- •1. Four basic factors necessary for any business. Give the arguments for (or against) the statement that business is essential for all economies.
- •2. Advantages and risks of entrepreneurship. How would you initiate the business if you were an entrepreneur?
- •3. Similarities and differences between a sole proprietor and a partnership.
- •4. Favorable and unfavorable points of a corporation. Which of the three businesses would you prefer to work for?
- •5. The difference between intermittent and continuous production.
- •6. Which method of production would you choose for a) custom-made goods and b) standard goods? What are the most important factors in these methods?
- •7. What two methods do employers use to select applicants for an interview? Suppose you are to employ a manager for your firm. Which method would you use?
- •8. The functions of the personnel department. Your first steps as the Head of the pd if you happen to be appointed to this post.
- •9. The general concept of marketing, its constituent parts. Types of markets.
- •10. Modern marketing – new principles.
- •11. The function of distribution from the view of a business manager. The role of a middleman in distribution.
- •12. The distribution system from the view of a customer. Different types of retail outlets.
- •13. The concept of promotion, its main activities. What type of advertising would you use for promoting a new kind of product your firm has just launched?
- •14. Personal selling – what way does it differ from other forms of promotion? Try to persuade a foreign firm to buy a new passenger airliner constructed in Russia.
- •15. Two types of sales promotion activities. What would you do to promote a new type of tea or coffee?
- •16. Interdependence of promotion and market situation. What would you do if the market turns out to be saturated with your goods?
- •17. Four aspects of international business. What is the main difference between Smith’s theory and Ricardo’s theory?
- •18. Discuss the activities of an exporting company and the reactions of the country importing products. How should the country protect its domestic industries?
- •19. The importance of computers. Your opinion about the advantages and disadvantages of using computers. The prospective ways of computer development.
- •20. Types of layout. Compare product layout and process layout.
13. The concept of promotion, its main activities. What type of advertising would you use for promoting a new kind of product your firm has just launched?
Promotion is the aspect of marketing concerned with increasing sales. Promotion attempts to persuade and influence the customer’s attitude in various ways. Economists believe price should be determined by supply and demand. Promotion attempts to increase demand for a product and thereby increase sales. It wants to make the demand for a product inelastic when prices increase and elastic when prices decrease. In other words, through promotion, companies try to keep demand and sales constant when prices increase, and when the prices decrease they want demand for the product to increase, hoping that an increase in sales volume will offset the decrease in price.
There are three main promotional activities: advertising, personal selling, and sales promotion.
Advertising is a nonpersonal presentation of goods, services, or ideas aimed at a mass audience. It is particularly suited for products that are widely distributed, such as convenience goods. There are several methods of advertising and several media, for example, television or newspaper advertisements. The purpose of advertising is to communicate information that convinces a customer to buy a specific product.
Personal selling involves a salesperson trying to convince customers directly to buy a product. Personal selling is very effective when there is a concentrated market for a product – in other words, the product is not for general consumption by the public. For example, airplanes are purchased, as usual, by airlines, not by the general public. There would be little point in advertising them on television. The same is true for many industrial goods.
Sales promotion involves several activities. It is becoming increasingly important in the self-service environment where there is often no sales staff. Sales promotion activities are of two types: information and stimulation. Examples of information promotion are a pamphlet or booklet about the product, a demonstration, market research information telling about the nature of the customers, and so on. Stimulation promotion can be accomplished by the distribution of free samples, reduced price promotions, premiums, and coupons.
For promoting a new kind of product that my firm has just launched, for example, mobile phone made by new technology, I would use television advertising, because television advertising reaches a large audience. It has the advantage of appealing to the emotions of the audience through the senses of sight and sound. The disadvantage is that television advertisements are very expensive to produce and broadcast and must be repeated a lot of times in order to justify their cost. So, if I had less money, I would choose billboards advertisement, which uses the same method of persuading as television advertisement. This type of advertising is less expensive, but sometimes it could be the same effective.