Basics of Digital marketing

 Basics of Digital marketing 

Objectives 

By the end of this topic you should be able to: 

∙ Understand concept Digital Marketing 

∙ Understand concept of Internet and use of it. 

∙ Will be able to compare between Traditional and Digital Marketing. 

Structure 

1.1 Understanding the concepts of digital marketing, 

1.2 Internet WWW,  

1.3 Traditional marketing vs digital marketing 

1.4 History and Evolution of Digital Marketing 

1.1 Concepts of digital marketing 

Marketing, Benefits of Digital MarketingDigital Marketing is the use of electronic  devices and internet based platforms to create awareness about your products or  services for your intended customer. 

It includes use of TV, Radio, Mobiles, Tablets, Laptops, Digital displays, etc. to  communicate details of your offerings with the target audience. 

1.1 Internet, WWW 

The advent of the internet 

The mass adoption of the internet into everyday life is the single biggest event that has  affected marketing over the last three decades. Although early desktop publishing  software in the first PCs caused a surge in print marketing in the 1980s, the computers 

were little more than a glorified typewriter. Launched by Tim Berners-Lee and his team  in 1991, the World Wide Web project didn’t really take off until the first successful  mass-market browser, Netscape, was released in 1994. In the following two years, the  number of people using the web soared from 16 million to 70. 

As users increased, the landscape evolved, from email to search engines like Yahoo!  (1994) and Google (1997) and e-commerce sites like Amazon (1994) and eBay (1995). For  marketing, this was a goldmine. Email became a new outbound marketing tool, joining  the traditional arsenal of TV, radio and print advertisements and telephone sales. While  search engines cataloged the new websites that were being created and allowed users to  find the information, products and services they desired from the comfort of their own  home. 

Marketers used early SEO techniques like keyword stuffing, excessive tagging and  backlinks to generate high rankings. One successful company at the time, renowned for  its aggressive marketing tactics was Razorfish. Now one of the biggest interactive media  agencies, Razorfish was a key player in early SEO, as well as a pioneer of the “server  push” possibilities of the Netscape browser. 

Big data 

All this online activity was – and still is – stored as digital information. A  2000 study found that digital information was the most rapidly growing type of unique  information produced, with most text-based information “born digital.” This  information is also known as big data. 

Why? Because there’s so much of it! In 2000 it was already replacing its physical  counterparts: paper, film and optical (DVD and CD). New discoveries in data recording 

and storage technology made big data a new and irreplaceable resource for marketing  departments. 

After the early hype of the internet, the dot-com bubble burst in 2001 and marketing  tactics shifted. A greater emphasis was then placed on inbound marketing through  information sharing, user- centered design and collaboration. The introduction of social  media sites LinkedIn (2002), Myspace (2003), Facebook (2004) and Twitter (2007) made  this all the more possible as internet users started sharing more and more personal data  online 

1.3 Traditional marketing vs digital marketing

Sr.   No.	Traditional Commerce	E-Commerce
1	Needs communication between  person to person.	Llittle dependency on person to person  information exchange as it uses   electronic media to exchange   information.
2	Synchronous communication  happens in this type of transaction.  Manual intervention is major	Asynchronous communication happens  as electronic media and internet plays  important role..
3	Maintaining standard practices in  traditional commerce is difficult.	A uniform strategy can be easily  established and maintain in e  commerce.
4	Convincing customer is   challenging task.ie seller has to  move to customer..	In e-Commerce or Electronic Market,  there is no convincing, customer  chooses an option to purchase.

5	Unavailability of a uniform   platform	Customer gets all information on one  platform.
6	Quality of product can be checked  and verified	No guarantee about quality of product.

Common traditional market methods include: 

∙ Directly mailed postcards, coupons, and informational packets ∙ Television or radio commercials 

∙ Newspaper or magazine ads 

∙ Billboards and fliers 

∙ Telephone calls and text notifications 

Common digital marketing methods include 

∙ Website content 

∙ Email campaigns 

∙ Content marketing 

∙ Social media posts 

∙ Clickable ads 

∙ Affiliate marketing 

∙ Search engine optimization (SEO)

1.4 History and Evolution of Digital Marketing 

The origin of Digital Marketing can be traced back to the beginning of 1990s, when  internet was beginning to explode, the first search engine “Archie” had been launched and corporate world had started to realise the reach and expanse of the internet. Some of them had started to build their own websites to publish critical information  about their products, services, contact details, physical address, etc. A few who were  smarter, exploited the widespread reach of the internet to sell their products online,  thus forming the initial eCommerce websites. By eliminating the middle-men like  Distributors, Retailers, etc., selling directly to the customer, and additionally, saving on operational expenses like rent for brick-and-mortar outlets, salespersons, interiors  for the showroom, etc., they could pass on these savings to the customers, thus  providing heavy discounts on the product prices, as compared to regular shops. All  they needed was a warehouse to stock the products, preferably somewhere outside  the city limits, where the real estate prices were very low. 

