netrashetty

Netra Shetty
Amy's Kitchen is a privately held corporation which began operation in 1987, with the purpose of making healthy, organic, and easy-to-prepare frozen food. Owned and run by Andy and Rachel Berliner, Amy's Kitchen took its name from their then-newborn daughter. The company employs over 1,500 people and operates processing plants located in Santa Rosa, California and White City, Oregon. The corporate headquarters is now located in Petaluma, California.
Both proprietors had been long involved in the organic food business; Rachel's family had been growing and advocating organic vegetables and fruits since the 1950s, while Andy was formerly the president and majority shareholder of the Magic Mountain Herb Tea company. Because Amy's Kitchen is a private entity, reports of its annual earnings are not public knowledge.
While there are many ways to perform market research, most businesses use one or more of five basic methods: surveys, focus groups, personal interviews, observation, and field trials. The type of data you need and how much money you’re willing to spend will determine which techniques you choose for your business.

1. Surveys. With concise and straightforward questionnaires, you can analyze a sample group that represents your target market. The larger the sample, the more reliable your results will be.

In-person surveys are one-on-one interviews typically conducted in high-traffic locations such as shopping malls. They allow you to present people with samples of products, packaging, or advertising and gather immediate feedback. In-person surveys can generate response rates of more than 90 percent, but they are costly. With the time and labor involved, the tab for an in-person survey can run as high as $100 per interview.
Telephone surveys are less expensive than in-person surveys, but costlier than mail. However, due to consumer resistance to relentless telemarketing, convincing people to participate in phone surveys has grown increasingly difficult. Telephone surveys generally yield response rates of 50 to 60 percent.

Mail surveys are a relatively inexpensive way to reach a broad audience. They're much cheaper than in-person and phone surveys, but they only generate response rates of 3 percent to 15 percent. Despite the low return, mail surveys remain a cost-effective choice for small businesses.
Online surveys usually generate unpredictable response rates and unreliable data, because you have no control over the pool of respondents. But an online survey is a simple, inexpensive way to collect anecdotal evidence and gather customer opinions and preferences.
2. Focus groups. In focus groups, a moderator uses a scripted series of questions or topics to lead a discussion among a group of people. These sessions take place at neutral locations, usually at facilities with videotaping equipment and an observation room with one-way mirrors. A focus group usually lasts one to two hours, and it takes at least three groups to get balanced results.

3. Personal interviews. Like focus groups, personal interviews include unstructured, open-ended questions. They usually last for about an hour and are typically recorded.

Focus groups and personal interviews provide more subjective data than surveys. The results are not statistically reliable, which means that they usually don't represent a large enough segment of the population. Nevertheless, focus groups and interviews yield valuable insights into customer attitudes and are excellent ways to uncover issues related to new products or service development.

4. Observation. Individual responses to surveys and focus groups are sometimes at odds with people's actual behavior. When you observe consumers in action by videotaping them in stores, at work, or at home, you can observe how they buy or use a product. This gives you a more accurate picture of customers' usage habits and shopping patterns.

5. Field trials. Placing a new product in selected stores to test customer response under real-life selling conditions can help you make product modifications, adjust prices, or improve packaging. Small business owners should try to establish rapport with local store owners and Web sites that can help them test their products.
Greco and Raggins (2003) stressed that intimate customer relationships offer the marketer several advantages. First, the relationship can create a committed customer. More than simply a repeat purchaser, the committed customer has an emotional attachment to the seller. These emotions can include trust, liking and believing in the firm's ability to respond effectively and promptly to a customer problem. Committed customers can be viewed as company assets who are likely to be a source of favorable word-of-mouth referrals and are more resistant to competitors' offers. Second, CRM relationships provide a point of leverage to realize economies of scope. Committed customers are often more receptive to line extensions. Leveraging the customer base can facilitate cross-selling complementary products as well as "selling up" to higher quality substitutes (Greco and Raggins, 2003). Third, in recent years, CRM's potential to contain and reduce costs has been explored. CRM, in concert with other processes, can help reduce churn or turnover in a company's customer base. Better customer management can result in lower sales and service costs, higher buyer retention and, thus, lower customer replacement expenditures (Greco and Raggins, 2003).

