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The Top Tips When Buying Community Group Insurance

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:23:00 +0000

The truth is community groups and other voluntary organizations are seldom set up to make money. Instead, they are run and managed with the aim of making a specific community a better place to live. This means that money is often tight and therefore essential purchases like insurance need to be kept to an absolute minimum. This does not however mean that community groups should assume the cheapest is best as getting the insurance cover they actually need is the most important thing.

So with the right but affordable community group insurance policy required, what do groups need to do to make sure they get the cover they need at a price that is right?

The first tip is really to make sure you understand what cover you actually need. As someone not working in insurance this is not always the easiest thing to establish so you could do this by actually getting in touch with a community group insurance specialists who should be able to point you in the right direction. If you are not sure what you need, find a specialist and ask them for their expert opinion. If you choose the right company, they should be able to tell you what you need, what you do not need and they should be able to give you an immediate indication of what level of premium you might expect to pay.

So if finding an expert is top tip number 1, how do you actually find a broker or insurance provider who specialises in community group insurance? Traditionally, if a community group or voluntary organization was looking for an insurance quote, they would either walk up and down the high street or search through the yellow pages. However, all this pretty much guaranteed was you dealt with someone local and not someone necessarily an expert in your type of insurance.

The internet has changed how insurance is sourced and purchased so to find a community group insurance expert, a broker who specialises in charity insurance or any other specific type of insurance provider, simply get access to a computer, visit a search engine like Bing, Yahoo or Google and type in the sort of insurance you are after. You will be presented by a list of companies who offer exactly what you are after.

The final tip when looking to buy community group insurance is to make sure the company you do opt for is someone you are happy to look after your groups cover. The truth is we all prefer to do business with people we like and who we have a rapport with. If you ring a company up and get on well with the person you are speaking with and they give you good advice and are keen to help you then there is every chance you will deal with them providing they obtain a competitive premium and the right cover for you.

For any group looking to make a positive change to their community, getting the right level of community group insurance is vital. Follow these simple tips and you and your group can get the protection and peace of mind you need for less.

This article was written by Mark Burdett, Marketing Director of NCi Charity, the Social Welfare Insurance division of Northern Counties Insurance Brokers. Mark has over 20 years Marketing experience in the Financial Services industry and has worked on campaigns for companies including Norwich Union, Kia and Zurich.

Now based in Newcastle upon Tyne Mark is Marketing Director for one of the UK's Leading Business Insurance Brokers - Northern Counties Insurance Brokers.

Northern Counties have been providing Business Insurance to UK businesses and charities since 1928 and can be contacted on 0800 046 1446 for all your Charity Insurance, Charity Liability Insurance, Commercial Insurance and Business Insurance needs.

Community Group Insurance - http://www.ncinsurance.co.uk/communitygroupinsurancequote.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_R_Burdett

Marketing Warfare

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 13:46:00 +0000

Marketing Warfare

The marketing concept states that a firm's goal should be to identify and profitably satisfy customer needs. In Marketing Warfare Al Ries and Jack Trout argue that marketing is war and that the marketing concept's customer-oriented philosophy is inadequate. Rather, firms would do better by becoming competitor-oriented. If the key to success were to introduce products closest to those wanted by customers, then the market leader simply would be the firm that performed the best market research. Clearly, much more is required.

To illustrate their point, Ries and Trout compare marketing to a football game. If a team simply identifies the goal line and moves the ball towards it without regard to the competing team, they most likely will be blocked in their effort. To win the game, the team must focus its efforts on outwitting, outflanking, or over-powering the other side. This is the case in football, war, and marketing, according to Marketing Warfare. Because of the importance of the competition faced by the firm, a good marketing plan should include an extensive section on competitors.

2500 Years of War

There is much that marketers can learn from military strategy. Ries and Trout tell the story of several famous battles in history that illustrate lessons of warfare. These battles range from Marathon in 490 B.C. when the Greeks used the phalanx to defeat the more numerous Persian invaders, to the Normandy invasion of the second world war.

The lessons from these famous battles illustrate the concepts of planning, maneuvering, and overpowering the opposing side. These principles are relevant not only to warfare, but also to marketing. In Marketing Warfare, Ries and Trout quote Karl von Clausewitz and apply his principles to marketing.

The Principle of Force

There's a saying that it is easier to get to the top than to stay there. Ries and Trout disagree, arguing that once at the top, a company can use the power of its leadership position to stay there.

All other things equal, an army with a larger number of troops has an advantage over smaller armies. A larger vehicle has an advantage over a smaller vehicle in a collision. When several companies enter a new market, the one with the larger sales force is likely to become the leader. The larger company has the resources to outnumber smaller competitors. It can advertise more, perform more R&D, open more sales outlets, etc.

This is not to say that smaller companies do not stand a chance. Rather, smaller companies must recognize the principle of force and attempt to win the battle by means of a superior strategy, not by brute force.

Some managers may believe that they can overcome a larger competitor through superior employees. Ries and Trout maintain that while it may be possible to assemble a small group of star performers, on a larger scale the employee abilities will approach the mean.

Another argument is that a better product will overcome other weaknesses. Again, Ries and Trout disagree. Once consumers already have in their minds that a product is number one, it is extremely difficult for another product, even if superior, to take over that number one place in the consumer's mind.

The way to win the battle is not to recruit superior employees or to develop a superior product. Rather, Ries and Trout argue that to win the battle, a firm must successfully execute a superior strategy.

The Superiority of the Defense

An entrenched defense that is expecting an attack has an advantage that can only be overcome by an overwhelmingly larger attacker. For example, a defensive position that is in a trench or foxhole will be shielded from the attackers, and the attackers will suffer many more casualties than the defenders. For this reason, the attackers require a much larger force to overcome the defensive positions.

