My Third Article Review

Topic: Making Relationship Marketing Operational

Writers: Evert Gummesson
Stockholm University, School of Business, Stockholm, Sweden

Volume: International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 5 No. 5,
1994, pp. 5-20. © MCB University Press, 0956-4233

Relationship Marketing deals with direct market relationship between suppliers and customer . Relationship marketing (RM) is marketing seen as relationships, networks and interaction. Relationships need at least two parties – basically a supplier and a customer – who enter into interaction with each other.

RM is actually seeking its identity. According to Jackson (1985) sees RM as the opposite to transaction marketing where the industrial buyer shops around and one deal says little about the chance of a repeat purchase. For Berry and Parasuraman (1991), RM is a preferred approach to services marketing. Christopher et al. (1991) approach RM as the synthesis of marketing, customer service and quality management. Sheth (1994) defines RM as “…the understanding, explanation and management of the ongoing collaborative business relationship between suppliers and customers” and “…an emerging school of marketing thought.”

For Porter (1993), RM is “The process whereby the buyer and the provider establish an effective, efficient, enjoyable, enthusiastic and ethical relationship – one.…that is rewarding to both parties”. Grönroos (1990) contributes with a general definition of marketing with an RM angle: “Marketing is to establish, maintain, and enhance relationships with customers and other partners, at a profit, so that the objectives of the parties involved are met.

RM more focused to long-term interactive relationship between the provider and the customer, and long-term profitability. RM recognizes that everyone is a part-time marketer and that marketing is not confined to the full-time marketers of the marketing and sales departments (Gummesson, 1991). It recognizes that both the customer and the seller can be active. They should see each other as partners in a win-win relationship.

There are Thirty Types of Relationship Marketing

R1. The classic dyad: the relationship between the supplier and the customer. This is the parent relationship of marketing, the ultimate exchange of value which constitutes the basis of business.

R2. The many-headed customer and the many-headed supplier. Marketing to other organizations – industrial marketing or business marketing –often means contacts between many individuals from the supplier’s andthe customer’s organization.

R3. Megamarketing: the real “customer” is not always found in the marketplace. In certain instances, relationships must be sought with a “non-market network” above the market proper – governments, legislators, influencial individuals – in order to make marketing feasible on an operational level.

R4. The classic triad: the customer-supplier-competitor relationship Competition is a central ingredient of the market economy. In the competition there are relationships between three parties: between the customer and the current supplier, between the customer and the supplier’s competitors, and between competitors.

R5. Alliances change the market mechanisms Alliances mean closer relationships and collaboration between companies. Thus competition is partly curbed, but collaboration is necessary to make the market economy work.

R6. Market mechanisms are brought inside the company. By introducing profit centres in an organization, a market inside the company is created and internal as well as external relationships of a new kind emerge.

R7. The service encounter: interaction between the customer and front line personnel. Production and delivery of services involve the customer in an interactive relationship with the service provider’s personnel.

R8. Interfunctional and interhierarchical dependency: the relationship between internal and external customers. The dependency between the different tiers and departments in a company is seen as a process consisting of relationships between internal customers and internal providers.

R9. Relationships via full-time marketers (FTMs) and part-time marketers (PTMs). Those who work in marketing and sales departments – the FTMs – are professional relationship-makers. All others, who perform other main functions but yet influence customer relationships directly or indirectly, are PTMs. There are also contributing FTMs and PTMs outside the organization.

R10. Internal marketing: relationships with the “employee market”. Internal marketing can be seen as part of RM as it gives indirect and necessary support to the relationships with external customers.

R11. The non-commercial relationship. This is a relationship between the public sector and citizens/customers, but it also includes voluntary organizations and other activities outside of the profit-based or monetarized economy, such as those performed in families.

R12. Physical distribution: the classic marketing network. The physical distribution consists of a network of relationships which is sometimes totally decisive for marketing success.

R13. The electronic relationship. An important volume of marketing today takes place through networks based on IT. This volume is expected to grow in significance.

R14. Megaalliances. EU (the European Union) and NAFTA (the North America Free Trade Agreement) are examples of alliances above the single company and industry. They exist on government and supranational levels.

R15. Quality providing a relationship between production and marketing. The modern quality concept has built a bridge between technology and marketing. It considers the company’s internal relationships as well as its relationships to the customers.

R16. Personal and social network. The personal and social networks often determine the business networks. In some cultures even, business is solely conducted between friends and friends-of-friends.

