg is another distinguished American psychologist who has questioned the conventional wisdom of managerial dogma and practices. He has studied the problem of human motivation at the work place. “The central core of Herzberg’s work stems from his Second World War experiences where he realized.
“The insane also require care and compassion but their insane actions should never be reinforced by ethically neutral strategies.
Frederick Herzberg’s major works are:
- Work and the Nature of Man
- The Motivation to Work
- The Managerial Choice: To be Efficient and to be Human
Determinants of job satisfaction: strong determinants of job satisfaction are: achievement; recognition; the attraction of the work itself; responsibility; and advancement. Company policy and administration; supervision; salary; interpersonal relations; and working conditions
Three propositions are at the heart of motivator-hygiene theory:
Job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are not the opposite of one another
Factors that led to job satisfaction are of a different kind from those that led to job dissatisfaction.
The motivators concerned with sustaining job satisfaction have a much long-lasting effect than the hygiene factors concerned with removing dissatisfaction.
Job enrichment
Rationalizing the work to increase efficiency, Herzberg suggests that including the motivating factors, which provide the opportunity for the employee’s psychological growth, enrich jobs. In attempting to enrich an employee’s job, Herzberg suggests that management should give him an opportunity for growth in his existing job.
21) Leadership
Leadership may be defined as a process of influencing group activities towards the achievement of certain goals. Thus, the leader is a person in a group who is capable of influencing the group to work willingly. He guides and directs other people and provides purpose and direction to their efforts. The leader is a part of the group that he leads, but he is distinct from the rest of the group.
According to George R.Terry “Leadership is the activity of influencing people to strive willingly for group objectives”. Leadership naturally implies the existence of a leader and followers as well as their mutual interaction. It involves interpersonal relation, which sustains the followers accepting the leader’s guidance for accomplishment of specified goals.
Leadership Styles
The dominant behavior pattern of a leader-manager in relation to his subordinates is known as leadership style. There are three basic styles of leadership as follows:
1) Autocratic or Authoritative Style
2) Democratic or Participative Style, and
3) Laissez-faire or Free-rein Style
Section – D Case Study 1×15 =15
22) Consider: Concept and Relevance of the study
ANSWER KEYS
Class: M.Com Semester: II
Subject: MARKETING STRATEGIES AND PLANNING
SECTION – A (Answers – One or Two sentences) 10 ×2 =20
- Transactions between various types of industrial / business houses. It’s also called as B2B Marketing. Market must react to the latest Advancement.
- Products / materials those are useful to produce the finished goods. It consist of Raw materials like Manufacturing parts, Capital Items- Installation, Equipment etc.,
- The division of a market into groups of segments having similar wants. Segments may differ also in their needs for information, reassurance, technical support, service, promotion, distribution etc,
- Process of buying and selling goods and services through the electronic gadgets like Internet, Extranet.
- The decision process and physical activity engaged in when evaluating, acquiring, using or disposing of goods and services.
- Network of institutions involved in the distribution of goods and services from producers to consumers.
- Customer Relationship Management to all marketing activities directed towards establishing, developing, and maintaining successful relationship with their customers.
- Examples for Sources of Primary data – Questionnaire, Interview Schedule
- Provision of service to the consumer before and after purchase of goods and services.
- Supply Chain Management is an integrated management process within the organization and outside the organization.
SECTION –B 4 ×5 =20
Answer Any FOUR questions.
- On the basis of the following elements the two markets has been differentiates namely
- Buyers
- characteristics
- Structure
- Decision Making
- Channels
- Production Presentation
- Price
- Service etc..,
- Scope of Industrial Marketing Research
The following are the major scope for the Industrial Marketing Research
- Hierarchy – Managers Responsibilities
- Effective performance – Workforce
- Identify Market understanding and development
- Projection of potential Market
- Sales Potential – Estimation
- Market Budgeting
- Appropriate Market Positing
- Pricing policies
Price is an important element of the marketing mix. It can be used as a strategic marketing variable to meet competition. It is also a direct source of revenue for the firm. It must not only cover the costs but leave some margin to generate profit for the firm. of the manufacturer.