Some .com companies started to offer free internet based services like eMail,  news updates, document storage and sharing, etc. Any technology based product  incurs huge expenses like software development, maintenance, server expenses, anti virus software, internet connectivity and so on. So how come these .com companies  were able to provide free services? The revenue model for most of these was to rent  out the space available on their website for advertisements. You might have seen pop 

up windows with ads, or scrolling text with offers, or a banner with an advertisement  at the top or on the right of the webpage. All of these, and other “tricks” like video ad  playbacks, asking your eMail ID for a free eBook, your phone number for sending 

discount coupon codes, etc. constitute Digital Marketing. 

This was a very popular business model in the 90s, supported by unimaginable  funding from investors. By the turn of the millennium, the .com bubble had burst. The reach of the ads was truly magnificent, but businesses realised that there were very few conversions. People were viewing the ads, but not purchasing anything. This led  to a lot of refinement in the revenue model and increase in popularity of search  engines like Google, Yahoo, AskJeeves, etc. 

A few companies survived the .com burst e.g. Amazon, Google, MSN and are still going strong. The internet and the digital eco-system continued to grow, nevertheless. 

∙ 1994 saw the launch of Yahoo 

∙ Google came into existence in 1998 

∙ Facebook went live in 2004 

∙ Twitter saw the light of the day in 2006 

∙ WhatsApp was launched in 2010 and was purchased by Facebook in 2014 ∙ iPhone was introduced in 2007 

∙ By 2011, number of youth (aged between 15 to 24 years) actively using internet  had overtaken TV viewership in that age group. 

∙ By 2014, internet access through hand-held devices had exceeded that via Personal  Computers/Desktops. 

Facebook changed the way people share information about themselves. It was an  easy way friends and family could stay connected and share updates on a common  platform. Before that, photographs and updates were shared individually within your  friend’s circle via mail. iPhone was a radically innovative product when it was  introduced, and changed the way people used their phones. It was a pioneer in the

smart phone revolution. Use of touch screen and virtual keyboard made more screen  space available and this led to users moving from desktops to phones for internet  related activities like browsing, search, mail, etc.With all sorts of activities now possible  on smart devices, including wearable devices (Wi-Fi enabled, watch, mountable eye  gear, etc.) and intense sociological need of the user to constantly update and be updated, almost to the level of addiction, organisations woke up to the tremendous  opportunity of the digital media. Even a simple campaign on social media is  guaranteed undivided attention as users seldom take their eyes off the screen. 

There are 170 million people using social media, in one form or another, on a  regular basis. When a person gets up in the morning, the typical schedule is check  WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, maybe LinkedIn, read the news or post on Instagram,  and only then get out of bed and start the day !! And this is repeated every half an  hour or so throughout the day. 

That is the average frequency and schedule of accessing digital platforms. Thus it is  almost corporate suicide if these avenues are not capitalised upon. It is imperative  that all corporations today build their presence on these electronic media if they need  to reach out to a large audience. And it can be achieved by performing some very  simple activities. 

Digital Marketing is the process of using these social platforms to send out information about your organisation, or collect feedback about your products by the  use of electronic media. 

The basic advantage of Digital Marketing over traditional marketing is the ability to  choose the buyer persona very precisely. All social platforms collect large amounts of  personal data from the users during registration. What they don’t ask, we ourselves  provide to them gradually and willingly. It does feel good to be wished by a large  friends list on your birthday or anniversary. Similarly, users go back and check the

number of likes on their posts frequently to validate if they are popular in the virtual  world. A celebrity is measured by the number of followers on Twitter or Instagram. A  YouTube channel is evaluated by the activities it generates, e.g. likes, shares,  comments, subscriptions and now, by notifications turned on. 

