BRAND PERSONALITY

Business practitioners have identified three components of a brand image: attributes, consequences and brand personality. Brand image is more comprehensive than brand personality. Brand image consists of all the associations that a consumer has for that brand. These associations include all the feelings, thoughts, and imagery including colours, sounds or smalls that are cognitively connected to that brand in the memory of the consumer. McDonald’s could be connected to a character such as Ronald McDonald, a young teenager, having a liking for fun, having a life style. 

INDIFFERENCE CURVE ANALYSIS

An indifference curve is a locus of point representing the combination of two commodities that provide an individual with a given level of satisfaction. Provided a consumer has more of one commodity he must give up some units of the other commodity to compensate and still maintain the same total satisfaction; therefore an indifference curve must slope downwards from left to right. 

THE CONCEPT OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The concept of entrepreneur concerns to the vision of an entrepreneur as well as its transforming into action by him. Entrepreneurship is a creative and innovative response of an individual to the environment. It is also the process of establishing a new venture by the entrepreneur. Thus, an entrepreneurship is a composite skill  a combination of many qualities and traits such as imagination, risk taking, ability to utilize factors of production, i.e, land, labour, technology and several intangible factors.

INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL MARKETS

The international sources of finance, and uses for finance in different countries constitute the capital markets of the world. Each country has its own capital market. However, national capital markets are partly linked and partly separated. The fact that national capital markets are at different stages of development and  have different depth and sizes, have varying prices and availability of capital makes the international finance very exciting. 

OLIGOPOLY

An oligopoly is a market situation where a few firms dominate the market selling homogeneous or differentiated products interdependent with respect to pricing and output decisions.

PRICE DISCRIMINATION

Price discrimination exists when the same product is sold at different prices to different buyers. The cost of production is either the same or different but not so much as the difference prices charged. The product is basically the same, but it may have slight differences (for example, different binding of the same book; different location of seats in a theatre; different seats in an aircraft or a train). The identical product, produced at the same cost is sold at different prices, depending on the preference of the buyers, their income, their location and the ease of availability of substitutes.

MONOPOLISTIC COMPETITION

Most markets have neither large number of sellers selling homogeneous product necessary to qualify as perfectly competitive market structure nor the single seller required to meet the definition of a monopoly. Where the number of sellers is large and the product differentiated, the model of monopolistic competition is a useful tool for analyzing price and output decisions. An important contribution is the model of monopolistic competition developed by Edward Chamberlin. Chamberline observed that even in markets with a large number of sellers, the products of individual firms are rarely homogeneous.

PRICING UNDER MONOPOLY

Monopoly may be described as a market situation in which there is a single seller, with no close substitutes for the commodity it produces and there are barriers to entry. A monopolist faces a downward-sloping demand curve for the market. For a firm to continue as a monopolist in the long run, there must be factors that prevent the entry of other firms. Absence of close substitutes means that the product of the monopolist must be highly differentiated from other goods.  The monopolized firm constitutes the whole industry and therefore, equilibrium of the monopoly firm signifies the equilibrium of the industry. According to Joel Deal, a monopoly market is one in which ‘ a product of lasting distinctiveness is sold. The monopolized product has distinct physical properties recognized by its buyers and the distinctiveness lasts over many years’

PERFECT COMPETITION

Pricing in the Short Run: Equilibrium of the Firm
Short period is the span of time so short that existing plants cannot be extended and new plants cannot be erected to meet increased demand. However, the time is adequate enough for producers to adjust to some extent their output to the increase in demand by overworking their fixed capacity plants. In the short run, therefore, supply curve is elastic.
Figure 3 shows the average and marginal cost curves of the firm together with its demand curve. Demand curve, in a perfectly competitive market, is also the average revenue curve and the marginal revenue curve of the firm. The marginal cost intersects the average cost at its minimum point. The U-shape of both the cost curves reflects the law of variable proportions operative in the short run during which the size of the plant remains fixed. The firm is in equilibrium at the point B where the marginal cost curve intersects the marginal revenue curve from below.

LARGE NUMBER OF BUYERS AND SELLER

The market under perfect competition includes a large number of small sellers that no single seller is able to exert significant influence over price. Each individual firm supplies only a small fraction of the total supply offered in the market. Sellers are price takers who can sell all that they can produce at market-determined price. Similarly there is large number of small buyers that no buyer can affect the price. All buyers are price-takers too.

