Search results

EuroPet S.A. was a multinational company operating gas stations in many European countries. There was a growing propensity for supermarkets to attach gas stations to their retail operations, which was developing into a major threat to EuroPet. As a result, in the mid-1990s, the company began to develop and brand its own convenience stores co-located with its gas stations. However, the company was spending much more on advertising the convenience stores than its competitors did. Management now had to decide if the increase in sales attributed to advertising efforts justified the advertising spend by analyzing the market data from one large metropolitan area: Marseille, France.

Students will learn: how to use cross-tabs and other marketing research tools to identify segmentation descriptors; how to analyze data and interpret results; and how these research results could guide new product development and positioning strategies in order to effectively target relevant customer segments.

Describes the winning formula at Neiman Marcus that has made it the No. 1 luxury retailer in the United States in terms of sales per square foot and profitability. Highlights Neiman Marcus' efforts to define who its customers are and are not and to achieve superior focus on its customers by aligning location, price, service, and merchandise to fulfill these customers' every need. Describes ways in which Neiman Marcus prevents typical silo behavior between merchandising and selling and how it ensures that the right merchandise gets to the right customer, despite the challenge of doing this in 36 micromarkets.

To show how a company integrates two strong high-performance functions—merchandising and sales—to get the right merchandise to each customer in more than 30 diverse selling locations while consistently providing exceptional customer service.

Retailing.

Undergraduate and Master's level business and management courses.

This case looks at the second largest oil company in India (Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL)) and examines an innovative services marketing concept that they introduced into the market in India for the first time, namely, one-stop truck shops. These new format truck-stops were targeted at the highway-based truckers in India who earlier had to stop off at multiple locations to eat and re-fuel increasing their on-road time and reducing their efficiency, much to the chagrin of their truck-fleet owners.

Students will be expected to build their knowledge of retailing in developing markets using the example of BPCL as a learning tool. The case examines differences in consumer behavior in developed vs developing markets, paying particular attention to the required need to differentiate the retail approach to suit the market.

Teaching note (with photographs).

This case was written to help students develop their analytical and decision-making skills with regard to sales force evaluation. It identifies a variety of issues – in the Pakistani context particularly – within the sales force environment, including union representation, sales force team conflicts and power dynamics between superiors and subordinates. The various case lessons will enhance students’ analytical, negotiation and team-management skills. This case can be used to discuss the following issues: the complexity of objective and subjective evaluations of a sales force, sales force perceptions and cultural nuances for succeeding in Pakistan. Distribution structures and management in Pakistan. Characteristic features of the Pakistani pharmaceutical market. Students will be able to explain how salesperson performance information can be used to identify problems, determine their causes and suggest sales management actions to solve them. Students will be able to differentiate between an outcome-based and a behaviour-based perspective for evaluating and controlling salesperson performance. Students will understand how to control one’s behaviour in conflict situations by identifying common interests and achieving a “win-win” situation.

The Al-Ain case describes sales force management and sales force evaluation in a situation that involves a high-performing team operating in a hostile environment. Al-Ain eye centre (Al-Ain), located in the city of Karachi in Sindh state of Southern Pakistan, is a small-scale hospital that has diversified into the pharmaceutical business. Al-Ain’s product portfolio includes analgesics, antibiotics, ophthalmology products and cardiology products. This case focusses on team management and the relationship between a sales manager and subordinate salespeople in the context of Pakistani culture. A sales representative has received a poor performance assessment, which he perceives to be an unfair evaluation of his efforts. As a result of the situation, he subsequently joins a union and creates problems for his superiors. As they explore these management issues within a sales force, students will develop an appreciation for objective methods of sales force evaluation, as well as for the complexity of handling high-performing teams, the importance of employee perceptions and the scope of subjective biases in sales force evaluation that can emerge in practice.

The case is suited to undergraduate or MBA courses on sales management, organizational behaviour, distribution management, marketing/strategy and pharmaceutical industries. It addresses issues of sales force management, sales territory allocations, sales target fixation, team conflict, promotion, team bonus and distribution management in the pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

After completion of this case study, students will be able to understand about characteristics of urban poor in the city of Mumbai which will aid in understanding about other emerging markets as well, to apply Health Belief Model to help students analyse behaviour change model, to apply social marketing strategies to popularize a social marketing cause, to learn about non-traditional intermediaries and apply to promote a social marketing cause, to apply Ansoff matrix and evaluate various strategies for growth and to analyse various challenges faced by social entrepreneurs and enable learners to arrive at solutions (applicable for social entrepreneurs and marketing executives).

This case study looked at a Mumbai-based organization, Medow Brite Enterprises, which sold sanitary napkins under the brand FeelOn to women particularly from urban poor background. The protagonist Mrs Ameeta Neel Ramesh was at the helm of the organization and was stuck with a dilemma – whether to enter rural markets or focus on selling incinerators and aid in disposing used sanitary napkins which was adding to the volume of non-biodegradable waste in the city. In 2019, Neel Ramesh made her first investment in Medow Brite. The organization had seen turbulent times during COVID-19 outbreak. However, Neel Ramesh with her astute strategy, helped the company get back on its feet. Medow Brite instead of manufacturing started procuring quality sanitary napkins from specific vendors. In contrast to many other sanitary napkins available in the market, FeelOn had cotton sanitary napkin variant without presence of plastic in the pads. Neel Ramesh had taken a different route for sale of her sanitary napkin, she conducted awareness sessions with the help of non-governmental organizations in various locations of Mumbai as well as Maharashtra. Post these sessions she sold her sanitary napkins among the attendees of the awareness sessions.

