Brand Case Study: De Beers,Volkswagen and Nokia

DEBEERS The market for diamonds has never been characterized by free, dynamic and open competition. Everything about diamond industry is manipulated: supply, pricing, processing and retailing. The leader of the diamond industry is De Beers, a company that produces half of the world’s high-quality diamonds. This case explores the impact of marketing on the diamond market and how it helped to shape the public perception of diamonds as a desirable gift over the course of the 20th century. De Beers ‘Diamonds are Forever’ advertising campaign, which started in the 1940s, was to become one of the most effective of the 20th century. It enabled De Beers to manipulate demand as well as supply. With the help of their agency, they created a mindset, which later swept the world, in which diamonds came to be perceived, not simply as precious gems (of which there are many) that could be traded according Continue reading

Customer Services in Commercial Banks

Customer service is the service provided in support of a bank’s core products. Customer service often includes answering questions; handling complaints. Customer service can occur on site (as when an onstage employee helps a customer or answers a question) or it can occur over the phone or the Internet. Quality customer service is essential to building cordial customer relationship. Banking being a service industry, a lot depends on efficient and prompt customer service. Customer service is the most important duty of the banking operations. Prompt and efficient service with smile will develop good public relations reduce complaints and increase business. Why is Customer Service Important? Changing customer expectations: Today the customer is more demanding and more sophisticated than he or she was thirty years ago. The increased importance of customer service: With changing customer expectations, competitors are seeing customer service as a competitive weapon with which they differentiate their products Continue reading

Incremental Principle in Economics

The incremental concept is closely related to the marginal costs and marginal revenues of economic theory. Incremental concept in managerial economics involves two important activities which are as follows: Estimating the impact of decision alternatives on costs and revenues. Emphasizing the changes in total cost and total cost and total revenue resulting from changes in prices, products, procedures, investments or whatever may be at stake in the decision. The two basic components of incremental reasoning are as follows: Incremental cost: Incremental cost may be defined as the change in total cost resulting from a particular decision. Incremental revenue: Incremental revenue means the change in total revenue resulting from a particular decision. The incremental principle in economics may be stated as under: A decision is obviously a profitable one if; It increases revenue more than costs It reduces costs more that revenues. It decreases some costs to a greater extent than Continue reading

Job Evaluation – Meaning, Definition, Objectives and Process

For fixing compensation to different jobs, it is essential that there is internal equity and consistency among different job holders. Job evaluation aims to provide this equity and consistency by defining the relative worth of different jobs in an organization. Job evaluation is the process of determining the relative worth of different categories of jobs by analyzing their responsibilities and consequently, fixation of their remuneration. So, Job evaluation is the process of determining and quantifying the value of jobs. It is the systematic scoring and comparison of jobs along organizationally determined dimensions of job worth, such as, in the effort, responsibility, complexity, importance, skills and the working conditions of a job. Job evaluation is a tool to compare jobs consistently and classify them into appropriate pay ranges. The worth of each job within the organization is determined through the Job Evaluation process (job analysis, job descriptions, & job evaluations). This Continue reading

Variants of Perfect Competition Market Structure

In the previous article,  we learned about perfect competition and its features. There are some derivatives of perfect competition. The most important variants of perfect competition market structure are: 1. Effective or Workable Competition Competition among the sellers, even though it may not be perfect, can be regarded as effective if it offers real alternatives to consumers that are sufficient to compel sellers to vary quality, service and price substantially with a view to attract buyers. The prerequisites of effective competition are as follows: Ready substitution of one product for another. General availability of essential information about alternatives (its significance lies in that buyers cannot influence the  behavior  of the sellers unless alternatives are known.) Presence of several sellers, each of them possessing the capacity to survive and grow. Preservation of conditions which keep alive the basis or potential competition from others. Substantial independence of action that is each seller Continue reading

Human Resource Metrics

Human Resources once considered a field focused on soft skills, has undergone an unprecedented change. HR now deals with complex data that can be analyzed to provide valuable information and insight and is swiftly becoming an essential means to add strategic value. The HR world is buzzing with the transformative potential of HR analytics. This field has developed at the intersection of computer science, engineering, decision making, and statistics and assists in organizing, analyzing, and making sense of uncertain situations. It has become evident that integrated and strategic HR practices considerably improve bottom-line performances. Therefore, appropriate Human Resource Metrics must be developed and applied in order to specifically illustrate the value of HR practices and activities, particularly relative to accounting profits and market valuation of the organization. This task has proven to be far more complex than anticipated, given the difficulties of measuring human assets/capital. Because HR largely deals with Continue reading