Subsequently, even when the app is not being used, your details are being captured  by these platforms. Your searches, transactions, location, contact info, device usage,  etc. there are tons of data points being collected by these apps to very accurately  profile you, to be able to deliver extremely targeted advertising to you for their  clients. 

Other advantages of Digital Marketing are: 

∙ Affordable and cost effective 

∙ Wider Reach, not constrained by geographical boundaries 

∙ Shorter time period required 

∙ Greater conversion rates 

∙ Direct and deep engagement with potential clients 

∙ Available on-the-go, to a mobile audience 

∙ Simple operations and processes 

Today, a successful Facebook campaign can be executed in as little as 12 CLICKS. 

Google changed the rules of the game by introducing Adwords, a paid service  where very specific targeted advertisement would be shown based on the search  criteria entered by the user. So if a person is searching for airplane tickets for a travel plan from say Delhi to Mumbai, an aggregator like MakeMyTrip can pay Google to

show their Ad right at the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This kind of  customisable display of Ads completely revolutionised the Search Engine economy  and directly impacted the growth of Digital Marketing. People were not shooting in  the dark anymore, they knew their ad would be shown only when it is extremely  relevant, as it was selected based on the search terms entered by the user. 

Social Media platforms began surfacing in 2003. There were many initially, mySpace being the first. Others like Ryze, Orkut, HI5 CAME and went. Facebook and G+ have survived this race. Another notable social platform that grew tremendously, especially due to its positioning as professional and no-nonsense content is LinkedIn. Twitter and Instagram have also constantly reinvented themselves to stay relevant and  

ahead of the obsolete curve. 

During its nascent stages, internet was a very dull place. The webpages were  static with little scope for creativity and differentiation. The internet technologies and  data speeds were also not conducive to widespread usage. Due to technical advancements, webpages became more dynamic, with active content being displayed. Multimedia could now be incorporated and we had music playing, videos embedded,  animations included to give a more lively look and feel to the erstwhile text based webpages. 

Then came web 2.0, which made the webpage interactive. Users could now provide inputs, not just passively consume information. Chat windows, eMailing  capabilities, features like providing comments became available. Users could track  webpages and be updated if any new content was uploaded. 

Use of cookies made tracking user preferences extremely easy and accurate. Cookies are local files which store user behaviour, browsing habits, usage patterns,  etc. All sorts of history can be recorded and shared with relevant platforms to ensure  highly relevant content is served to the user.

If you have searched for a product on Amazon, and seen an Ad of the same product  while browsing through your Facebook wall, or even Olx etc. this magic is created by  cookies. 

Not just products, even jobs are being advertised using social platforms. To  attract the right talent, organisations are developing focused content for Facebook  pages, Twitter handles and Instagram profiles to make the organisation more  appealing to the applicant, and build a brand in the minds of the prospective  employees even before they join the organisation. 

As computers became more powerful, and storage cheaper, corporations began to  evaluate the need for storing customer data. All sorts of information about the customer was collected and stored to find ways to predict their buying behaviour.  Starting with obvious like: 

∙ Age 

∙ Gender 

∙ Location 

∙ Salary 

∙ Socio-Economic Status 

∙ Education 

∙ Family size 

additional details like purchase history, buying preferences, time of visit, frequency of  visits, impact of coupons/discounts, loyalty bonuses, etc. could now be captured and  analysed to identify what will sell and at what time of the day, week or month.

Sophisticated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems could collect Point of Sales (PoS) data. PoS is basically the billing counter in a retail store. The databases use relationships between multiple variable factors to study trends and provide  recommendations on successful products, campaigns and Return on Investment (RoI)  in advertising and promotional schemes. 

Once the consumer behaviour was understood and commonalities identified,  organisations could now create comprehensive advertisements to ensure that more  and more customers were attracted to their shops, to avail their services. 

Initially, all advertising strategies were Above the Line (ATL). Also called Mass  Marketing and Advertising, a one-size-fits-all message was created, which would  appeal to the largest segment of the population and that was broadcast over  traditional channels like TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, mail-in  catalogues, brochures, etc. Almost no filtering was applied, as the aim was to reach as  many people as possible, in the hope that a majority of them would find it interesting  and initiate the buying process. There was no control over the audience that would  receive this communication. If the TV was switched off at the time the ad was aired,  an opportunity was lost forever. If a potential customer did not read the newspaper in  great detail on a particular day, the ad-spend was a wasted expense. Predictably, the  conversion ratios were low and the advertising costs were high. Biggest challenge was  to maximise reach, increase conversion and minimise costs. This could not be done  because most of the advertising content was generic, targeted at a broad category of  audience, not focused on particular segments, nor using multiple options for  differentiated segments. 