According to Bielski (2001), the six indicators that CRM is working within an organisation is when: the organization is aligned around life cycle marketing; the offers are relevant and timely; the company has moved beyond historical data; the company can measure the relationship accurately; customer dismay is turned into customer delight; and the front-line personnel have the same understanding of objectives as your senior executives do.

In IPCL’s case, it markets its petrochemical products throughout India directly to its customers and indirectly through its consignment agent network. They provide technical support to their customers through their product application centre located at Vadodara by conducting trials at customer premises and technical seminars and training courses for industry representatives. (Synthera, 2004). The company maintains its communication and assistance on certain villages that need such service (Synthera, 2004).


Scope and Limitation



The proposed study will only focus on the variables customer relationship management, quality management, and marketing strategies of IPCL. It will only dwell on the company’s performance on the three variables and the recommendations will only be limited to those areas. Regarding the respondents, this proposed study will only conduct the research on employees in the Marketing Division, Customer Relation Department, and the department responsible in quality management, if one exists. Furthermore, the study will also conduct its survey on the top management of IPCL and other employees in the accounting section to determine the profit that the company acquires from projects in customer relations, quality management, and marketing.

The outcome of this study will be limited only to the data gathered from books and journals and from the primary data gathered from the result of the questionnaire survey and interview that will be conducted by the researcher.

Britain’s ailing car industry will receive a £7.2bn boost from electric car sales over the next three years, a new study reveals today. (1)
The findings from the GfK Automotive report show that, by 2014, 300,000 electric cars will hit Britain’s roads as consumers look for greener ways to travel (2). This means that, on current sales levels, electric cars would account for one-in-twenty of the total cars sold in the UK over the coming years. (3)

The study shows that an additional half-a-million electric cars could be sold if consumers’ barriers to electric car purchase can be overcome. (4)

Seven in ten motorists have so called ‘range anxiety’ – concerns over the distances electric cars can travel. The same proportion are concerned over the limited availability of charging points, while half have reservations over the length of time taken to charge the vehicles. (5)

And although the government is committed to subsidising electric transport with its ‘Plug-in car grant’ – a £5,000 contribution towards an electric car – the message has not yet reached the public. Two-thirds of people admit to being put off by the cost of the vehicles. (6)

Mark Durham, automotive expert at GfK Automotive, said:
"With so many people on the verge of going electric, the government, manufacturers and energy suppliers need to grasp the nettle and address peoples’ concerns.

"The government needs to better-communicate the plug-in car grant and the industry should address legitimate concerns over range anxiety. Doing both will spark a revolution, and give the British car industry a shot in the arm at a time when it is in need of some good news.”
Notes to editors

GfK Automotive interviewed 5,053 UK citizens online between 16th and 30th November 2010

(1) 1.8 per cent of people say they will definitely buy an electric car in the next few years which works out at 300,000 people across the car-buying population (19.8million households). The new Nissan electric car - the Nissan Leaf - is advertised on the web as selling at £24,000 so the total value of 300,000 electric cars could be £7.2 bn

(2) 2,030,846 cars were sold in the UK last year (source: SMMT) which if repeated over three years would lead to car sales of 6,092,538, meaning 300,000 units represents five per cent of this

(3) Almost 3 per cent of people say they would buy an electric car if barriers were over come which works out at 500,000 people across the car-buying population (19.8 million households)

(4) Chief concerns:

* 68 per cent of those questioned were concerned over limited battery range

* 68 per cent of those questioned were concerned over limited availability of charging points

* 54 per cent of those questioned were concerned about the time taken to charge battery

(5) 64 per cent of those questioned were concerned about the price of electric cars
 
