B2B Marketing

End-Term Examination – April 2020

Anik Chakraborty

C20-026

SECTION A

1. Valuef is the value of firm; whereas, Valuea is the value of Now, for any firm to be
the market leader or surpass its competition it should provide better, the value of
services offered by them should be more than their alternative option. For example,
considering the automobile market, Maruti is by far the market leader as compared
to Hyundai despite new technologies & design of Hyundai, is primarily because of
better value (in this case value foe money) as well as services (One can find a
service centre at every nook & corner).

2. Commodity is a myth can be explained by the fact that every customer one servers
there has to be some exclusivity to create value. For example, Servo, a subsidiary
of IOCL provides complete lubrication management to it’s B2B clients as exclusivity.

3. To make an offering, the most important factor is minimally augmented product.

The example is car insurance, as you may buy a car without it but you cannot ride
it, which makes the product unusable.

4. Place is important in business marketing mix as it provides economic utility & also
convenience for customers to acquire product. Example is as follows:

• Location Convenience: McDonald’s are located at almost every crossroads,

so that they are easy to find for their customers.
 • Temporal Convenience: Bajaj provides excellent services to their customers
with store availability almost everywhere & spare part at most automobile
stores along with superior services.
• Acquisition convenience: ICICI bank provide direct openings of DMAT
account if you hold an account in the bank. You do not have to go anywhere
else to do that. They either do it digitally, where you can sit at home & get it
done or they send their executives, whichever is convenient to the customer.

5.
MRO OEM
The products or services delivered They are original equipment
to the consumers by MRO manufacturers, who sell their owns
companies would have tie-ups with products & services & no other
other companies or firms. company or firm has the authority
to reproduce them.
E.g. MRF tyres; AMD processors E.g. Microsoft OS, JCB Excavators
 SECTION B

2. Being an AC compressor, following would be the services, programs & systems:

MARKETING OFFERING TRANSACTIONAL STRATEGIC

ELEMENTS CUSTOMERS CUDTOMERS
SERVICES · Easy Return Policy STANDARD STANDARD
· Technical Assistance STANDARD STANDARD
· Single Point of Contact NOT OFFERED OFFERED
· Field Support in 24 hrs. OPTION OFFERED
· Technician Training OPTION OFFERED
PROGRAMS · Price Deals STANDARD STANDARD
· Extended Warranty OPTION OFFERED
· Exclusivity Program NOT OFFERED OFFERED
SYSTEMS · ASAP Order System OPTION OPTION
· Quick Delivery OPTION OFFERED
· High Credit Limit NOT OFFERED OFFERED

3. Transactional customers are mostly experiential customers that do not have loyalties.
Therefore, our goal should be converting them into strategic customers to get more growth
& better profits. In a consulting firm, the following strategies could be applied to convert
the transactional customers:

• Converting the intangible benefits provide into tangible benefits. In this instead of
providing discounts, consulting firms could provide their clients with corporate
membership & access to exclusive technology resources & knowledge exchange.
• Providing preference to customers: In this case a consulting firm should look
achieve 24hrs. client support & constant engagement so that the client fell they
are also a part of the process.
• Making the value creation very evident to the customers by providing services like
extra personalization & value-added services.
 • Augment it with Services, Programs and systems irrespective being a transactional
customer.
• Allowing customers to define the terms of relationship with the firm.
• Avoiding use to automated social support & seasoned communicators.

4. Market sensing if put simply is understanding the B2B market, which requires immense
knowledge & industry know-how. It is a collective effort, however even a single person a
provide huge value addition to it. In this context, a film director can do market sensing in
the following ways:

• Since, it is a industry that is rapidly changing driven by consumer taste, the focus
should be understanding what the consumer want. It should be high data driven
with both qualitative & quantitative data. Therefore, a specific team should be
deployed for market research.
• Developing a knowledge management system, where gaps are to be identified &
the optimal solution which is effective should be provided for universal use.
• Involving the music directors, costumes team, audio team together to get their
inputs about the market & applying them in a holistic approach.
• Applying Delphi Method, where identifying market experts & using their knowledge
& opinion to forecast the market future.
• Use big data & historical time series data to understand how the market has
evolved & what possibilities it holds for the future.
• Exchange concept notes with regional director on their approach & techniques to
get a vast idea of the entire country.