Once organisations realised this, Below the Line (BTL) strategies evolved. These data driven, direct marketing targeted a specific group of prospects. So instead of putting  up a hoarding and hoping that most of your target audience will pass through that 

street, notice the poster and also collect enough information from there to act on it,  you would rather reach the audience through directed communication at specific  locations. If students are your target audience, they are better approached outside  their college, inside canteens and around their hostels. If young working professionals  are being targeted, it would be more effective to contact them around office zones,  youthful restaurants, movie halls, activity centres, gyms, etc. If somebody already has a history with your organisation, you can capitalise on that to inform about any new product launches, etc. An existing customer, who is satisfied is an easier win than converting a customer from a competitor. eMails, SMS’es, events and trade fairs are  

usually used for this kind of marketing. 

Digital Marketing and its ability to precisely identify a potential customer, has led to evolution of a mid-way between these two approaches, ATL and BTL, called Through the Line (TTL). This utilises the best aspects of both the concepts. Using this,  you can send out customised content to a very specific set of people, satisfying very  relevant set of criteria.So, if a new cosmetic product is being launched, with features like organic, skin friendly, not tested on animals, etc. you can send promotional  messages to not just people who have bought cosmetics from you previously, but also those who have purchased organic products. You may also target the relevant age group. If it is known that urban females in the age group of 18-24 are most probable buyers, then the message should also go out to all these potentials in the database,  irrespective of whether they have purchased cosmetics from me or not. 

TV advertisements have begun to use this now, to a great extent. The nature and language of ads that we see on news channels are widely different from those on entertainment channels, which in turn are pretty diverse from what is seen on sports  channels. Kids’ channels have a completely different set of products being displayed.  

A recent revelation is households with kids do not get as much viewership of other  channels, and thus a lot of adult content like consumer goods, household products, 

eCommerce websites and even movie promotions have now moved to these channels. Not very long ago, if an organisation had a webpage, it was doing more than its  competition in Digital Marketing. Today, that has changed. Organisations today need  to actively engage with their customers, and track the conversations on various digital  platforms to gauge what their customers and prospects are saying about their  products and services. 

This social listening has become extremely important and relevant in today’s data  driven world and not having a digital strategy will cost an organisation heavily in the  modern world.The focused targeting and measureable outcomes that Digital Marketing provides can directly impact growth of revenue and profits, and thus should be given  due attention.In subsequent chapters, we will see how this impact can be maximised

Factors Influencing Buyer Behavior

Whenever we buy anything our final decision, as a consumer will definitely be affected by certain factors. Some of these major factors are as given below:

1. Cultural

2. Social

3. Personal

4. Psychological

The first stage of understanding buyer behaviour is to focus on the factors that determine he “buyer characteristics” in the “blackbox”. These can be summarised as follows:

Factors affecting Buyer behaviour

Each of these factors is discussed in more detail in our other revision notes on buyer behaviour.

The marketer must be aware of these factors in order to develop an appropriate marketing mix for its target market.

Now lets take a brief look at the various factors that we have mentioned above.

1 Cultural Factors

Culture is the most fundamental determinant of a person’s want and behaviour. The growing child acquires a set of values; perceptions, preferences and behaviour through a process of socialization involving the family and other key institutions.

Cultural factors have a significant impact on customer behaviour. Marketing are always trying to spot “cultural shifts” which might point to new products that might be wanted by customers or to increased demand.

For example, today there seems to be a cultural shift towards greater concern about health and fitness and that has created opportunities, now even industries, servicing customers who wish to buy products like:

· Health foods

· Fitness club memberships

· Exercise equipment

· Activity or health-related holidays etc.

Similarly our increased desire for “leisure time” has resulted in increased demand for convenience products and services such as microwave ovens, washing machines, ready-to-eat meals and direct marketing service businesses such as telephone banking and insurance.

Each culture contains “sub-cultures” – groups of people, which share values. Sub-cultures can include nationalities, religions, racial groups, or groups of people sharing the same geographical location. Sometimes a sub-culture will create a substantial and distinctive market segment of its own.