Amy's Kitchen is a privately held corporation which began operation in 1987, with the purpose of making healthy, organic, and easy-to-prepare frozen food. Owned and run by Andy and Rachel Berliner, Amy's Kitchen took its name from their then-newborn daughter. The company employs over 1,500 people and operates processing plants located in Santa Rosa, California and White City, Oregon. The corporate headquarters is now located in Petaluma, California.
Both proprietors had been long involved in the organic food business; Rachel's family had been growing and advocating organic vegetables and fruits since the 1950s, while Andy was formerly the president and majority shareholder of the Magic Mountain Herb Tea company. Because Amy's Kitchen is a private entity, reports of its annual earnings are not public knowledge.
While there are many ways to perform market research, most businesses use one or more of five basic methods: surveys, focus groups, personal interviews, observation, and field trials. The type of data you need and how much money you’re willing to spend will determine which techniques you choose for your business.

1. Surveys. With concise and straightforward questionnaires, you can analyze a sample group that represents your target market. The larger the sample, the more reliable your results will be.

In-person surveys are one-on-one interviews typically conducted in high-traffic locations such as shopping malls. They allow you to present people with samples of products, packaging, or advertising and gather immediate feedback. In-person surveys can generate response rates of more than 90 percent, but they are costly. With the time and labor involved, the tab for an in-person survey can run as high as $100 per interview.
Telephone surveys are less expensive than in-person surveys, but costlier than mail. However, due to consumer resistance to relentless telemarketing, convincing people to participate in phone surveys has grown increasingly difficult. Telephone surveys generally yield response rates of 50 to 60 percent.

Mail surveys are a relatively inexpensive way to reach a broad audience. They're much cheaper than in-person and phone surveys, but they only generate response rates of 3 percent to 15 percent. Despite the low return, mail surveys remain a cost-effective choice for small businesses.
Online surveys usually generate unpredictable response rates and unreliable data, because you have no control over the pool of respondents. But an online survey is a simple, inexpensive way to collect anecdotal evidence and gather customer opinions and preferences.
2. Focus groups. In focus groups, a moderator uses a scripted series of questions or topics to lead a discussion among a group of people. These sessions take place at neutral locations, usually at facilities with videotaping equipment and an observation room with one-way mirrors. A focus group usually lasts one to two hours, and it takes at least three groups to get balanced results.

3. Personal interviews. Like focus groups, personal interviews include unstructured, open-ended questions. They usually last for about an hour and are typically recorded.

Focus groups and personal interviews provide more subjective data than surveys. The results are not statistically reliable, which means that they usually don't represent a large enough segment of the population. Nevertheless, focus groups and interviews yield valuable insights into customer attitudes and are excellent ways to uncover issues related to new products or service development.

4. Observation. Individual responses to surveys and focus groups are sometimes at odds with people's actual behavior. When you observe consumers in action by videotaping them in stores, at work, or at home, you can observe how they buy or use a product. This gives you a more accurate picture of customers' usage habits and shopping patterns.

5. Field trials. Placing a new product in selected stores to test customer response under real-life selling conditions can help you make product modifications, adjust prices, or improve packaging. Small business owners should try to establish rapport with local store owners and Web sites that can help them test their products.
Greco and Raggins (2003) stressed that intimate customer relationships offer the marketer several advantages. First, the relationship can create a committed customer. More than simply a repeat purchaser, the committed customer has an emotional attachment to the seller. These emotions can include trust, liking and believing in the firm's ability to respond effectively and promptly to a customer problem. Committed customers can be viewed as company assets who are likely to be a source of favorable word-of-mouth referrals and are more resistant to competitors' offers. Second, CRM relationships provide a point of leverage to realize economies of scope. Committed customers are often more receptive to line extensions. Leveraging the customer base can facilitate cross-selling complementary products as well as "selling up" to higher quality substitutes (Greco and Raggins, 2003). Third, in recent years, CRM's potential to contain and reduce costs has been explored. CRM, in concert with other processes, can help reduce churn or turnover in a company's customer base. Better customer management can result in lower sales and service costs, higher buyer retention and, thus, lower customer replacement expenditures (Greco and Raggins, 2003).

