Global Marketing Place

Several factors have forced countries to extend their economic views to events outside their own national borders. First, international agreements are being negotiated in attempt to increase trade among nations. Second, the growth of electronic commerce and related computer technologies brings previously isolated countries into their marketplace for buyers and sellers around the globe. Third, the interdependence of the world’s economies is a reality since no nation produces all of the raw material and finished goods purchased by its citizens or consumers of all its output without some exporting to other countries. Evidence of this interdependence is illustrated by the introduction of the Euro as a common currency to facilitate trade among the nations of the European Union and the creation of trade alliances.

Service firms also play a major role in today’s global marketplace. In many cases, global marketing strategies are almost identical to those used in domestic markets. Rather than creating a different promotional campaign for each country, marketers use the same ad with spectacular results.

Domestic marketing strategies may need significant changes to adapt to unique tastes or different cultural and legal requirements abroad. It is often difficult to standardize a brand name on a global basis.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Audience-Centered Approach to Communication

Beside other things, effective organizational communication is audience-centered approach. Keep your audience in mind at all time during the process of communication. Empathizing with, being sensitive to, and generally considering your audience’s feelings is the best approach for effective communication. The audience-centered approach is more than an approach to business communication; it’s actually the modern approach to business in general, behind such concepts as total quality management and total customer satisfaction.

 Because you care about your audience, you take every step possible to get your message across in a way that is meaningful to your audience. You might actually create lively individual portraits of readers and listeners to predict how they will react. You might simply try to put yourself in your audience’s position. You might try adhering strictly to guidelines about courtesy, or you might be able to gather information about the needs and wants of your audience. Whatever your tactic, the point is to write and speak from your audience’s point of view.

 My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Exploiting the Yellow Pages

Many people think the yellow pages are merely a place to put their phone numbers in large type. Silly thinking! The Yellow Pages are an arena for attracting the business of active prospects. They are a place to confront prospects on a one-to-one basis. You are selling. Others are selling too what you sell. The prospect is in a buying mood. Understand that opportunity, and you’ll be able to  create yellow pages ads that translate into sales.

 

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Marketing Eras

• Production Era:  Prior to 1925, most firms operating in highly developed economies focused narrowly on production. Manufacturers stressed production of quality products and then looked for people to purchase them.  The production era did not reach its peak until the early part of 20^th century.
• Sales Era: Manufacturers began to increase their emphasis on effective sales forces to find customers for their output. Firms attempted to match their output to the potential number of customers who would want it. Companies with a sales orientation assume that customers will resist purchasing products and services not deemed essential and that the task of personal selling and advertising is to convince them to buy. Although marketing departments began to emerge from shadows of production, finance, and engineering during the sales era, marketing dominated sales and other areas. Selling is thus a component of marketing.
• Marketing: Personal incomes and consumer demand for products and services dropped rapidly thrusting marketing into a more important role. Organizational survival dictated that managers pay close attention to the markets for their goods and services. The trend ended with the outbreak of World War 11, when rationing and shortages of consumer goods became commonplace. The war years created only a pause in an emerging trend in business: a shift in the focus from products and sales to satisfying customer needs.
• Relationship: It emerged during the 90s. Organizations carried the marketing era’s customer orientation one step further by focusing on establishing and maintaining relationships. This effort represented a major shift from the traditional concept of marketing as a simple exchange between buyer and seller. Relationship marketing by contrast, involves long-term, value-added relationships developed over time, strategic alliances and partnerships retailers play major roles in relationship marketing.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Interpersonal Competencies

• Empathy: Sensitivity to and concern about others’ emotional states, ability to see one’s own behavior from the other person’s perspective
• Effective Communication: Actively listens in genuine dialogue and presents ideas clearly and persuasively
• Social Awareness: Understands group relationship issues and interpersonal dynamics between them between team members and among organizational stakeholders
• Relationship Development: Fosters constructive networking relationships within diverse internal and external organization groups
• Leadership: Takes on a leadership role and responsibilities for benefit of the group or organization
• Collaborative Teamwork: Actively builds dynamic teams of diverse individuals to collaborate in creating new solutions to achieve goals.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Risking New Ideas

If we want people in the organization to start taking some risks, we need to replace no with yes and replace limits with encouragement. The key to the development of a risk-taking organizational climate lies in the ability of management to convey the attitude that new ideas are always a hot commodity. New ideas do not have to be perfect at birth. As the saying goes: “It doesn’t have to be right the first time. It just needs to be real.”