The case study can be included in marketing management course, consumer behaviour as well as social marketing courses in both undergraduate level and postgraduate level. In addition, the case study is also suitable for social entrepreneurs and marketing executives to discuss about non-traditional sales and marketing approaches, identifying unique segments and understanding behaviour change theories.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Sondologics, a manufacturer of video, audio, and gaming accessories products, was experiencing pricing and distribution problems in its channels. Numerous retailers were complaining about unfair price competition from unauthorized retailers, i.e., gray marketers, on standalone websites or Amazon's Marketplace, offering discounts of up to 30% off list price.

The company estimated that about 10% of its retail volume in the United States was being generated by unauthorized retailers. Compounding the problem, gray marketers and authorized retailers alike were selling at below-list prices, which violated the Sondologics MAP (minimum advertised pricing) policy.

Sondologics was considering numerous initiatives to address the MAP and gray-market problems, including retaining a third-party service to monitor pricing and distribution in the channel. Students are asked to develop recommendations that would promote sales while protecting the name-brand image and price points of Sondologics' products.

In 2010, Hero Honda (HH), the largest global two-wheeler manufacturing company (based on unit sales), terminated its 26 year old JV with Honda, effective 2014. In August 2011, HH, rebranded itself as “Hero”, with a nationwide campaign across media; over three months, the campaign was rolled out on 30 TV channels, leading websites, 200 radio stations, and 4, 000 cinema halls. Signages were changed in 4, 500 touchpoints over a weekend. The case documents the market and brand position of HH and its principal competitors, Bajaj and Honda in India, the rationale for ending the JV, the rebranding requirements, and the actions taken. Pedagogically, we evaluate the rebranding effort to sustain, create, and build consumer memories and emotions.

Andreas Stihl AG is the world's leading manufacturer of chain saws and other outdoor handheld power equipment. Based on marketing challenges in its high-volume retail channel—mass merchants such as The Home Depot and Lowe's—Stihl's U.S. unit has narrowed its distribution system to a single channel: independent retail dealers specializing in yard maintenance equipment. This risky and highly publicized decision has proved extremely successful, raising profits, attracting more dealers into exclusive relationships with Stihl, and strengthening the brand's top-quality positioning. But Stihl management are concerned that this channel system may not fit tomorrow's demographics, dominated by homeowners from the so-called Generation X and Generation Y. The case outlines Stihl's business and channel systems and customer needs, then poses a series of questions that management believes must be answered to determine whether to maintain or move away from reliance on its specialty retailers and how to adapt its system.

To understand issues related to retail channel strategy development in fast-changing consumer markets, as well as the challenges of adapting legacy routes-to-market systems to changing consumer service output demands.

Robert Davidson, pricing manager for Tupelo Medical, was concerned about the variability in price paid for its top-selling product, the Micron 8 Series blood pressure monitoring system. Using historical transaction data, Davidson must determine the appropriate price floor. Setting a price too high risked the loss of a large number of customers, putting the company at substantial risk due to the importance of the product. Setting a price too low would impact Davidson's ability to meet the stated objective of increasing margins by 3 percent. He wondered what the optimal price floor would be and what the expected profits would be for that new price floor. Additionally, the company's business varied considerably by geographic region, account size and account type. As a result, he needed to consider whether it made sense to set a single price floor or whether he could improve profits by allowing some variability in the price floor by customer segment.

• To illustrate how one can build a data-driven pricing model to study the tradeoff between margin and probability of winning a sale in a B2B market

• To quantify the value from implementing a price floor with a B2B sales force

• To demonstrate the incremental value of implementing a price floor that varies by customer segment.

To illustrate how one can build a data-driven pricing model to study the tradeoff between margin and probability of winning a sale in a B2B market

To quantify the value from implementing a price floor with a B2B sales force

To demonstrate the incremental value of implementing a price floor that varies by customer segment.

Launch strategies, marketing techniques and data analytics procedure adopted by a firm before launching a new product.

Academic students and management trainees who want to learn the methodology adopted by firms with respect to strategic management and marketing for launching a new product in Indian market.

Launch plan for Roulette, a premium segment brandy manufactured by John Distilleries Private Limited, has to be designed for Karnataka, Pondicherry and Andhra Pradesh markets in India by the Brand Manager Mr Pundlik Kalburgi. Competitors and target market share needs to be identified for all the three markets. Potential outlets, target outlets, channel-wise sales contribution, depot-wise sales contribution and size of the packs to be produced need to be identified for Karnataka market. These identifications need to be submitted to the chairman of the company and other department heads to implement the launch.

Pareto rule (80/20 rule) application for cost-efficient launch strategy; segmentation and identification of competitors; procedure to identify potential of the launch product and market share that can be targeted; and understanding the complete functioning of alcoholic beverage industry in Indian markets (with special reference to Karnataka) and analysing the market data to build an entire launch plan; 4.1 Identifying channel-wise potential and target outlets for the launch product; 4.2 Identifying potential and target depots and number of outlets under each of the depots; 4.3 How pack size of launching product to be manufactured is decided upon.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.