HOMOGENEOUS PRODUCT
All firms in the perfectly competitive market produce a homogeneous product. One firm’s output cannot be distinguished from that of other producers. As a result, purchasing decisions are based entirely on price. If the firm sets its price above the market-determined level, its buyers will go away to other sellers. Price-cutting is unnecessary because producers can sell their total output at the market price.

FREE ENTRY AND EXIT
Perfect competition assumes free entry and exit from an industry. If market-determined price is greater than average cost, firm earns super-normal profits, resources can be mobilized to create new firms or to expand the production capacity of existing firms. If profits are below average cost resources can easily be transferred from the industry to produce other products at higher profit rates.

PROFIT MAXIMIZATION
Firms pursue no other goals. The goal of all firms is profit maximization. 

NO GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION
The perfect competition rules out government intervention in the market in the form of tariffs, subsidies, rationing of production or demand.

PERFECT MOBILITY 
The factors of production (labor and capital) can freely move from one firm to another throughout the economy. The assumption implies that workers can move between different jobs and the labor is not unionized. Raw materials and other factors are not monopolized. In brief, there is perfect competition in the factor-market.

PERFECT KNOWLEDGE
All buyers and sellers are assumed to have complete knowledge of the market not only of the prevailing conditions in the current period but in all future periods and so rules out the uncertainty about future developments in the market.

Price Determination under Perfect Competition
Perfect competition is defined as a market situation where there are a large number of sellers of a homogeneous product. An individual firm supplies a very small portion of the total output and is not powerful enough to exert an influence on the market price. A single buyer, however large, is not in a position to influence the market price. Market price in a perfectly competitive market is determined by the interaction of the forces of market demand and market supply. Market demand means the sum of the quantity demanded by individual buyers at different prices. Similarly, market supply is the sum of quantity supplied by the individual firms in the industry. Each seller and buyer takes the price as determined. Therefore, in a perfect competition, the main issue for a profit- maximizing firm is not to determine the price of its product but to adjust its output to the market price so that profit is maximized. Price determination under perfect competition is analyzed under three different time periods:

(a) Market period
(b) Short run
(c) Long run 
(i) Market period

In a market period, the time span is so short that no firm can increase its output. The total stock of the commodity in the market is limited. The market period may vary depending upon the nature of the product. For example, in the case of perishable commodities like vegetables, fish, eggs, the period may be a day. Since the supply of perishable commodities is limited by the quantity available or stock in day that neither can be increased nor can be withdrawn for the next period, the whole of it must be sold away on the same day, whatever may be the price. 

Fig. 1  shows that the supply curve of perishable commodities like fish is perfectly inelastic and assumes the form of a vertical straight line SS. Let us suppose that the demand curve for fish is given by dd. Demand curve and supply curve intersect each other at point R, determining the price OP. If the demand for fish increases suddenly, shifting the demand curve upwards to d’d’.

The equilibrium point shift from R to R” and the price rises to OP’. In this situation, price is determined solely by the demand condition that is an active agent.

Similarly if the demand for a product is given as shown in demand curve SS in figure 2 . If the supply of the product decreases suddenly from SS to S’S’, the price increases from P to P’. In this case price is determined by supply, the supply being an active agent. In this case supply curve shifts leftward causing increase in price of the reduced supply goods. Given the demand curve dd and supply curve SS, the price is determined at OP. Demand curve remaining the same, the decrease in supply shifts the supply curve to its left to S’S’. Consequently, the price rises from OP to OP’. 

The firm supplies OQ output. The QC is the average cost and the firm earns total profit equal to the area shown by ABCD. The firm maximizes its profit. Earlier to the point of equilibrium, the firm does not attain the maximum profit as each additional unit of output brings more revenue that its cost. Any level of output greater than OQ brings less marginal revenue than marginal cost. For the equilibrium of a firm the two conditions must be fulfilled:


(a) The marginal cost must be equal to the marginal revenue. But, this condition is not sufficient, since this condition may be fulfilled, yet the firm may not attain equilibrium. Accompanying figure shows that
 marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue at point e’, yet the firm is not in equilibrium as Oq output is greater than Oq’

(b) The second and necessary condition for equilibrium requires that the marginal cost curve cuts the marginal revenue curve from below i.e. the marginal cost curve be rising at the point of intersection with the marginal revenue curve.

Thus, a perfectly competitive firm will adjust its output at the point where its marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue or price, and marginal cost curve cuts the marginal revenue curve from below.