R17. The two-dimensional matrix relationship. Oganizational matrices are frequent in large corporations, above all in the relationships between product management and sales.

R18. The relationship to external providers of marketing services. External providers reinforce the marketing function by supplying a series of services, such as those offered by advertising agencies and market research institutes, but also in the area of sales and distribution.

R19. The relationship to the customer’s customer. A condition for success is often the understanding of the customer’s customer, and what suppliers can do to help their customers become successful.

R20. The owner and financier relationship. Owners and other financiers can sometimes determine the conditions under which marketing works. The relationship to them may influence the marketing strategy.

R21. Parasocial relationships via symbols and objects. Relationships do not only exist to people and physical phenomena, but also to mental images and symbols such as brand names and corporate identities.

R22. The law-based relationship. A relationship to a customer is sometimes founded primarily on legal contracts and the threat of litigation.

R23. The criminal network. Organized crime is built on tight and often impermeable networks guided by an illegal business mission. They exist around the world and are apparently growing but are not observed in marketing theory. These networks can disturb the functioning of a whole market or industry.

R24. The mental and physical proximity to customers vs. the relationship via market research. In mass marketing the closeness to the customer is often lost and the customer relationship is based on surveys, statistics and written reports.

R25. The customer as member. In order to create a long-term sustaining relationship, it has become increasingly frequent to enlist customers as members of various marketing programmes.

R26. The relationship to the dissatisfied customer. The dissatisfied customer perceives a special type of relationship, more intense than the normal situation, and often badly managed by the provider. The way of handling a complaint – the recovery – can determine the quality of the future relationship.

R27. The green relationship. The environmental and health issues have slowly but gradually increased in importance and are creating a new type of customer relationship through legislation, the voice of opinion leading consumers, changing behaviour of consumers and an extension of the customer-supplier relationship to encompass a recycling process.

R28. The knowledge relationship. Knowledge can be the most strategic and critical resource and “knowledge acquisition” is often the rationale for alliances.

R29. The mass media relationship. The media can be supportive or damaging to the marketing. The way of handling the media relationships is often crucial for success or failure.

R30. The monopoly relationship: the customer or supplier as prisoners. When competition is inhibited, the customer may be at the mercy of the provider – or the other way around. One of them becomes a prisoner.

My Second Article Review

Topic: The Strength of Branding and Positioning in Service

Writers: Sally Dibb and Lyndon Simkin
( Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK)

Volume: Vol 4 No 1, 1993, pp25-35.

Complexities in Service
The review that I get from this view of point is regarding the intangibility of services.
Product is tangible but service is intangible.

Because of this, we need to use four Ps that is product, price, place, and promotion in promoting the services. However, actually that is not sufficient if just depends on this four Ps in market the services.

Service and Branding
Some practitioners recommended that branding plays a vital role in promoting tangible items such as products but it is not so wisely use for promoting services.

Branding is including the price and delivery reliability of the services. If the services are able to build up a stable, branding in the minds of consumers, it can builds up the brand loyalty towards consumers. For example, Holiday Inns Hotel is one of the most strongly branding Hotels among the Hotel industry.

The ways of building branding among the consumers is through three sources. First is the internal ( the buyer’s experience of previous purchases), second is external word-of-mouth (from individuals who have experienced a particular service), and the third is external from the selling company’s own efforts (advertising).

It is important for companies to promote and reinforce their brands.

Service and Positioning
According to the writers, Positioning is the place which product occupies in a given market as perceived by the product’s targeted customers.

The successful of unsuccessful of a product is depends on how the consumers perceive its quality, its strength and weaknesses, memorable characteristics, price and value, promoted image and value and the type of consumers who use it.

According to the writers, positioning is not what is done to the product or brand, it is what is created in the minds of target customers; the product is positioned in the mind of these customers and is given an image.

Positioning is focus on effective marketing communications, advertising and promotions. In reality, positioning is also affected by pricing policy, distribution and the nature of the product itself.

Steps in Determining a Positioning Plan

-Define a market's segments

-Decide which segment to target

-Understand what the target consumer expect and value

-Develop a product or service which caters exactly for each needs

-Evaluate consumer perceptionns of competitive service in the selected market

-Select an image for the product which matches the aspirations of the targeted consumers

-Communicate the determined image to the targeted consumer, make the product suitably

available

My First Article Review

Topic: Women: segmenting the home fitness equipment market

Writers: Donelda S. McKechnie, Jim Grant, Victoria Korepina and Naila Sadykova

School of Business, American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Introduction
The purpose of this article are guided by two objectives:
First, to what extent are female consumers a viable target market segment for home fitness equipment.