The same is true in marketing warfare. Many companies with insufficient resources have tried unsuccessfully to attack a leader. A study was made of 25 brands that held the number one position. Sixty years later, 20 of those 25 brands still held the number one position. It is very difficult to overtake the market leader.

The element of surprise helps the attacker, but when the market leader is large the attackers also must be large, and the logistics of launching a large scale attack or a large promotional campaign are such that the element of surprise is difficult to maintain and the defensive position becomes yet more difficult to upset. When the defenders are taken by surprise, it usually is because they ignored warnings or did not take them seriously.

The New Era of Competition

Increasingly, one hears marketing terms that are borrowed from the vocabulary of military strategy. From "launching a breakthrough campaign" to the "cola wars", the analogy between marketing and warfare is evident.

As in military strategy, it is unwise for a firm to publicly state deadlines for its victory. Deadlines often are missed, and the firm loses credibility in the propaganda war if it fails to live up to a prediction. Politicians who are wise to this rule tend to make their campaign promises vague. Publicly stated marketing promises should be vague for the same reason.

Firms also should avoid the trap of thinking that if they work hard enough, they will succeed in their attack. Ries and Trout argue that it is strategy and not hard work that determines success. In warfare, when a battle turns to hand-to-hand combat, the advantage resulting from the strategic plan no longer exists. In marketing, a firm achieves victory through a smarter strategy, not by spending longer hours with meetings, reports, memos, and management reviews. When management declares that it is time to "redouble our efforts", then the marketing battle has turned to hand-to-hand combat and is likely to end in defeat.

The Nature of the Battleground

In military warfare, a battle often is named after the geographic location where it took place - for example, The Battle of Waterloo. Ries and Trout argue that marketing battles do not take place in geographic areas, nor in stores. Rather, marketing battles take place in the mind of the consumer.

Before a military battle, the battlefield usually is mapped and studied in great detail. In marketing, market research traditionally has served this function. However, Ries and Trout propose that the most important information is to know which positions are held by which companies in the mind of the consumer. In other words, who holds the high ground.

In military warfare, mountains and higher altitude areas represent strong positions and often are used to present a strong defense. In marketing warfare, the question is one of who holds the mountains in the consumer's mind. For example, in the U.S., Kleenex holds the facial tissue mountain since it is the number one facial tissue in the minds of most consumers and many consumers consider the word "Kleenex" to be synonymous with facial tissue.

Mountains often are segmented and competitors may launch different brands each targeting a specific segment. General Motors successfully attacked Ford's market leadership when it launched Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Buick, each targeting a specific segment of the automobile market. Too often, the leader responds by attempting to counterattack in each segment, only to fail and even to lose its original leadership position.

The Strategic Square

Ries and Trout discuss four strategies for fighting a marketing war:

defensive
offensive
flanking
guerrilla

A firm's market share relative to that of competitors determines which strategy is appropriate. There often is a significant market share gap between two competitors such that each has approximately a factor of two more market share compared to the next weaker competitor. Because of this large gap, the principle of force plays an important role in the choice of each firm's strategy. For this discussion, assume that there are four firms and each is approximately twice the size of the next closest to it.

In such an environment, each of the four firms has different objectives:

Number 1 firm: market domination
Number 2 firm: increased market share
Number 3 firm: profitable survival
Number 4 firm: survival

According to Ries and Trout, the main competitor of the market leader that holds the majority of market share is not one of the other firms in the industry, but rather, the government. If the market leader attempts to grow larger, then anti-trust issues will be raised. If a major market leader wins the marketing war and causes the next largest firm to exit the market, then the government may take steps to break up the firm that is dominating the market. Consequently, the best strategy for such a firm is a defensive one.

The number two firm's best strategy is an offensive attack on the market leader if there is a large gap between the number two firm and number three. The reason is that the gaining of market share from the number three firm is unlikely to make a large impact on the much larger number two firm. However, there are potentially significant rewards if market share can be gained from the dominant firm.

The number three firm is too small to sustain an offensive attack on a larger firm. Its best strategy often is to launch a flanking attack, avoiding direct competition, for example, by launching a product that is positioned differently from those of the larger firms.

The smallest firm probably does not have sufficient resources to launch any type of sustained attack. If it launched a flanking product, a larger competitor likely would launch a similar one and would have the resources to win more customers. The smallest firm would do best to pursue a guerrilla strategy, identifying a segment that is large enough to be interesting to the small firm but not large enough to attract competition from any of the larger firms.

On the mountains in the mind of the consumer (see The Nature of the Battleground discussed previously), the high ground at the top of the mountain is owned by the market leader. The number two firm's offensive battle would seek to gain high ground from the leader. The leader's defensive battle involves coming down from the top to fight off offensive attacks. The number three firm's flanking attack would go around the mountain. The smallest firm's guerrilla tactics involve its going under the mountain.

Principles of Defensive Warfare

A defensive strategy is appropriate for the market leader. Ries and Trout outline three basic principles of defensive marketing warfare:

Defensive strategies only should be pursued by the market leader. It is self-defeating for a firm to pretend that it is the market leader for the purpose strategy selection. The market leader is the firm who has attained that position in the mind of the consumer.
Attacking yourself is the best defensive strategy. Introducing products better than your existing ones preempts similar moves by the competition. Even if the new product has less profit margin and may reduce short-term profit, it accomplishes the more important long-term goal of protecting the firm's market share.
The leader always should block strong offensive moves made by competitors. If the leader fails to do so, the competitor may become entrenched and permanently maintain market share.