The best risk-takers are those who act without concentrating on all the jeopardies and instead work around the fears that hang up other people. That doesn’t mean that they don’t think before they act; it does mean that in this environment, they take some well-planned chances. I’ve watched associates get better month by month at learning how to make the right risks pay off for them, personally and professionally.

When we communicate that we expect mistakes to occur when people are putting out and working hard, we create an atmosphere of encouragement.  A lot of people in corporate life have made careers out of surviving rather than succeeding; they’ve had to cope with atmospheres laced with fear, suspicion, and blame. Get rid of the blame and start celebrating the efforts and new ideas. Plan to make mistakes and still make it through.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Kinds of Advertising

Different kinds of advertising are used by various organizations to reach different market targets. Some major categories include:

• Retail Advertising: advertising to consumers by various retail stores such as supermarkets and shoe stores.
• Trade Advertising: advertising to wholesalers and retailers by manufacturers to encourage them to carry their products.
• Industrial Advertising: advertising from manufacturers to other manufacturers. A firm selling motors to automobile companies would use industrial advertising.
• Institutional Advertising: advertising designed to create an attractive image for an organization rather than for a product.
• Product Advertising: advertising for a good or service to create interest among consumer, commercial, and industrial buyers.
• Advocacy Advertising: advertising that supports a particular view of an issue
• Comparison Advertising: advertising that compares competitive products.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Change and Gain

The best schedule for your business is likely to be very different from your current schedule. Innovative schedules that require major changes are the most likely to give the biggest benefits. On the other hand, the closer the new schedule is to the current schedule, the easier it is for workers to accept. Implementing a current modified schedule is easier but has a limited impact. In some companies even a relatively simple change—new shift start times, changing the direction of rotation, or a new vacation selection method—can create considerable controversy while not solving fundamental scheduling problems. Changing schedules is an emotional event for your employees, so you might as well tackle all of your scheduling problems at the same time.

Ask whether you want to make a small change or a big change. As a rule of thumb, aim for the greatest change possible, because you are not going to get all the way there anyway. Most organizations have a built-in inertia that limits change. On a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 being the current schedule and 100 being the perfect schedule, aim for 100, with the hope that your business will fall within the 80 to 90 range.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Best Practices of Microsoft

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has credited his best practices or new rules of how to function in the new digital business infrastructure. They can be applied in other businesses. The rules include:

1. Insist that communications flow through email
2. Study sales data online to share insights easily
3. Shift knowledge workers into high level thinking
4. Use digital tools to create virtual teams
5. Convert every paper process to  digital process
6. Use digital tools to eliminate single-task jobs
7. Create a digital feedback loop
8. Use digital systems to route customer complaints immediately
9. Use digital communication to redefine boundaries
10. Transform every business process into just-in-time delivery
11. Use digital delivery to eliminate middlemen
12. Use digital tools to help customers solve problems for themselves.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Equality, Inequality

Some people don’t think of you as an equal. Before they can accord you with the honor of being treated as an equal, they feel you need to prove yourself. You’ve run into these people before – you can probably spot them right away. And, try as you might, you probably have a difficult time respecting them, because you know that, deep down, they don’t respect you.

By nature, we are organizers, and sometimes we fall into the trap of organizing people. One of the most persistent downfalls of human society has been the urge to rank people according to worth. Even today, many cultures that now enjoy political freedom are still tarnished with the vestiges of a class system – a declaration that people are inherently unequal.

On a social level, this tendency is nothing more than a reflection of how we often behave in our personal lives. For whatever reason, we conclude that some type of people is better than others, and we make decisions based on this conclusion. If you think about it, all complaints of discrimination are essentially protests against decisions based on the notion of inherent inequality.

Another brand of inequality that has plagued history is the inequality of opportunity. Some people have a head start over others. Some people have more opportunities open to them than others do. It’s easy to say that ‘achievers create their own opportunities,’ but the fact is, life isn’t fair. Some people do have an advantage when it comes to opportunity. in life, there are few level playing fields, and there is very little any of us can do to change this.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.