For example, the “youth culture” or “club culture” has quite distinct values and buying characteristics from the much older “grey generation” Similarly, differences in social class can create customer groups. In fact, the social classes are widely used to profile and predict different customer behaviour. Social class is not just determined by income. It is measured as a combination of occupation, income, education, wealth and other variables. Social Classes are relatively homogeneous and enduring divisions in a society which are hierarchically ordered and whose members have similar values, interests and behaviour.

2. Social Factors
A customer’s buying behaviour is also influenced by social factors, such as the groups to which the customer belongs and social status. In a group, several individuals may interact to influence the purchase decision. The typical roles in such a group decision can be summarised as follows:

Initiator
The person who first suggests or thinks of the idea of buying a particular product or service

Influencer
A person whose view or advice influences the buying decision

Decider
The individual with the power and/or financial authority to make the ultimate choice regarding which product to buy

Buyer
The person who concludes the transaction

User
The one who actually uses the product or service.

The family unit is usually considered to be the most important “buying” organisation in society. It has been researched extensively. Marketers are particularly interested in the roles and relative influence of the husband, wife and children on the purchase of a large variety of products and services.

There is evidence that the traditional husband-wife buying roles are changing. Almost everywhere in the world, the wife is traditionally the main buyer for the family, especially in the areas of food, household products and clothing. However, with increasing numbers of women in full-time work and many men
becoming “home workers” (or “telecommuting”) the traditional roles are reversing.
The challenge for a marketer is to understand how this might affect demand for products and services and how the promotional mix needs to be changed to attract male rather than female buyers.
Consumer wants, learning, motives etc. are influenced by opinion leaders, person’s family, reference groups, social class and culture.

3. Personal
Personal factors are those factors, which are unique to a particular person including demographic factors, Sex, Race, and Age etc. Personal factors also include who in the family is responsible for
the decision-making.

4. Psychological Factors

Psychological factors include:

· Motives—A motive is an internal energizing force that orients a person’s activities toward satisfying a need or achieving a goal. Actions are effected by a set of motives, not just one. If marketers can identify motives then they can better develop a marketing mix.

MASLOW hierarchy of needs is the theory, which explains concept of motivation through unfulfilled needs which could be any of the following:
· Physiological
· Safety
· Love and Belonging
· Esteem
· Self Actualization
· Need to determine what level of the hierarchy the consumers are at to determine what motivates their purchases.

· Perception
What do you see??
Perception is the process of selecting, organizing and interpreting information inputs to produce meaning. This means we chose what info we pay attention to, organize it and interpret it. Information inputs are the sensations received through sight, taste, hearing, smell and touch.

Selective Exposure- This means we tend to select inputs to be exposed to our awareness. This is more likely if it is linked to an event, and/or satisfies current needs.
Selective Distortion- This happens when we change or twist current received information, which is inconsistent with our beliefs.
Selective Retention- In this case we remember only those inputs that support our beliefs, and forget those that don’t.
For instance, an average supermarket shopper is exposed to 17,000 products in a shopping visit lasting 30 minutes-60% of purchases are unplanned and is also exposed to 1,500 advertisement per day. Hence they cannot be expected to be aware of all these inputs, and certainly will not retain many.
Interpreting information is based on what is already familiar, on knowledge that is stored in the memory.

· Ability and Knowledge
Learning can be said to be changes in a person’s behavior caused by information and experience. Therefore to change consumers’ behavior about your product, you need to give them new information regarding the product like free sample etc.
When making buying decisions, buyers must process information. Knowledge is the familiarity with the product and expertise. Inexperience buyers often use prices as an indicator of quality more than those who have knowledge of a product.
Non-alcoholic Beer example: consumers chose the most expensive six-pack, because they assume that the greater price indicates greater quality.Learning is the process through which a relatively permanent change in behavior results from the consequences of past behavior.