A classic example of a well-executed defensive block was that of Johnson & Johnson when Bristol-Meyers decided to launch Datril to compete directly with Johnson & Johnson's successful Tylenol brand. Datril was to be priced 35% lower than Tylenol.

Johnson & Johnson learned of Datril before its launch, and informed Bristol-Meyers that it was cutting the price of Tylenol to match that of Datril. Johnson & Johnson even extended credits to its distribution channels to make the price cut effective immediately. This move was intended to prevent Bristol-Meyers from advertising Datril as a lower-priced alternative to Tylenol. However, Bristol-Meyers responded by accelerating the launch of the television advertising campaign. Finally, Johnson & Johnson countered by convincing the television networks not to run the Datril ads since they no longer could truthfully claim that Datril was priced lower than Tylenol. Johnson & Johnson's efforts were successful and Datril achieved less than a 1% market share. Tylenol sales soared on the publicity and lower prices.

Legal issues are an important factor in a market leader's strategy. Successfully attacking the competition and winning raises anti-trust issues. Attacking oneself is less risky from an anti-trust perspective. It also is preferable to expand vertically rather than horizontally into new markets since laws prevent a firm from using its monopoly in one market to develop a competitive advantage in another.

Finally, once there is marketing peace and the brand has affirmed its dominance, it can grow its sales by growing the market. For example, Campbell's Soup can run ads to increase soup consumption in general (e.g. "Soup is good food.") since it enjoys such a large share of all soup sales.

Principles of Offensive Warfare

An offensive strategy is appropriate for a firm that is number 2 or possibly number 3 in the market. However, in some cases, no firms may be strong enough to challenge the leader with an offensive strategy. In such industries, the market leader should play a defensive strategy and the much smaller firms should play a flanking or guerrilla one.

Ries and Trout present the following three principles of offensive strategy:

The challenger's primary concern should be the strength of the leader's position, not the challenger's own strengths and weaknesses.
The challenger should seek a weakness in the leader's strength - not simply a weakness in the leader's position.
Attack on as narrow a front as possible. Avoid a broad attack.

The strength of the leader's position is of primary importance because the leader has the top position in the mind of the consumer, and it is this position that must be attacked.

A weakness in the leader's strength must be found. Simply attacking any weakness is insufficient. For example, the leader may charge a premium price and the price may appear to be a weakness. However, the leader may in fact have large profit margins and may be willing to lower the price as much as necessary to defend its position. The leader usually has the resources to defend against an attack against its weaknesses, whereas there may be weaknesses inherent in the leader's strengths that cannot be defended.

There often is a flip side to the leader's strength that can serve as the target of the challenger's attack. For example, a leader may be so successful that it is crowded with customers, and the challenger then can exploit that success by offering a better customer experience. For example, Avis Rent a Car once advertised, Rent from Avis. The line at our counter is shorter. Sometimes the weakness in the leader's strength arises from the fact that it has a major investment in assets that cannot be readily adapted. A more flexible challenger can use this fact to its advantage.

The challenger should attack on as narrow a front as possible. Generally, this means one product rather than a wide range of products. The reason for keeping the attack narrow is the principle of force; a narrow attack allows the challenger to concentrate its resources in the narrow area, and in that area may present more force than the leader. Many number two and number three companies ignore this principle and try to increase market share by broadening their product lines to compete in more areas, often with disastrous consequences. FedEx made this mistake in its early years by offering a wide array of transit times such as overnight, 2-day, and 3-day delivery. FedEx became successful only when it began to focus on the next-day delivery market and won that position in the mind of the consumer using the slogan, when it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.

A narrow attack is particularly effective when the leader has attempted to be all things to all people with a single product. In that situation, a challenger can identify a segment within the leader's market and offer a product that serves only that segment. The challenger then stands a chance of winning a position in the consumer's mind for that more narrow class of product.

Principles of Flanking Warfare

A flanking attack is not a direct attack on the leader, but rather, an attack in an area where the leader has not established a strong position. Ries and Trout present the following three flanking principles:

A flanking move is best made in an uncontested area. The product should be in a new category that does not compete directly with the leader and should be the first to target the segment.
A flanking move should have an element of surprise. Surprise is important to prevent the leader from using its enormous resources to counter the move before it gains momentum. Test marketing should be minimized to maintain the element of surprise. In the earlier example of Datril vs. Tylenol, Johnson & Johnson first learned of the impending launch of Datril from Bristol-Meyers' localized test marketing of Datril.
Follow-through (pursuit) is equally as important as the attack itself. The firm should follow-through and focus on solidifying its position once it is established before competitors launch competing products. Too often, management turns its attention to the products that are not performing well rather than strengthening the position of the winners. If the firm does not have the resources to strengthen its newly won position, then perhaps it should have used a guerrilla strategy instead of a flanking one.

A flanking move does not require a totally new product. Instead, the product only needs to be different enough to carve its own position. Ries and Trout offer the following examples of product variations on which to base flanking moves:

Low price - for example, Budget Rent a Car successfully flanked Hertz and Avis. Others such as Dollar and Thrifty followed, but Budget was ahead of the game and was able to solidify its position.
High price - customers tend to use price as a measure of quality. Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Popping Corn and Haagen-Daz super-premium ice cream are examples of products that successfully positioned themselves in the high-price category. The higher profit margins allow the firm to follow through and solidify its position.
Small size - Sony with portable electronics and Volkswagen wth automobiles successfully won the position of small size. Volkswagen lost its position as it attempted to broaden its line to all sizes of cars.
Large size - for example, the Prince oversized tennis racquet.
Distribution - the product itself may not be substantially different but new distribution channels may be used. For example, Timex distributed its watches in drugstores and Hanes distributed L'eggs pantyhose in supermarkets using innovative packaging and displays.
Product form - for example, Close-Up was the first gel toothpaste and Softsoap was the first liquid soap.

