August Management Treasure Box

Is it better to have a low price every day or a low price promotion

There are various price promotion methods in the retail industry. pricing), the two methods have different effects on different categories and industries. The Sloan Management Review website analyzed this.

They analyzed 11 categories of products from 38 retailers in the United States for 5 quarters and obtained two variables: 1. Category repetition (referring to the degree of similarity between categories, such as high-end clothing is very similar low, and the similarity of consumer electronics products is high); 2. The lifespan of the category. Two variables have high and low (or long and short) attributes, thus forming a matrix with four product combinations. They came up with solutions for different combinations. For example, "products with low category repetition and short lifespan" (still taking high-end ready-to-wear as an example) should be promoted at high prices and occasional deep discounts.

Their research also found that price promotions are positively correlated with company revenue and negatively correlated with profits. But the degree of correlation varies by industry, with the grocery industry being the most effective, and the furniture industry being less effective.

Five Steps to Determining Customer Value

Not all customers bring you value, Optimize.com provides steps to determine customer value:

Centralize all of your company's customer profiles (Customers may deal with several parts of the company at the same time, and centralizing their data can help analysis);

Calculate the revenue from these customers;

Add the unit cost and customer maintenance cost to get the The total cost of the customer service; Software;

Establish an identifiable symbol for the customer, so that once the customer calls, the customer service representative's information will pop out of the customer's level, service standards and corresponding preferential conditions.

These Inappropriate Group Interviews

"Focus groups" are widely used in marketing, but this method has its limitations. The MarketingPower.com website points out that group interviews should be viewed more as testing the "temperature" of the market with a thermometer, rather than measuring the accuracy of the market with a ruler, and the site believes that this method should not be used in the following situations:

When you need to know a number, such as "The percentage is...";

When you need to know a sensitive issue;

When you need to price a product or service;

When you know whatever the outcome of the group interview When it has no influence on the final decision of the company.

Carefully implement "Vendor Managed Inventory"

Vendor managed inventory (VMI for short) is a new type of supply chain management method, and its main function is for retail enterprises in the downstream of the supply chain Give up the right to manage the inventory and let the supplier manage it (the supplier usually puts the inventory at each wholesaler), and the supplier manages it through online "Electronic Data Interchange" (EDI) and other methods.

The benefits of this method are that it can reduce inventory management costs, reduce out-of-stock occurrences, eliminate demand fluctuations caused by unexpected short-term demand, and better meet user needs, thereby improving the flexibility of the entire supply chain. The implementation of this management will inevitably have a profound impact on the original sales force management and wholesaler management. The Quickmba.com website provides principles for solving potential problems:

Change the way the sales force is rewarded, and the bonus can be linked to how many customers they develop;

First choose one or two wholesalers to pilot, and then gradually after successful experience Promotion;

Invite independent consulting firms to persuade all parties involved;

Conduct extensive offline simulations prior to implementation;

Don't exaggerate the effect of VMI, otherwise delaying the effect will make people lose trust in the entire system .

Is your speech attractive?

It is common to make a speech, but it is not easy to do it beautifully. The Business2.com website summarizes several useful methods.

Controlling the range of motion In order to match the speech, the speaker usually performs some motion. Remember, the effective range of motion is between the waist and the eyes, and don't go beyond that.

Avoid Unconscious Shaking Some people sway from side to side involuntarily when speaking, which can distract the audience.

Don't be a comedian Humor can bring you closer to your audience, but when used too much, it can also make you look like a joke.

Watching the audience PowerPoint software is convenient, but staring at the screen all the time can make you feel like you don't have confidence in your speech.

Acknowledging that your nervousness, stuttering and sweating are normal, and you can take out your handkerchief to wipe the sweat, which will help you calm down and your audience will appreciate it.

Adopting "Situational Leadership" to the Boss

"Situational Leadership" is a leadership method, the core of which is to determine the corresponding leadership style (coaching, supervision, etc.) according to the development process of employees' abilities from low to high , support and authorization) and the level of authorization. The inventor of this method, Ken Blanchard, wrote on Sellingpower.com that, in fact, subordinates can also adopt "situational leadership" to their superiors, which is a kind of "Manage Up".

Subordinates can first assess their own abilities (what leadership style is expected from their boss), identify their needs, and how they want the company to meet their needs (what kind of empowerment style they expect from their boss). They can tell their boss, "When I've done a job well, I want you to tell me, so I can see where my abilities lie and I can have a clearer idea of what you expect from me. ." This active "upward management" enables employees to grow rapidly.

Overwhelming Bosses

Employees leave for many reasons, and salary is not necessarily the most important reason. According to a survey conducted by Smartbiz.com, the main reason for male employees to leave is that their bosses manage everything in detail, and the main reason for female employees to leave is that they can't stand their boss's conceit. In addition, the following behaviors of the boss also make employees feel dissatisfied:

stingy praise;

always withhold important information to employees;

lack of concern for subordinates;

like to use threats attitude towards subordinates;

only give negative feedback.

Outsourcing should be planned and then acted

"Collaborative Manufacturing" (Collaborative Manufacturing) is commonly referred to as "outsourcing", Accenture's website Accenture.com pointed out that a company must before implementing "collaborative manufacturing" Seriously consider the following six questions.

Is collaborative production in line with the company's strategy? In addition to focusing on cost savings, companies need to seriously consider whether outsourcing can help the company grow and make the company show its unique personality.

Is collaborative production limited by technology? Roughly realizing information sharing among collaborative production enterprises is the key, and technology can make it all happen.

Is the company's management style conducive to co-production? The rough company should regard outsourcing as an extension of the supply chain, and should exert the ability of cross-departmental cooperation and guidance;

Is the financial consideration comprehensive? The benefits of rough outsourcing should be balanced against the costs of implementing outsourcing.

Can outsourcing improve a company's responsiveness, flexibility and flexibility? When choosing partners, companies often choose the "cheapest" and ignore the "powerful". This pursuit of short-term cost leadership will damage the company's long-term development.

Does collaborative production create upheaval in company culture and politics? For a company with a long-term manufacturing tradition, outsourcing should not be seen as a divestiture of assets, but as a merger.

More quantity does not equal great value

Customer-centricity is right, but each customer is not the same value, and equalizing them will lead to this situation: Profit from valuable customers This is offset by costs incurred by less valuable customers. The Optimizemag.com website makes it clear that more volume does not equal more value.

A bank has two types of customers, small businesses and college students. Banks took for granted that college students would be a potential high-income group, so when allocating marketing expenses, the bank invested 5% on the first category of customers and 15% on the second category. As a result, it backfired. Although the number of college students is large, the benefits brought to the company are far less than the small business customers, and the company continues to lose money on them! After adjusting its strategy, the bank abandoned customers such as college students, while the income increased significantly.

"Choose Model" Optimization Services

No company can be the best at everything, so companies must choose what they do best and what their customers need most. The "Choice Modeling" (CM) introduced by the Sloan Management Review (www.smr.mit.edu) website can help companies provide customers with the most optimal service mix. This model was first proposed by Nobel Prize winner Daniel L. Mcfadden, and then it has been widely used in marketing and other fields. Applying this model requires three steps:

Qualitative analysis. Through "consumer panel interviews" and other methods to obtain the factors that motivate consumers to buy, for example, for hotels, it includes "comfort", "meal supply", "price", etc.;

Ask customers which of the above characteristics are the most Attractive, which are the least attractive, and then weave these factors into different combinations;

Weigh each combination by importance to get the best combination.