Приложение 3.

Marketing

Branding strategies. Branding is appropriate both for services and physical products.

No Brand Identity. Many small and medium-sized manufacturers do not have an established brand identity even though the company name is printed on the package or item. The lack of financial resources and marketing capabilities makes it difficult for a firm with an unknown brand to build buyer awareness in the marketplace. Major expenditures are required to introduce and promote the brand. A firm in this situation often relies on marketing intermediaries to encourage buyers to purchase the unknown brand. An unknown brand needs the reputation and support of wholesalers and retailers. Buyers relate an unknown brand to the intermediaries that carry the brand. If their perception of the seller is favourable, then the unknown brand benefits. Typically, the producer of an unknown concentrates its marketing efforts on wholesalers and retailers rather than end-users. Unknown products may develop consumer loyalty over time if users’ experience with the product is favourable, and if it is purchased frequently. Through extended use, the brand may develop customer loyalty. Even if a firm does not have the resources to aggressively promote a brand, management should consider assigning a brand name, particularly if the item is repurchased on a continuing basis. Favourable experience and word-of-mouth promotion with friends can help to build the brand’s reputation with buyers.

Management may decide not place a brand name on a product on order to offer a generic option to buyers. This strategy is used by large manufacturers and intermediaries attempting to attract buyers who want lower-priced, nonbranded equivalents to brand name products, such as tissues, paper towels, and various other frequently purchased products. In this instance, the use of a brand name is inappropriate.

Private branding. Assignment of a brand name by a nonmanufacturer is private branding. For example, Sears, Roebucks’s products are produced under private branding arrangements with various manufacturers. retailers with established brand name, such as Target, The Limited, and Wal-Mart, contract with producers to place the retailers brands on the products manufactured. The major advantage to the producer is eliminating the costs of marketing to end-users, although the manufacturer is dependent on the firm using the private brand. Producing private label merchandise for one intermediary is risky since the arrangement can be terminated by the buyer. Nevertheless, a mutually satisfactory private branding arrangement benefits both the producer and middleman. The producer’s sales volume can be expanded rapidly. The retailer can use its private brand to build store loyalty since the private brand is only available in the retailer’s stores. Private brands are often very profitable for retailers. For example, the profit margins of the private brands carried by supermarkets typically run 10 percent to 15 percent higher than other brands. Private brands account for nearly 13 percent of total sales in supermarkets. Consumer preferences for private brands may vary by country. For example, Italians favour national brands.

Corporate branding. This strategy places emphasis on building brand identity using the corporate name. The brand identity spans the firm’s entire product offering. Examples include IBM in computers, AT&T in communications, and the American Airlines in air travel. Corporate branding offers the advantage of using one advertising and sales promotion program to support all of the firm’s products. An established corporate identity also aids the promotion of new products. The shortcomings of corporate branding include a lack of focus on specific products and possible adverse affects on the entire product mix if the corporate name encounters negative publicity. Corporate branding as a primary branding strategy is appropriate when it is not feasible to establish specific brand identity and when the product offering is relatively narrow.

Product-Line Branding. This strategy places a brand name on a line of related products. Examples include Sear’s Kenmore and Craftsman brands. Hartmax, the men’s apparel producer, produces and markets various brands of men’s suits. Product-line branding provides more focus than corporate branding. and is cost effective by promoting an entire line rather than a specific product. This branding strategy is effective when a firm has one or more lines, each representing an interrelated offering of items. London Fog outwear, for example, is marketed as a line of apparel rather than by attempting to establish a brand identity for each item in the line. This branding strategy also has some limitations. a problem experienced by one item in the line may affect the image of the entire line. The positioning strategy must support the entire line, which may require excessive resources, if management wishes to focus on selected items in the line and/or particular customer segments. Thus, a close relationship among the items in the line is desirable.

Specific Product Branding. The strategy of assigning a brand name to a specific product is used by various producers of frequently purchased items, such as Procter&Gamble’s Crest toothpaste, pampers diapers, and Ivory soap. A brand name on a product gives it a unique identification in the marketplace. A successful brand can gain a strong loyalty over time. Products that represent low-involvement purchases benefit from a popular brand name. The major limitation of brand names on individual products is the high expense of building and supporting a brand through advertising and sales promotion. One danger is that the brand name may be so popular that it becomes a generic term for the product type. Companies work aggressively to prevent this and other misuses of popular brand names. Building a new brand name through advertising initially can cost over $50 million, plus the expense of maintaining the brand loyalty.

Combination Branding. Combination branding is used when the benefits of two branding strategies are great enough to overcome possible limitations. The strategy typically includes a corporate and line or item brand combination. The strategy may be used by a private brand retailer to emphasize specific lines. Combination branding may also be effective for a producer of consumer brands when launching a new brand. The corporate identity and reputation enhances the individual brand’s acceptance by consumers.