Flanking is not a low-risk strategy. Market acceptance of an innovative product is unknown, and test marketing must be kept to a minimum to guard the element of surprise. Whether the leader will take prompt action in response is an unknown. Being well-tuned to the trade is helpful since in their public speeches executives often provide clues about their stances on potential products. For some products such as automobiles, the development time is several years and thus the flanking product has the potential to establish its position before incumbants can respond

Questionnaire and Conjoint

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 09:44:00 +0000

Questionnaire Design

The questionnaire is a structured technique for collecting primary data in a marketing survey. It is a series of written or verbal questions for which the respondent provides answers. A well-designed questionnaire motivates the respondent to provide complete and accurate information.

The survey questionnaire should not be viewed as a stand-alone tool. Along with the questionnaire there is field work, rewards for the respondents, and communication aids, all of which are important components of the questionnaire process.

Steps to Developing a Questionnaire

The following are steps to developing a questionnaire - the exact order may vary somewhat.

Determine which information is being sought.
Choose a question type (structure and amount of disguise) and method of administration (for example, written form, email or web form, telephone interview, verbal interview).
Determine the general question content needed to obtain the desired information.
Determine the form of response.
Choose the exact question wording.
Arrange the questions into an effective sequence.
Specify the physical characteristics of the questionnaire (paper type, number of questions per page, etc.)
Test the questionnaire and revise it as needed.

Required Information

To determine exactly which information is needed, it is useful to construct tables into which the data will be placed once it is collected. The tables will help to define what data is needed and what is not needed.

Question Type and Administration Method

Some question types include fixed alternative, open ended, and projective:

Fixed-alternative questions provide multiple-choice answers. These types of questions are good when the possible replies are few and clear-cut, such as age, car ownership, etc.
Open-ended questions allow the respondent to better express his/her answer, but are more difficult to administer and analyze. Often, open-ended questions are administered in a depth interview. This technique is most appropriate for exploratory research.
Projective methods use a vague question or stimulus and attempt to project a person's attitudes from the response. The questionnaire could use techniques such as word associations and fill-in-the-blank sentences. Projective methods are difficult to analyze and are better suited for exploratory research than for descriptive or causal research.

There are three commonly used rating scales: graphic, itemized, and comparative.

Graphic - simply a line on which one marks an X anywhere between the extremes with an infinite number of places where the X can be placed.
Itemized - similar to graphic except there are a limited number of categories that can be marked.
Comparative - the respondent compares one attribute to others. Examples include the Q-sort technique and the constant sum method, which requires one to divide a fixed number of points among the alternatives.

Questionnaires typically are administered via a personal or telephone interview or via a mail questionnaire. Newer methods include e-mail and the Web.

Question Content

Each question should have a specific purpose or should not be included in the questionnaire. The goal of the questions is to obtain the required information. This is not to say that all questions directly must ask for the desired data. In some cases questions can be used to establish rapport with the respondent, especially when sensitive information is being sought.

Sensitive questions can be posed in ways to increase response likelihood and to facilitate more honest responses. Some techniques are:

Place the question in a series of less personal questions.
State that the behavior or attitude is not so unusual.
Phrase the question in terms of other people, not the respondent.
Provide response choices that specify ranges, not exact numbers.
Use a randomized response model giving the respondent pairs of questions with a randomly assigned one to answer. The interviewer does not know which question the person is answering, but the overall percentage of people assigned to the sensitive question is known and statistics can be calculated.

Form of Question Response

Questions can be designed for open-ended, dichotomous, or multichotomous responses.

Open-ended responses are difficult to evaluate, but are useful early in the research process for determining the possible range of responses.
Dichotomous questions have two possible opposing responses, for example, "Yes" and "No".
Multichotomous questions have a range of responses as in a multiple choice test.

The questionnaire designer should consider that respondents may not be able to answer some questions accurately. Two types of error are telescoping error and recall loss.

Telescoping error is an error resulting from the tendency of people to remember events as occurring more recently than they actually did.
Recall loss occurs when people forget that an event even occurred. For recent events, telescoping error dominates; for events that happened in the distant past, recall loss dominates.

Question Wording

The questions should be worded so that they are unambiguous and easily understood. The wording should consider the full context of the respondent's situation. In particular, consider the who, what, when, where, why, and how dimensions of the question.

For example, the question,

"Which brand of toothpaste do you use?"

might seem clear at first. However, the respondent may consider "you" to be the family as a whole rather than he or she personally. If the respondent recently changed brands, the "when" dimension of the question may be relevant. If the respondent uses a different, more compact tube of toothpaste when traveling, the "where" aspect of the question will matter.

A better wording of the question might be,

"Which brand of toothpaste have you used personally at home during the past 6 months? If you have used more than one brand, please list each of them."

When asking about the frequency of use, the questions should avoid ambiguous words such as "sometimes", "occasionally", or "regularly". Rather, more specific terms such as "once per day" and "2-3 times per week" should be used.

Sequence the Questions

Some neutral questions should be placed at the beginning of the questionnaire in order to establish rapport and put the respondent at ease. Effective opening questions are simple and non-threatening.

When sequencing the questions, keep in mind that their order can affect the response. One way to correct for this effect is to distribute half of the questionnaires with one order, and the other half with another order.

Physical Characteristics of the Questionnaire

Physical aspects such as the page layout, font type and size, question spacing, and type of paper should be considered. In order to eliminate the need to flip back and forth between pages, the layout should be designed so that a question at the bottom of the page does not need to be continued onto the next page. The font should be readable by respondents who have less-than-perfect visual acuity. The paper stock should be good quality to project the image that the questionnaire is important enough to warrant the respondents' time. Each questionnaire should have a unique number in order to better account for it and to know if any have been lost.