· Attitudes
we can say that attitudes are knowledge and positive and negative feelings about an object or activity. It maybe tangible or intangible, and living or non living. Generally it seen that attitudes drive perceptions We learn attitudes through experience and interaction with other people. Consumer attitudes toward a firm and its products greatly influence the success or failure of the firm’s marketing strategy.
For instance, Honda says, “You meet the nicest people on a Honda”, dispelling the unsavory image of a motorbike rider, in the late 1950s. Changing market of the 1990s, baby boomers aging, and Hondas market returning to hard core. To change this they have a new slogan “Come ride with us”. Attitudes and attitude change are influenced by consumer’s personality and lifestyle. Again, we tend to screen information that conflicts with their attitudes and distort information to make it consistent and selectively retain information that reinforces our attitudes. But, bear in mind that there is a difference between attitude and intention to buy i.e., ability to buy.

· Personality
One way of explaining personality is all those internal traits and behaviors that make a person unique, keeping in mind the fact that uniqueness arrives from a person’s heredity and personal experience. Examples include:
· Workaholism
· Compulsiveness
· Self confidence
· Friendliness
· Adaptability
· Ambitiousness
· Dogmatism
· Authoritarianism
· Introversion
· Extroversion
· Aggressiveness
· Competitiveness.
Traits affect the way people behave. Marketers try to match the store image to the perceived image of their customers.

· Lifestyles
You may have observed that recently trends in lifestyles are shifting towards personal independence and individualism and a preference for a healthy, natural lifestyle.
Lifestyles are the consistent patterns people follow in their lives. For Example you buy healthy foods to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

· Opinion Leaders

Opinion leaders basically play the role of spokesperson etc. Marketers try to attract opinion leaders...they actually use (pay) spokespeople to market their products. Say, for example Sachin Tendulkar (Pepsi, Visa , Biscuit, Adidas etc.)

· Roles and Family Influences
Roles are things you should do based on the expectations of you from your position within a group. People have many roles. Husband, father, employer/ee. Individuals role are continuing to change therefore marketers must continue to update information.

Family is the most basic group a person belongs to. Marketers must understand:
· that many family decisions are made by the family unit
· consumer behavior starts in the family unit
· family roles and preferences are the model for children’s future family (can reject/alter/etc)
· family buying decisions are a mixture of family interactions and individual decision making
· family acts an interpreter of social and cultural values for the individual.

The Family life cycle: families go through stages, each stage creates different consumer demands:
· bachelor stage
· newly married, young, no children...me
· full nest I, youngest child under 6
· full nest II, youngest child 6 or over
· full nest III, older married couples with dependant children
· empty nest I, older married couples with no children living with them, head in labor force
· empty nest II, older married couples, no children living at home, head retired
· solitary survivor, in labor force
· solitary survivor, retired
· Modernized life cycle includes divorced and no children

· Reference Groups
Individual identifies with the group to the extent that he takes on many of the values, attitudes or behaviors of the group members. Families, friends, sororities, civic and professional organizations. Any group that has a positive or negative influence on a person’s attitude and behavior.

Membership groups (belong to)
Affinity marketing is focused on the desires of consumers that belong to reference groups. Marketers get the groups to approve the product and communicate that approval to its members. Credit Cards etc.!!

Aspiration groups (want to belong to)
Disassociate groups (do not want to belong to) Honda, tries to disassociate from the “biker” group. The degree to which a reference group will affect a purchase decision depends on an individuals susceptibility to reference group influence and the strength of his/her involvement with the group.

· Social Class
An open group of individuals who have similar social rank. US is not a classless society. US criteria; occupation, education, income, wealth, race, ethnic groups and possessions. Social class determines to some extent, the types, quality, quantity of products that a person buys or uses. Lower class people tend to stay close to home when shopping, do not engage in much prepurchase information gathering. Stores project definite class images. Family, reference groups and social classes are all social influences on consumer behavior. All operate within a larger culture.

· Culture and Sub-culture
Culture refers to the set of values, ideas, and attitudes that are accepted by a homogenous group of people and transmitted to the next generation. Culture also determines what is acceptable with product advertising. Culture determines what people wear, eat, reside and travel. Cultural values in India are good health, education, individualism and freedom. In today’s culture time scarcity is a growing problem. So as a result there is a change in meals. Different society, different levels of needs, different cultural values.

Culture can be divided into subcultures:
· Geographic regions
· Human characteristics such as age and ethnic background.