Приложение 4.

MANAGEMENT

Text A. History of management theories

Views on management have changed substantially over the past century – particularly in the past few decades.

Scientific Management Theory (1890 - 1940)

At the turn of the century, the most notable organizations were large and industrialized. Often they included ongoing, routine tasks that manufactured a variety of products. The US highly prized scientific and technical matters, including careful measurement and specification of activities and results. Management tended to be the same. Frederick Taylor developed the scientific management theory. Tasks were standardized as much as possible. Workers were rewarded and punished. This approach appeared to work well for organizations with assembly lines and other mechanistic, routinized activities.

Bureaucratic Management Theory (1930 - 1950)

Max Weber embellished the scientific management theory with the bureaucratic theory. Weber focused on dividing organizations into hierarchies, establishing strong lines of authority and control. He suggested organizations develop comprehensive and detailed standard operating procedures for all routinized tasks.

Human Relations Movement (1930 - today)

Eventually, unions and government regulations reacted to the rather dehumanizing effects of these theories. More attention was given to individuals and their unique capabilities in the organization. A major belief included that the organization would prosper if its workers prospered as well. Human Resource departments were added to organizations. The behavioral sciences played a strong role in helping to understand the needs of workers and how the needs of the organization and its workers could be better aligned. Various new theories were spawned, many based on the behavioral sciences.

Text B. Contemporary theories in management

Contemporary theories of management tend to account for and help interpret the rapidly changing nature of today’s organizational environments. As before in management history, these theories are prevalent in other sciences as well.

Contingency Theory

Basically, contingency theory asserts that when managers make a decision, they must take into account all aspects of the current situation and act on those aspects that are key to the situation at hand. Basically, it’s the approach that “it depends”. For example, the continuing effort to identify the best leadership or management style might now conclude that the best style depends on the situation. If one is leading troops in the Persian Gulf, an autocratic style is probably best (of course, many might argue here, too). If one is leading a hospital or university, a more participative and facilitative leadership style is probably best.

Systems Theory

Systems theory has had a significant effect on management science and understanding organizations. First, let’s look at “what is a system?” A system is a collection of part unified to accomplish and overall goal. If one part of the system is removed, the nature of the system is changed as well. For example, a pile of sand is not a system. If one removes a sand particle, you’ve still got a pile of sand. However, a functioning car is a system. Remove the carburetor and you’ve no longer got a working car. A system can be looked at as having inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes. Systems share feedback among each of these four aspects of systems.

Let’s look at an organization. Inputs would include resources such as raw materials, money, technologies and people. These inputs go through a process where they’re planned, organized, motivated and controlled, ultimately to meet the organization’s goals. Outputs would be products or services to a market. Outcomes would be, e.g. enhanced quality of life or productivity for customers/clients, productivity. Feedback would be information from human resources carrying out the process, customers/clients using the products, etc. Feedback also comes from the larger environment of the organization, e.g., influences from government, society, economics, and technologies. This overall system framework applies to any system, including subsystems (departments, programs, etc.) in the overall organization.

System theory may seem quite basic. Yet, decades of management training and practices in the workplace have not followed this theory. Only recently, with tremendous changes facing organizations and how they operate, have educators and managers come to face this new way of looking at things. This interpretation has brought about a significant change in the way management studies and approaches organizations.

The effect of systems theory in management is that writers, educators, consultants, etc. are helping managers to look at the organization from a broader perspective. Systems theory has brought a new perspective for managers to interpret patterns and events in the workplace. They recognize the various parts of the organization , and, in particular, the interrelations of the parts, e.g., the coordination of central administration with its programs, engineering with manufacturing, supervisors with workers, etc. This is a major development. In the past, managers typically took one part and focused on that. Then they moved all attention to another part. The problem was that an organization could, e.g., have a wonderful central administration and wonderful set of teachers, but the departments didn’t synchronize at all.

Chaos Theory

As chaotic and random as world events seem today, they seem as chaotic in organizations, too. Yet for decades, managers have acted on the basis that organizational events can always be controlled. A new theory, chaos theory, recognizes that events indeed are rarely controlled. Many chaos theorists (as do systems theorists) refer to biological systems when explaining their theory. They suggest that systems naturally go to more complexity, and as they do so, these systems become more volatile (or susceptible to cataclysmic events) and must expend more energy to maintain that complexity. As they expend more energy, they seek more structure to maintain stability. This trend continues until the system splits, combines with another complex system or falls apart entirely. Sound familiar? This trend is what may see as the trend in life, in organizations and the world in general.

Приложение 5.