Test and Revise the Questionnaire

The questionnaire should be pre-tested in two stages before distributing. In the first stage, it should be administered using personal interviews in order to get better feedback on problems such as ambiguous questions. Then, it should be tested in the same way it will be administered. The data from the test should be analyzed the same way the administered data is to be analyzed in order to uncover any unanticipated shortcomings.

Different respondents will answer the same questionnaire differently. One hopes that the differences are due to real differences in the measured characteristics, but that often is not the case. Some sources of the differences between scores of different respondents are:

True differences in the characteristic being measured.
Differences in other characteristics such as response styles.
Differences in transient personal factors such as fatigue, etc.
Differences in situation, such as whether spouse is present.
Differences in the administration, such as interviewer tone of voice.
Differences resulting from sampling of items relevant toward the characteristic being measured.
Differences resulting from lack of clarity of the question - may mean different things to different people.
Differences caused by mechanical factors such as space to answer, inadvertent check marks, etc.

Conjoint Analysis

When asked to do so outright, many consumers are unable to accurately determine the relative importance that they place on product attributes. For example, when asked which attributes are the more important ones, the response may be that they all are important. Furthermore, individual attributes in isolation are perceived differently than in the combinations found in a product. It is difficult for a survey respondent to take a list of attributes and mentally construct the preferred combinations of them. The task is easier if the respondent is presented with combinations of attributes that can be visualized as different product offerings. However, such a survey becomes impractical when there are several attributes that result in a very large number of possible combinations.

Fortunately, conjoint analysis can facilitate the process. Conjoint analysis is a tool that allows a subset of the possible combinations of product features to be used to determine the relative importance of each feature in the purchasing decision. Conjoint analysis is based on the fact that the relative values of attributes considered jointly can better be measured than when considered in isolation.

In a conjoint analysis, the respondent may be asked to arrange a list of combinations of product attributes in decreasing order of preference. Once this ranking is obtained, a computer is used to find the utilities of different values of each attribute that would result in the respondent's order of preference. This method is efficient in the sense that the survey does not need to be conducted using every possible combination of attributes. The utilities can be determined using a subset of possible attribute combinations. From these results one can predict the desirability of the combinations that were not tested.

Steps in Developing a Conjoint Analysis

Developing a conjoint analysis involves the following steps:

Choose product attributes, for example, appearance, size, or price.
Choose the values or options for each attribute. For example, for the attribute of size, one may choose the levels of 5", 10", or 20". The higher the number of options used for each attribute, the more burden that is placed on the respondents.
Define products as a combination of attribute options. The set of combinations of attributes that will be used will be a subset of the possible universe of products.
Choose the form in which the combinations of attributes are to be presented to the respondents. Options include verbal presentation, paragraph description, and pictorial presentation.
Decide how responses will be aggregated. There are three choices - use individual responses, pool all responses into a single utility function, or define segments of respondents who have similar preferences.
Select the technique to be used to analyze the collected data. The part-worth model is one of the simpler models used to express the utilities of the various attributes. There also are vector (linear) models and ideal-point (quadratic) models.

The data is processed by statistical software written specifically for conjoint analysis.

Conjoint analysis was first used in the early 1970's and has become an important marketing research tool. It is well-suited for defining a new product or improving an existing one.

Market

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 09:44:00 +0000

Marketing Research

Managers need information in order to introduce products and services that create value in the mind of the customer. But the perception of value is a subjective one, and what customers value this year may be quite different from what they value next year. As such, the attributes that create value cannot simply be deduced from common knowledge. Rather, data must be collected and analyzed. The goal of marketing research is to provide the facts and direction that managers need to make their more important marketing decisions.

To maximize the benefit of marketing research, those who use it need to understand the research process and its limitations.

Marketing Research vs. Market Research

These terms often are used interchangeably, but technically there is a difference.

Market research deals specifically with the gathering of information about a market's size and trends. Marketing research covers a wider range of activities. While it may involve market research, marketing research is a more general systematic process that can be applied to a variety of marketing problems.

The Value of Information

Information can be useful, but what determines its real value to the organization? In general, the value of information is determined by:

The ability and willingness to act on the information.
The accuracy of the information.
The level of indecisiveness that would exist without the information.
The amount of variation in the possible results.
The level of risk aversion.
The reaction of competitors to any decision improved by the information.
The cost of the information in terms of time and money.

The Marketing Research Process

Once the need for marketing research has been established, most marketing research projects involve these steps:

Define the problem
Determine research design
Identify data types and sources
Design data collection forms and questionnaires
Determine sample plan and size
Collect the data
Analyze and interpret the data
Prepare the research report

Problem Definition

The decision problem faced by management must be translated into a market research problem in the form of questions that define the information that is required to make the decision and how this information can be obtained. Thus, the decision problem is translated into a research problem. For example, a decision problem may be whether to launch a new product. The corresponding research problem might be to assess whether the market would accept the new product.

The objective of the research should be defined clearly. To ensure that the true decision problem is addressed, it is useful for the researcher to outline possible scenarios of the research results and then for the decision maker to formulate plans of action under each scenario. The use of such scenarios can ensure that the purpose of the research is agreed upon before it commences.

Research Design

Marketing research can classified in one of three categories:

Exploratory research
Descriptive research
Causal research

These classifications are made according to the objective of the research. In some cases the research will fall into one of these categories, but in other cases different phases of the same research project will fall into different categories.