Second, to what extent do women believe/disbelieve the advertising claims that are made about such products.

The reasons women buying the home fitness equipment is for the sake of exercising ,appearance and health considerations.

The descriptors for the purchase behavior of women is their age, nationality, occupations and religion demographics.

Cultural and societal factors (Shaw, 1994; Deem and Gilroy, 1998) have the potential to influence the purchase and use of home exercise equipment although such concerns are not central to the purpose of this paper.

Literature review

In this article,respondent are grouped into four age categories: under 31 years, 41-50 years, and 51-60 years. The result show that women under 50 tend to exercise as a way to control weight and for social interaction and women from age 31-50 years is for stress relief.

Weight control and appearance are found to be important factors when making gender distinctions about exercise involvement.

Deem and Gilroy (1998, p. 89) address this issue noting that “. . . women’s participation in sport should be viewed as part of women’s leisure, enjoyment and relaxation,
rather than as an endeavor which is primarily about achieving good health and physical fitness”.

Other factors, equally important when addressing women’s participation in physical activities, are the socioeconomic as well as the demographics of family makeup, age,
education, etc. (Deem, 1986).

However, why women choose to work out at home rather than join a club may or may not be the result of cultural and/ or social constraints (Deem and Gilroy, 1998). Shaw (1994)
suggests that time, finances, lack of opportunities/facilities or family obligations have the potential, jointly or severally, to impede women from engaging in leisure activities.

Societal and cultural forces may constrain some women from engaging in activities that are deemed to be inappropriate (Shaw, 1994) such as joining a fitness club outside the home. By engaging in exercise activities within the home, using apparatus similar to what is available in commercial venues, then women may be able to challenge the preconceived and traditional notions of the culture.


Methodology
Data collection included interviews with sales staff in retail sporting good outlets as well as soliciting responses to a questionnaire. Information sought included:
· the type and brand names of equipment available;
· who is buying the products and why; and
· what they see as the growth areas for home fitness equipment in the future.


Interview responses

They do not advertise particular products; it is the responsibility of the manufacturer/distributor head office to place ads on television and in magazines including the stores’ name and location. “As Seen on TV” is printed on the boxes to attract consumers who would not normally purchase from TV but will buy the same product from the store.

The surveys focused on:
-treadmills;
-cycling machines;
-workout equipment; and
-abdominal machines

which were the four main product categories that interest women shoppers according to the retail sales staff. In addition to demographic questions, the survey asked about previous purchases, satisfaction and whether they believe/disbelieve the advertisements that promote sports equipment.

Four demographic questions asked for respondents’ age, occupation, religion and nationality . With percentages for each noted in parenthesis, these categories
were further subdivided into three groups for age, and four for each of occupation and religion. Nationality had five.

The survey asked the reasons that women exercise. 24 percent said to lose weight, 41 percent want to look good, 32 percent workout to get fit and 3 percent exercise for other reasons.

The findings have shown that women are a viable market: approximately 40 percent of the respondents have previously bought fitness equipment for the home. This is a strong
indication that women are a consumer segment that may be pursued.

Finally, the extent to which women believe the advertisements, the responses indicate that generally, they are discerning shoppers. Those who have bought said that they did believe the advertisements. However, a large number of women also assess the advertisement message critically before believing what is claimed.

In my opinion, the marketers should focus their audience to the man market in segmenting this home fitness equipment .

Life of a Little Joyce...

PERSONAL PARTICULARS

Name : Joyce Wong Tzin Yee

I / C Number : 860209-05-5142

Age : 22

Date of Birth : 09.02.1986

Residential Address: 7,Taman Meranti Jaya,70400 Seremban N.S.D.K.

Sex : Female

Race : Chinese

Marital Status : Single

Contact No. : 017-3684758

E-mail :joycewong86@yahoo

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

CERTIFICATE SCHOOL/COLLEGE GRADE YEAR
Sijil Tertinggi Pelajaran Sek.Men.Keb.Tunku Pass 2005
Malaysia (STPM) Ampuan Durah

Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia Sek.Men.Keb.Tunku Pass 2003
(SPM) Ampuan Durah