Culture effects what people buy, how they buy and when they buy.of a conservative frame of mind, he feels emotionally attached to his original grocery business and continues to operate it with enthusiasm. His business place has even come to be associated with a meeting venue for people of his generation to meet. His children are grown up and the eldest one, Rajesh, has just returned from abroad after completing his management education there. Ambitious by nature, Rajesh would like to expand his business fast. He feels that he needs to be ‘professional’ in his approach. In his option, his father’s way of dealing with people is outdated. Many a times, he feels irritated when his father’s old friends drop in at the shops and spend time talking with him. Rajesh feels that this type of casual come together is a waste of time. He would prefer to be more
‘business’ like. He would to deal with them as customers only, serving them with precision and in a methodical manner. He expects that his customer should appreciate this ‘modern’ way of doing business. He has, however, broached his inner feelings only in an indirect way to his father, and he found that this father believes in maintaining close personal links with his customers. Some of the customers have, anyhow, started noticing the change in the way in which Rajesh deals with them. They feel that the old ‘warmth’ of their relationship with the senior Panjwani is somehow missing and they are now less welcome at the shops.

God's Silence

God’s Silence

When we see all the misdeed that is dominating the Global scenario, in the recent years, we start to question our intuition. A simple yet thoughtful question hover in our mind, why God is silent, why he is not doing anything to restore our faith on the holiness, divineness and humanity. Why he is not doing anything when thousand or rather million innocent life are being slaughter in his name. Is He enjoying? Do he wants us to suffer all this pain? Is He blind or rather forced himself not to see our suffering.

The answer to all these question seem to be found nowhere but if we dig out little from our past, history will tell a clear cut perspective. Every time God tried to help human-being to realize his true purpose and humanity, the plan seems to backfire the holiness.

Whenever he sent a messenger or a prophet or avatar, human being mess with holy intension of the almighty. God send Jesus to teach us the listen of love and what we human perceive, made an entire different religion, and stared discriminating based on it. Church domination and suppression of other minorities clearly ruled over an era. The witch-hunt and forced conversation are some of the misdeed that prevail the church dominated century.

Again God (Allah) sent Prophet Mohammad spread the lesson of compassion and humanity. But again we separated us from the holy path. We made another religion not on his teachings but on aggression and extremism, we degraded the beauty of Islam and the teaching of beloved and Great Prophet.

He even send Gautama Buddha, Krishna and other avatars but all we did is fight a war in their name. We discriminate, we made caste, and we made groups, just to fulfill our devilish requirement of barbarian urges. We want to see blood, that’s is in our core, and we can’t deny it.

Every avatar, prophet and messenger of the Almighty want us to be in the path of humanity. It doesn’t matter which name you use for God (Allah, Krishna, Shiva, Buddha…etc.), but all he needs is love. The divine energy consists of love and humanity, which God want to spread across the globe.

God’s silence and he will be silent till the day we not understand what he truly wants. He wants us to love, he want us to be human first and arose humanity in our heart. And will be the day God will break his Silence…………

Branch Transfer letter format for any BANK

From

            <your name>

<new address>

<phone Number>

 

 

To

            The Manager,

            <bank name>,

            <new branch, city>

           

 

Subj : Transfer of Savings Account# <account number>, <old branch, City>

 

Sir,

 

I am holding a savings bank account with your branch at <old branch, city>. I recently moved from <old city> to <new city> and for operational convenience, I would like to transfer my savings account to the new <new branch, city>.

 

Kindly transfer my savings account to <new branch, city>.

 

If you have any questions, kindly call me at <phone number>

 

 

<place>                                                Yours truly,

<date>

                       

                                                                                               

                                                            <name & signature of each joint account holder>

Fishbone or Ishikawa Diagram

The fishbone diagram identifies many possible causes for an effect or problem. It can be used to structure a brainstorming session. It immediately sorts ideas into useful categories.

When to Use a Fishbone Diagram

• When identifying possible causes for a problem.
• Especially when a team’s thinking tends to fall into ruts.

Fishbone Diagram Procedure

Materials needed: flipchart or whiteboard, marking pens.

1. Agree on a problem statement (effect). Write it at the center right of the flipchart or whiteboard. Draw a box around it and draw a horizontal arrow running to it.
2. Brainstorm the major categories of causes of the problem. If this is difficult use generic headings:
   • Methods
   • Machines (equipment)
   • People (manpower)
   • Materials
   • Measurement
   • Environment
3. Write the categories of causes as branches from the main arrow.
4. Brainstorm all the possible causes of the problem. Ask: “Why does this happen?” As each idea is given, the facilitator writes it as a branch from the appropriate category. Causes can be written in several places if they relate to several categories.
5. Again ask “why does this happen?” about each cause. Write sub–causes branching off the causes. Continue to ask “Why?” and generate deeper levels of causes. Layers of branches indicate causal relationships.
6. When the group runs out of ideas, focus attention to places on the chart where ideas are few.