According to Bielski (2001), the six indicators that CRM is working within an organisation is when: the organization is aligned around life cycle marketing; the offers are relevant and timely; the company has moved beyond historical data; the company can measure the relationship accurately; customer dismay is turned into customer delight; and the front-line personnel have the same understanding of objectives as your senior executives do.

In IPCL’s case, it markets its petrochemical products throughout India directly to its customers and indirectly through its consignment agent network. They provide technical support to their customers through their product application centre located at Vadodara by conducting trials at customer premises and technical seminars and training courses for industry representatives. (Synthera, 2004). The company maintains its communication and assistance on certain villages that need such service (Synthera, 2004).


Scope and Limitation



The proposed study will only focus on the variables customer relationship management, quality management, and marketing strategies of IPCL. It will only dwell on the company’s performance on the three variables and the recommendations will only be limited to those areas. Regarding the respondents, this proposed study will only conduct the research on employees in the Marketing Division, Customer Relation Department, and the department responsible in quality management, if one exists. Furthermore, the study will also conduct its survey on the top management of IPCL and other employees in the accounting section to determine the profit that the company acquires from projects in customer relations, quality management, and marketing.

The outcome of this study will be limited only to the data gathered from books and journals and from the primary data gathered from the result of the questionnaire survey and interview that will be conducted by the researcher.

Britain’s ailing car industry will receive a £7.2bn boost from electric car sales over the next three years, a new study reveals today. (1)
The findings from the GfK Automotive report show that, by 2014, 300,000 electric cars will hit Britain’s roads as consumers look for greener ways to travel (2). This means that, on current sales levels, electric cars would account for one-in-twenty of the total cars sold in the UK over the coming years. (3)

The study shows that an additional half-a-million electric cars could be sold if consumers’ barriers to electric car purchase can be overcome. (4)

Seven in ten motorists have so called ‘range anxiety’ – concerns over the distances electric cars can travel. The same proportion are concerned over the limited availability of charging points, while half have reservations over the length of time taken to charge the vehicles. (5)

And although the government is committed to subsidising electric transport with its ‘Plug-in car grant’ – a £5,000 contribution towards an electric car – the message has not yet reached the public. Two-thirds of people admit to being put off by the cost of the vehicles. (6)

Mark Durham, automotive expert at GfK Automotive, said:
"With so many people on the verge of going electric, the government, manufacturers and energy suppliers need to grasp the nettle and address peoples’ concerns.

"The government needs to better-communicate the plug-in car grant and the industry should address legitimate concerns over range anxiety. Doing both will spark a revolution, and give the British car industry a shot in the arm at a time when it is in need of some good news.”
Notes to editors

GfK Automotive interviewed 5,053 UK citizens online between 16th and 30th November 2010

(1) 1.8 per cent of people say they will definitely buy an electric car in the next few years which works out at 300,000 people across the car-buying population (19.8million households). The new Nissan electric car - the Nissan Leaf - is advertised on the web as selling at £24,000 so the total value of 300,000 electric cars could be £7.2 bn

(2) 2,030,846 cars were sold in the UK last year (source: SMMT) which if repeated over three years would lead to car sales of 6,092,538, meaning 300,000 units represents five per cent of this

(3) Almost 3 per cent of people say they would buy an electric car if barriers were over come which works out at 500,000 people across the car-buying population (19.8 million households)

(4) Chief concerns:

* 68 per cent of those questioned were concerned over limited battery range

* 68 per cent of those questioned were concerned over limited availability of charging points

* 54 per cent of those questioned were concerned about the time taken to charge battery

(5) 64 per cent of those questioned were concerned about the price of electric cars

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