The fact that a firm is in equilibrium does not imply that it necessarily earns supernormal profits. In the short-run equilibrium firms may earn super-normal profits, normal profits or may incur losses.

Whether the firm makes supernormal profits, normal profits or incurs losses depends on the level of the average cost at the short run equilibrium. If the average cost is below the average revenue, the firm earns supernormal profits.

Figure 5 illustrates that the average cost QC is less than average revenue QB, and the firm earns profits equal to the area ABCD.

BRAND IMAGE

Business practitioners and management experts have explained the term ‘Brand image’ in a somewhat courtly gentleman fashion. Brand calls up feeling of images and perceptions-particularly of style, modernity, class, quality and so on. One can think of Pepsi, Nike, Coke, Nestle, Parker, Raymonds, Adidas, Apple, Rolex, Revlon, Mactintosh, Sony, Google, Philips, Panasonic and we can foretell  such brand would be immediately recognized by majority of persons. A brand image dwells not so much in the product itself but in the mind of the consumer. Really, they are imagined benefits and reflect expectations, beliefs and attitudes surrounding a brand.

BRAND IDENTITY

The concept of brand identity includes three main tasks:

1.      The brand identity system

2.      The brand identity implementation system, and

3.      The strategic brand analysis

COST ANALYSIS

Firms make decisions in their quest for profit. Firms in perfectly competitive industries make three specific decisions.

1.      How much output to supply.

2.      Which production technique/technology to use?

3.      What quantity of each input to demand?

All these decisions are made in non-competitive industries as well. Because firms in perfectly competitive markets are price-takers in both input and output markets, many decisions depend on prices over which firms have no control. Cost functions are derived functions. They are derived from the production function, which focuses on the cost of production. To calculate costs, a firm must know two things: the quantity and combination of inputs it needs to produce its output and how much these inputs cost.

CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR

It is of utmost importance for the marketer to identify who makes the buying decision, the types of buying decision involved and the major steps in the buying process.  For several products it is not so difficult to determine the buyer as the buying unit involves more than one individual. The marketer has to accept that a set of purchase role exists and enter into play within the family. Different roles can be identified which determine how families make buying decisions.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Consumer behaviour is a subset of human behaviour concerned with decisions and actions of individuals in purchasing and using products or decisions that lead up to the act of purchase. The behaviour that consumers display in searching for purchasing, using, evaluating and disposing of products and services they expect will satisfy their needs is known as consumer behaviour. 

PROMOTIONAL COMMUNICATION

As a company develops a new product, modifies an old one or desires to enhance sales of an existing product or service, it ought to transmit its selling messages to potential customers. In the present time competitive and volatile environment all marketers communicate with their target markets. Though there in no positive relationship between the promotion and sales but then also it can be said that if promotional programs are aimed at the target customers, and the marketer gains.

BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is an approach to uncommon improvement in operative effectiveness through the redesigning of important business processes and supporting business systems. It is revolutionary design of key business methods that involves examination of the fundamental process itself. The orientation of redesigning efforts is essentially radical. In alternative words, it is a complete deconstruction and rethinking of business method in its completeness.

ADVERTISING

Advertising management is the process of monitoring campaigns that try to inform and arouse interest in consumers concerning a specific good or service. This process starts with the initial stages of the market research that assists to create the advertising strategy, proceeds to the development of the general framework for the campaign, the formulation of a specific plan of action and the setting in motion of the entire project. In the absence of an effective advertising management, ad campaigns and public relations attempts are likely to stumble and bring little or no results. 

BRAND MANAGEMENT

Since classical Greek times branding in one or the other form has been used at least to differentiate products of the same kind having little difference between the brand and the company; typically the brand and the name of the company were the one and the same. 

TRIARCHIC MODEL OF HRM

There are several perspectives in existence to explain the nature, purpose and underlying assumptions of HRM. These perspectives include

(i)   Performance based HRM driven by American practices,

(ii)   Relationship based HRM supported by new generation practitioners,

(iii) Learning oriented HRM promoted by academicians,

(iv)  Strategic HRM driven by economic models,

(v)   Reactive and proactive HRM models originated from industrial relations school etc.

TOYOTA MODEL OF HRM

Toyota is famous for several world-class products. It is known for a variety of quality initiatives including famous JIT (Just-in-time inventory) production system. Toyota is also famous for its HRM policies and practices too and its human resource practices can serve as a model, particularly for manufacturing and production oriented companies. Toyota's HRM framework broadly consists of four kind of goals.