5. Bullwhip effect is the disruption or collapse of entire business due a single activity or
change in activities. In technical terms, it is a change in demand at a certain level changing
the entire demand in the whole supply chain. I could be a serious threat if not managed
properly due to the following reasons:

• It may increase the cost incurred in a company.

• Businesses work hard on forecasting demand & they spend huge resources doing
so, these all goes to waste due to bullwhip effect.
 • It may lead to businesses having either excess or lack of inventory.
• It may also hinder the growth of the industry.

Following are some ways to streamline the threat:

• The most important part is communication between the entire supply chain, so that
even if one activity becomes disruptive there should be preparedness amongst all
the stakeholders to mitigate the dame.
• The forecasting should be more accurate & responsive to the external factors.
• Inventory management should be data driven rather than based on local market
trends.
• Reducing the time for receiving customer demand & quickly establishing real time
product demand.
• Recognizing the patterns & making all the stakeholders aware beforehand.
• Strictly looking into things that causes changes in demand as customer services,
consistency in offerings, conformance, reducing order sizing, etc.

6. It is a system where all activities required foe profit centre are coordinated by different
teams as sales rep, manager, channel partner, etc. Following matrix shows the
involvement of them in a banking firm:

SALES LEAD CHECKI PROPOS FINALIZI FULFILLM CUSTOM

FLOW/CHANNEL GENERATI NG & AL NG ENT ER CARE
ON APPLYIN SALES
G
SALES REP YES YES
DIRECT MAIL YES YES YES
RM MANAGER YES YES YES YES YES YES
INTERNET YES
BRANCHES YES YES YES
MOBILE & YES YES
DIGITAL
EQUIPMENT
 SECTION C

1. Volkswagen parent brand entered the Indian market in the year 2007 & within 10
years they had around 20% of the Indian market share. Now despite having a stylish
finish, attractive ad campaigns & world class technology, they failed to beat the
market due to the following reasons:
• Lack of accessibility: A vey important factor due to which Maruti remained
the market leader in its penetration in the Indian market & its mass reach.
Cars like Polo, Vento lacked service centres in small corners of the country.
Also, availability of the spare parts was a huge problem as those couldn’t be
found everywhere.
• Market Sensing: Given the demography of India, Maruti cars were value for
money, whereas the relative costs of VW cars were significantly high as
compared to Maruti. Also, VW didn’t cater for high mileage in their design as
the Indian market suggests.
• Long Term Corporate Strategy: The corporate strategy designed was not full
proof & not all the people involved were aware of them, which lead to a very
high churn rate, deferring the goals & objectives of VW. VW couldn’t
differentiate different buying behaviour of people from different
geographical locations & therefore couldn’t personalize their ad campaigns
specific the varying geography.
• Incorrect Segmentation: Market segmentation by Volkswagen was wrong to
compete with Maruti to gain market leadership. Since, the majority of the
India population are middle class or lower, VW targeted high end customer
as compared to Maruti who had customers from middle class & lowers.
Therefore, Maruti achieved huge volume of sales. Also, VW had to compete
with manufacturers like Toyota, Hyundai, etc. in their own segment, who had
similar strategies.

Based on the understanding, the following solution could be proposed:

• Strength the service lines & availability of spare parts & other components to
achieve operational excellence.
• Positioning strategy should be identified based on demand analysis & market
research. Team who have local market expertise should be hired for designing as
well as implementing positioning strategies.
• Focus on emerging markets & Electronic vehicles. Also diversifying the product
portfolio could make a huge difference if VW can have a perfect product for each
segment.
• Better market sensing to provide better firm value than alternatives as the Indian
market is very volatile & complex.