- Cost-plus or Full-cost pricing
- Pricing for a rate of return, also called target pricing Marginal cost pricing
- Going rate pricing, and
- Customary prices.
The first three methods are cost-oriented as the prices are determined on the basis of costs. The last two methods are competition-oriented as the prices here are set on the basis of what competitors are charging.
Cost-plus or Full-cost Pricing
This is most common method used in pricing. Under this method, the price is set to cover costs (materials, labor and overhead) and a predetermined percentage for profit. The percentage differs strikingly among industries, among members-firms and even among products of the same firm. This may reflect differences in competitive intensity, differences in cost base and differences in the rate of turnover and risk.
Pricing for a Rate of Return
An important problem that a firm might have to face is one of adjusting the prices to changes in costs. For this purpose the popular policies that are often followed are as under:
- Revise prices to maintain a constant percentage mark-up over costs.
- Revise prices to maintain profits as a constant percentage of total sales.
- Revise prices to maintain a constant return on invested capital.
Marginal Cost Pricing: Both under full-cost pricing and the rate-of-return pricing, prices are based on total costs comprising fixed and variable costs. Under marginal cost pricing, fixed costs are ignored and prices are determined on the basis of marginal cost.
Going-rate pricing
`going-rate pricing’ is not quite the same as accepting a price impersonally set by a near perfect market. Rather it would seem that the firm has some power to set its own price and could be a price maker if it chooses to face all the consequences. It prefers, however, to take the safe course and conform to the policy of others.
Customary Pricing
Prices of certain goods become more or less fixed, not by deliberate action on the sellers’ part but as a result of their having prevailed for a considerable period of time. For such goods, changes in costs are usually reflected in changes in quality or quantity. Only when the costs change significantly the customary prices of these goods are changed. Customary prices may be maintained even when products are changed.
- Factors influencing channel choice
- Distribution Policy
- Characteristics of product
- Nature of Consumer
- Supply Characteristics
- Potential Sales Volume
- Middlemen Role
- Discuss the process of Product Life Cycle
The stages through which a product goes through from the time it is introduced i11 a market till its elimination from the market.
- Introduction
- Growth
- Maturity /saturation
- Decline
- E–commerce disadvantages
- Technical Drawbacks
- Non- Technical Drawbacks
SECTION –C (Essay Type) 3×15 =45
Answer Any THREE questions
- Define product development. Explain the stages involved in the process of developing new products. Product development is by definition a future-oriented practice. It is an effort to foresee the future needs of the market place and to translate this information into state-of-the-art products. Product development is an innovative activity designed to meet the identified needs in the market.
Idea generation process of developing new products.
- Idea screening
- Concept development & testing
- Marketing strategy development
- Feasibility analysis
- Product development
- Market testing
- Consumer realization of product
- Dynamics of physical Distribution
- Customer Service
- Order Processing
- Logistics Communication
- Transportation
- Warehousing
- Inventory Control
- Packaging
- Material Handling
- Production Planning
- Warehouse Locations
- Various types of Markets.
- On the Basis of Location
- On the Basis of Area Covered
- On the Basis of Time Span
- On the Basis of Volume of Transactions
- On the Basis of Nature of Transactions
- On the Basis of Degree of Competition
- Classification of the Market on the Basis of Public Intervention
- Process of marketing research
Marketing research is a systematic collection and analysis of information that is ultimately used in evolving some marketing decisions. All stages of a research study must be carried out in a logical manner.
Various Processes
- Defining the Problem
- Statement of Research Objectives
- Planning the Research Design
- Planning the Sample
- Data Collection
- Data Processing and Analysis
- Formulating Conclusion, Preparing & Presenting the Report
- Corporate Strategic -A unified, comprehensive and integrated plan that relates the strategic advantage of the firm to the challenges of the environment.
Various components
- Objectives
- Vector
- Competitive Advantage
- Synergy
Significance
- Allocation of scarce resources.
- Corporate strategy motivates employees
- Strategy assists management to meet unanticipated future changes.
- Organizational effectiveness
- Improves the capability of
- Best course of action to realize the objectives.
- Objective basis for measuring performance.
Section – D Case Study 1×15 =15
22) Consider: Concept and Relevance of the study