Exploratory research has the goal of formulating problems more precisely, clarifying concepts, gathering explanations, gaining insight, eliminating impractical ideas, and forming hypotheses. Exploratory research can be performed using a literature search, surveying certain people about their experiences, focus groups, and case studies. When surveying people, exploratory research studies would not try to acquire a representative sample, but rather, seek to interview those who are knowledgeable and who might be able to provide insight concerning the relationship among variables. Case studies can include contrasting situations or benchmarking against an organization known for its excellence. Exploratory research may develop hypotheses, but it does not seek to test them. Exploratory research is characterized by its flexibility.
Descriptive research is more rigid than exploratory research and seeks to describe users of a product, determine the proportion of the population that uses a product, or predict future demand for a product. As opposed to exploratory research, descriptive research should define questions, people surveyed, and the method of analysis prior to beginning data collection. In other words, the who, what, where, when, why, and how aspects of the research should be defined. Such preparation allows one the opportunity to make any required changes before the costly process of data collection has begun.

There are two basic types of descriptive research: longitudinal studies and cross-sectional studies. Longitudinal studies are time series analyses that make repeated measurements of the same individuals, thus allowing one to monitor behavior such as brand-switching. However, longitudinal studies are not necessarily representative since many people may refuse to participate because of the commitment required. Cross-sectional studies sample the population to make measurements at a specific point in time. A special type of cross-sectional analysis is a cohort analysis, which tracks an aggregate of individuals who experience the same event within the same time interval over time. Cohort analyses are useful for long-term forecasting of product demand.

Causal research seeks to find cause and effect relationships between variables. It accomplishes this goal through laboratory and field experiments.

Data Types and Sources

Secondary Data
Before going through the time and expense of collecting primary data, one should check for secondary data that previously may have been collected for other purposes but that can be used in the immediate study. Secondary data may be internal to the firm, such as sales invoices and warranty cards, or may be external to the firm such as published data or commercially available data. The government census is a valuable source of secondary data.

Secondary data has the advantage of saving time and reducing data gathering costs. The disadvantages are that the data may not fit the problem perfectly and that the accuracy may be more difficult to verify for secondary data than for primary data.

Some secondary data is republished by organizations other than the original source. Because errors can occur and important explanations may be missing in republished data, one should obtain secondary data directly from its source. One also should consider who the source is and whether the results may be biased.

There are several criteria that one should use to evaluate secondary data.

Whether the data is useful in the research study.
How current the data is and whether it applies to time period of interest.
Errors and accuracy - whether the data is dependable and can be verified.
Presence of bias in the data.
Specifications and methodologies used, including data collection method, response rate, quality and analysis of the data, sample size and sampling technique, and questionnaire design.
Objective of the original data collection.
Nature of the data, including definition of variables, units of measure, categories used, and relationships examined.

Primary Data
Often, secondary data must be supplemented by primary data originated specifically for the study at hand. Some common types of primary data are:

demographic and socioeconomic characteristics
psychological and lifestyle characteristics
attitudes and opinions
awareness and knowledge - for example, brand awareness
intentions - for example, purchase intentions. While useful, intentions are not a reliable indication of actual future behavior.
motivation - a person's motives are more stable than his/her behavior, so motive is a better predictor of future behavior than is past behavior.
behavior

Primary data can be obtained by communication or by observation. Communication involves questioning respondents either verbally or in writing. This method is versatile, since one needs only to ask for the information; however, the response may not be accurate. Communication usually is quicker and cheaper than observation. Observation involves the recording of actions and is performed by either a person or some mechanical or electronic device. Observation is less versatile than communication since some attributes of a person may not be readily observable, such as attitudes, awareness, knowledge, intentions, and motivation. Observation also might take longer since observers may have to wait for appropriate events to occur, though observation using scanner data might be quicker and more cost effective. Observation typically is more accurate than communication.

Personal interviews have an interviewer bias that mail-in questionnaires do not have. For example, in a personal interview the respondent's perception of the interviewer may affect the responses.

Questionnaire Design

The questionnaire is an important tool for gathering primary data. Poorly constructed questions can result in large errors and invalidate the research data, so significant effort should be put into the questionnaire design. The questionnaire should be tested thoroughly prior to conducting the survey.

Measurement Scales

Attributes can be measured on nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio scales:

Nominal numbers are simply identifiers, with the only permissible mathematical use being for counting. Example: social security numbers.
Ordinal scales are used for ranking. The interval between the numbers conveys no meaning. Median and mode calculations can be performed on ordinal numbers. Example: class ranking
Interval scales maintain an equal interval between numbers. These scales can be used for ranking and for measuring the interval between two numbers. Since the zero point is arbitrary, ratios cannot be taken between numbers on an interval scale; however, mean, median, and mode are all valid. Example: temperature scale
Ratio scales are referenced to an absolute zero values, so ratios between numbers on the scale are meaningful. In addition to mean, median, and mode, geometric averages also are valid. Example: weight

Validity and Reliability

The validity of a test is the extent to which differences in scores reflect differences in the measured characteristic. Predictive validity is a measure of the usefulness of a measuring instrument as a predictor. Proof of predictive validity is determined by the correlation between results and actual behavior. Construct validity is the extent to which a measuring instrument measures what it intends to measure.

Reliability is the extent to which a measurement is repeatable with the same results. A measurement may be reliable and not valid. However, if a measurement is valid, then it also is reliable and if it is not reliable, then it cannot be valid. One way to show reliability is to show stability by repeating the test with the same results.

Attitude Measurement

Many of the questions in a marketing research survey are designed to measure attitudes. Attitudes are a person's general evaluation of something. Customer attitude is an important factor for the following reasons:

Attitude helps to explain how ready one is to do something.
Attitudes do not change much over time.
Attitudes produce consistency in behavior.
Attitudes can be related to preferences.

