Securities Market Line

     Begin by identifying your skills, qualifications, and accomplishments. Adopt a customer-focussed approach. What benefits and results can you offer employers? Are your skills marketable and up-to-date?

     Employers are in the market for team-players and problem-solvers. They want to see evidence in your CV or resume of specific, quantifiable accomplishments.

     Determine what additional skills you need to develop to make yourself more marketable. Take advantage of all opportunities for continuous learning and professional development.

     Successful businesses win customers by developing a unique selling proposition. To give yourself a competitive advantage, analyse what other employees in your field are offering.
It is not enough to emulate them; you must strive to differentiate yourself by offering something extra, something unique.

     Try to assess yourself as objectively as possible in order to identify your marketable features. Analyse your performance appraisals and, if possible, enlist the help of a trusted friend or colleague to help you evaluate yourself.

     Define and prioritise your short-term and long-term career goals. Read the rest of this entry »

     A customer of Cummins Engine Company, a western truck fleet, was experiencing frequent engine failures. Evidence suggested that the drivers were abusing engines, and that such abuse was occurring shortly after the vehicles left the company’s home terminal. When Cummins investigated, it discovered that the dispatchers, hidden safely behind a large glass pane, were taking their own sweet time compiling the drivers’ trip tickets. Furious about this seemingly deliberate foot-dragging, the drivers would storm out of the dispatch room and vent their frustrations on the trucks. The solution? The company removed the glass pane in the dispatch room. It totally transformed the relationship between drivers and dispatchers. “Often invisible barriers between people are the root cause of performance problems in business,” writes Schutz. “The driving force is stifled.”

     Four of the most powerful words in the world are I need your help.
     Leo Brewer, a friend of Schutz, bought a Cummins distributorship in St. Louis, Missouri. He needed to make significant improvements, though, and was out of money. Together with Schutz, he cooked up a plan. He went back to the filthy and neglected facility, gathered his crew in the shop area, and told them that he, his wife, and his children were coming in on Saturday morning to clean, and that anyone who wanted to could show up and pitch in. To make a long story short, they did. Then, the next weekend, they joined together to repaint. “The camaraderie of those two weekends resulted in more than just a clean shop,” writes Schutz. “It established the basis of a new culture, a new relationship between management and labor, and the company took off to new heights of performance.”

      Company icons are powerful. Don’t underestimate that power.
      When Schutz joined Porsche in 1981, the company was planning to discontinue the Porsche 911. Although there were practical reasons to put it on the chopping block–it was hard to drive and had an engine that could barely meet upcoming noise and emissions regulations–the decision was harming morale. A deep sense of loss and grief pervaded the entire company. Schutz describes the “moment of decision” when Porsche reversed its plan. “I noticed a chart on the wall of Professor Bott’s office,” he writes.

      “It depicted the ongoing development schedules for the three primary Porsche product lines: 944, 928, and 911. Two of them stretched far into the future, but the 911 program stopped at the end of 1981. I remember rising from my chair, walking over to the chart, taking a black marker pen and extending the 911 program bar clean off the end of the chart . . . The Porsche 911, the company icon, had been saved, and I believe the company was saved with it.” Read the rest of this entry »

      Promoting a business via the Internet can be a cost effective technique, provided the product is known to have a good online market. In other words, consumers prefer buying the product online rather than visiting a store for making the purchase. The products that have the potential to generate online sales are as follows: books, music, electronic goods and software. Of these, books, music and movies have a market share of 34% while software has a market share of 30%. Electronic goods also have a substantial share of 14%. In fact, once we have determined that the products, that the company is producing, have a good online market, the question of how to promote a business locally on the Internet assumes a great deal of significance.

     How to Promote a Business Through Pay Per Click Advertising?
     Promoting a business through pay per click advertising is also known as affiliate marketing. It is the process of driving traffic to a business’ website by placing an advertisement in a website that generates high traffic. The host (website) is paid a commission for actual conversions that are measured in terms of clicks. Cost per action (CPA) or clicks that result in driving traffic to a business’ website have a high probability of getting converted to revenue provided the host and the business are not producing substitute goods. Again, from the perspective of ensuring the visibility of the host, the business (affiliate) should provide text links rather than graphic links since the former is ranked higher by search engine optimizers. Greater host visibility would mean greater chances of the affiliate getting noticed.

     How to Promote a Business Using Social Media? Read the rest of this entry »

     The importance of Experience in Marketing cannot be ignored. For centuries poets and lovers tried to explain the celestial feeling of being in love, but failed. They ultimately concluded that to fathom the depths of love you’ll have to fall in love. The five powerful acts of sense, feel, think, act and relate, together form what we call experience. Man never believes anyone more than himself. It is much easier for him to learn from his own wisdom than from others.

     The right Brain Stimulating Act of Experiencing feelings, comfort and bliss and avoiding, discomfort and discontentment is employed in capturing customers in what new age marketers call “Experimental marketing.” To be very accurate, in this media saturated world, the customer’s attention span is too short to retain one’s glance effect. The question then arises as to what can be done to get him to know the product. The simplest answer would be to let him EXPERIENCE the product. This will in turn ensure complete transparency and full customer satisfaction. The pioneers of management call this metamorphosis as the journey from brand identity to brand experience.

     Experimental marketing is more than just about the products of a company. It is about the essence that the brand carries. As the smell of freshly baked pan cakes stimulated the appetite, in the same way an experience can even generate that desire to possess in the customers. The amazing thing about this form of marketing is its universal acceptance and applicability across all the verticals and realms of modern market.

     The Information Technology Sector can be easily termed as the most critical dynamic sector today. The Indian IT sector began its journey in 1990 and in 17 years there has seen comprehensive shift in its structure and kinetics. However the products and the services have been commoditized and competition is increasing day by day. This has adversely affected their margins. Read the rest of this entry »