Fishbone Diagram Example

This fishbone diagram was drawn by a manufacturing team to try to understand the source of periodic iron contamination. The team used the six generic headings to prompt ideas. Layers of branches show thorough thinking about the causes of the problem.

Fishbone Diagram Example

For example, under the heading “Machines,” the idea “materials of construction” shows four kinds of equipment and then several specific machine numbers.
Note that some ideas appear in two different places. “Calibration” shows up under “Methods” as a factor in the analytical procedure, and also under “Measurement” as a cause of lab error. “Iron tools” can be considered a “Methods” problem when taking samples or a “Manpower” problem with maintenance personnel.

 

Quality Management System in Service Industries

In every organization, both management and the general workforce tend to resist change, whether it be in systems, culture or environment. That is natural – people are usually happy to continue with what they have always done. The change brought about by the introduction of a quality management system (QMS) – particularly in service industries – is no exception. However, companies that resist this change will find that they become less effective, and thus less competitive, in markets where customers demand trouble-free products and services.
To address the resistance, it helps to look at the questions that stakeholders may have about QMS in their company:

• “Why do we need to document a process?”
• “Why do we need an organization chart?”
• “Why do we need version control and document control?”
• “Do we need QMS if we only have 100 or less employees?”
• “Does QMS provide any internal efficiency or is it only to provide a competitive advantage?”

These are the questions that all stakeholders need answered before embarking on the journey of installing a quality management system in their company. In addition, there are other questions mainly for the management of the company. Here are two important ones:

• Does leadership want a quality management system for some type of certification or does it really want the company’s work to have a systematic process-oriented approach?
• Does leadership understand how the current “pain” areas can be minimized or eliminated if the company has more efficient processes?

A System for Developing or Improving Processes

Establishing a quality management system is not rocket science. The intent of any QMS is simply to provide a system for developing or improving processes through a structured approach, effective deployment and better control. Answering a couple of the stakeholders’ questions can help explain this and make the need for a quality management system more clear.
“Why do we need to document a process?” Some might argue that everyone knows the process and has been trained in how to do their work, so why document it? The response must be that in service industries, especially in a high-attrition environment like business process outsourcing (BPO), it is all the more imperative to have documented processes.
Documented processes help in the following ways:

• Processes are optimized when best practices are documented.
• Processes do not become person-dependent – any new employee knows how to do the work.
• Key activities run smoothly when responsibilities and accountability is clearly assigned.
• Defects are easier to capture and eliminate at the earliest stage.
• Prescribed corrective actions can be taken as soon as defects occur.
• Written changes in procedures and policies reduce ambiguity and increase change control in the environment.
• Consistent process measures help gauge if everything is going well.
• Better understanding of processes ensures compliance in service delivery.

The quality management system not only provides a structure and framework, it also ensures the rigor of an audit mechanism that enforces corrective action. Continuous improvement happens within all processes in a systematic manner.
“Why do we need an organization chart?” An organization chart outlines the support structure for every individual process and also gives the roles and responsibilities required for each of the blocks on the organization chart. The benefits are:

• An organization chart allows clients to see the support structure for products or services.
• The roles and responsibilities give a clear understanding of the job for the person who is new to the system.
• The documentation of roles and responsibilities does not leave anything to interpretation that might vary from person to person.
• The roles and responsibilities define the skills that are required to do a particular job.
• Once the skill has been defined, then it can be verified to see if it is resulting in a high-performing individual.

Clearly, something as small as having an organization chart can bring a great deal of value and clarity to the system.

The Basis of Quality Management System

A quality management system works on eight key principles:

1. Customer focus
2. Strong leadership
3. Involvement of people
4. Process approach
5. System approach
6. Continuous improvement
7. Decision making based on facts
8. Creating value for the company, its clients and its suppliers

Many times companies embark on a methodology like Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma or others to solve problems without realizing that these methodologies center on process improvement. For any improvement methodology to be successful, it is important to first have a process management and process measurement system. This helps in identifying defects and then, once a process is improved, a quality management system provides better control for sustaining outstanding performance.