Attitudes can be measured using the following procedures:

Self-reporting - subjects are asked directly about their attitudes. Self-reporting is the most common technique used to measure attitude.
Observation of behavior - assuming that one's behavior is a result of one's attitudes, attitudes can be inferred by observing behavior. For example, one's attitude about an issue can be inferred by whether he/she signs a petition related to it.
Indirect techniques - use unstructured stimuli such as word association tests.
Performance of objective tasks - assumes that one's performance depends on attitude. For example, the subject can be asked to memorize the arguments of both sides of an issue. He/she is more likely to do a better job on the arguments that favor his/her stance.
Physiological reactions - subject's response to a stimuli is measured using electronic or mechanical means. While the intensity can be measured, it is difficult to know if the attitude is positive or negative.
Multiple measures - a mixture of techniques can be used to validate the findings, especially worthwhile when self-reporting is used.

There are several types of attitude rating scales:

Equal-appearing interval scaling - a set of statements are assembled. These statements are selected according to their position on an interval scale of favorableness. Statements are chosen that has a small degree of dispersion. Respondents then are asked to indicate with which statements they agree.
Likert method of summated ratings - a statement is made and the respondents indicate their degree of agreement or disagreement on a five point scale (Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neither Agree Nor Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree).
Semantic differential scale - a scale is constructed using phrases describing attributes of the product to anchor each end. For example, the left end may state, "Hours are inconvenient" and the right end may state, "Hours are convenient". The respondent then marks one of the seven blanks between the statements to indicate his/her opinion about the attribute.
Stapel Scale - similar to the semantic differential scale except that 1) points on the scale are identified by numbers, 2) only one statement is used and if the respondent disagrees a negative number should marked, and 3) there are 10 positions instead of seven. This scale does not require that bipolar adjectives be developed and it can be administered by telephone.
Q-sort technique - the respondent if forced to construct a normal distribution by placing a specified number of cards in one of 11 stacks according to how desirable he/she finds the characteristics written on the cards.

Sampling Plan

The sampling frame is the pool from which the interviewees are chosen. The telephone book often is used as a sampling frame, but have some shortcomings. Telephone books exclude those households that do not have telephones and those households with unlisted numbers. Since a certain percentage of the numbers listed in a phone book are out of service, there are many people who have just moved who are not sampled. Such sampling biases can be overcome by using random digit dialing. Mall intercepts represent another sampling frame, though there are many people who do not shop at malls and those who shop more often will be over-represented unless their answers are weighted in inverse proportion to their frequency of mall shopping.

In designing the research study, one should consider the potential errors. Two sources of errors are random sampling error and non-sampling error. Sampling errors are those due to the fact that there is a non-zero confidence interval of the results because of the sample size being less than the population being studied. Non-sampling errors are those caused by faulty coding, untruthful responses, respondent fatigue, etc.

There is a tradeoff between sample size and cost. The larger the sample size, the smaller the sampling error but the higher the cost. After a certain point the smaller sampling error cannot be justified by the additional cost.

While a larger sample size may reduce sampling error, it actually may increase the total error. There are two reasons for this effect. First, a larger sample size may reduce the ability to follow up on non-responses. Second, even if there is a sufficient number of interviewers for follow-ups, a larger number of interviewers may result in a less uniform interview process.

Data Collection

In addition to the intrinsic sampling error, the actual data collection process will introduce additional errors. These errors are called non-sampling errors. Some non-sampling errors may be intentional on the part of the interviewer, who may introduce a bias by leading the respondent to provide a certain response. The interviewer also may introduce unintentional errors, for example, due to not having a clear understanding of the interview process or due to fatigue.

Respondents also may introduce errors. A respondent may introduce intentional errors by lying or simply by not responding to a question. A respondent may introduce unintentional errors by not understanding the question, guessing, not paying close attention, and being fatigued or distracted.

Such non-sampling errors can be reduced through quality control techniques.

Data Analysis - Preliminary Steps

Before analysis can be performed, raw data must be transformed into the right format. First, it must be edited so that errors can be corrected or omitted. The data must then be coded; this procedure converts the edited raw data into numbers or symbols. A codebook is created to document how the data was coded. Finally, the data is tabulated to count the number of samples falling into various categories. Simple tabulations count the occurrences of each variable independently of the other variables. Cross tabulations, also known as contingency tables or cross tabs, treats two or more variables simultaneously. However, since the variables are in a two-dimensional table, cross tabbing more than two variables is difficult to visualize since more than two dimensions would be required. Cross tabulation can be performed for nominal and ordinal variables.

Cross tabulation is the most commonly utilized data analysis method in marketing research. Many studies take the analysis no further than cross tabulation. This technique divides the sample into sub-groups to show how the dependent variable varies from one subgroup to another. A third variable can be introduced to uncover a relationship that initially was not evident.

Conjoint Analysis

The conjoint analysis is a powerful technique for determining consumer preferences for product attributes.

Hypothesis Testing

A basic fact about testing hypotheses is that a hypothesis may be rejected but that the hypothesis never can be unconditionally accepted until all possible evidence is evaluated. In the case of sampled data, the information set cannot be complete. So if a test using such data does not reject a hypothesis, the conclusion is not necessarily that the hypothesis should be accepted.

The null hypothesis in an experiment is the hypothesis that the independent variable has no effect on the dependent variable. The null hypothesis is expressed as H0. This hypothesis is assumed to be true unless proven otherwise. The alternative to the null hypothesis is the hypothesis that the independent variable does have an effect on the dependent variable. This hypothesis is known as the alternative, research, or experimental hypothesis and is expressed as H1. This alternative hypothesis states that the relationship observed between the variables cannot be explained by chance alone.

There are two types of errors in evaluating a hypotheses:

Type I error: occurs when one rejects the null hypothesis and accepts the alternative, when in fact the null hypothesis is true.
Type II error: occurs when one accepts the null hypothesis when in fact the null hypothesis is false.

Because their names are not very descriptive, these types of errors sometimes are confused. Some people jokingly define a Type III error to occur when one confuses Type I and Type II. To illustrate the difference, it is useful to consider a trial by jury in which the null hypothesis is that the defendant is innocent. If the jury convicts a truly innocent defendant, a Type I error has occurred. If, on the other hand, the jury declares a truly guilty defendant to be innocent, a Type II error has occurred.

Hypothesis testing involves the following steps:

Formulate the null and alternative hypotheses.
Choose the appropriate test.
Choose a level of significance (alpha) - determine the rejection region.
Gather the data and calculate the test statistic.
Determine the probability of the observed value of the test statistic under the null hypothesis given the sampling distribution that applies to the chosen test.
Compare the value of the test statistic to the rejection threshold.
Based on the comparison, reject or do not reject the null hypothesis.
Make the marketing research conclusion.

In order to analyze whether research results are statistically significant or simply by chance, a test of statistical significance can be run.

Tests of Statistical Significance

The chi-square ( c² ) goodness-of-fit test is used to determine whether a set of proportions have specified numerical values. It often is used to analyze bivariate cross-tabulated data. Some examples of situations that are well-suited for this test are:

A manufacturer of packaged products test markets a new product and wants to know if sales of the new product will be in the same relative proportion of package sizes as sales of existing products.
A company's sales revenue comes from Product A (50%), Product B (30%), and Product C (20%). The firm wants to know whether recent fluctuations in these proportions are random or whether they represent a real shift in sales.

The chi-square test is performed by defining k categories and observing the number of cases falling into each category. Knowing the expected number of cases falling in each category, one can define chi-squared as:

x² = å ( O_i - E_i )² / E_i

where

O_i = the number of observed cases in category i,
E_i = the number of expected cases in category i,
k = thenumber of categories,
thesummation runs from i = 1 to i = k.

Before calculating the chi-square value, one needs to determine the expected frequency for each cell. This is done by dividing the number of samples by the number of cells in the table.

To use the output of the chi-square function, one uses a chi-square table. To do so, one needs to know the number of degrees of freedom (df). For chi-square applied to cross-tabulated data, the number of degrees of freedom is equal to

( number of columns - 1 ) ( number of rows - 1 )

This is equal to the number of categories minus one. The conventional critical level of 0.05 normally is used. If the calculated output value from the function is greater than the chi-square look-up table value, the null hypothesis is rejected.

ANOVA
Another test of significance is the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test. The primary purpose of ANOVA is to test for differences between multiple means. Whereas the t-test can be used to compare two means, ANOVA is needed to compare three or more means. If multiple t-tests were applied, the probability of a TYPE I error (rejecting a true null hypothesis) increases as the number of comparisons increases.

One-way ANOVA examines whether multiple means differ. The test is called an F-test. ANOVA calculates the ratio of the variation between groups to the variation within groups (the F ratio). While ANOVA was designed for comparing several means, it also can be used to compare two means. Two-way ANOVA allows for a second independent variable and addresses interaction.

To run a one-way ANOVA, use the following steps:

Identify the independent and dependent variables.
Describe the variation by breaking it into three parts - the total variation, the portion that is within groups, and the portion that is between groups (or among groups for more than two groups). The total variation (SS_total) is the sum of the squares of the differences between each valueand the grand mean of all the values in all the groups. The in-group variation (SS_within) is the sum of the squares of the differencesin each element's value and the group mean. The variation between group means (SS_between) is the total variation minus the in-group variation (SS_total - SS_within).
Measure the difference between each group's mean and the grand mean.
Perform a significance test on the differences.
Interpret the results.

This F-test assumes that the group variances are approximately equal and that the observations are independent. It also assumes normally distributed data; however, since this is a test on means the Central Limit Theorem holds as long as the sample size is not too small.

ANOVA is efficient for analyzing data using relatively few observations and can be used with categorical variables. Note that regression can perform a similar analysis to that of ANOVA.

Discriminant Analysis

Analysis of the difference in means between groups provides information about individual variables, it is not useful for determine their individual impacts when the variables are used in combination. Since some variables will not be independent from one another, one needs a test that can consider them simultaneously in order to take into account their interrelationship. One such test is to construct a linear combination, essentially a weighted sum of the variables. To determine which variables discriminate between two or more naturally occurring groups, discriminant analysis is used. Discriminant analysis can determine which variables are the best predictors of group membership. It determines which groups differ with respect to the mean of a variable, and then uses that variable to predict new cases of group membership. Essentially, the discriminant function problem is a one-way ANOVA problem in that one can determine whether multiple groups are significantly different from one another with respect to the mean of a particular variable.

A discriminant analysis consists of the following steps:

Formulate the problem.
Determine the discriminant function coefficients that result in the highest ratio of between-group variation to within-group variation.
Test the significance of the discriminant function.
Interpret the results.
Determine the validity of the analysis.

Discriminant analysis analyzes the dependency relationship, whereas factor analysis and cluster analysis address the interdependency among variables.

Factor Analysis

Factor analysis is a very popular technique to analyze interdependence. Factor analysis studies the entire set of interrelationships without defining variables to be dependent or independent. Factor analysis combines variables to create a smaller set of factors. Mathematically, a factor is a linear combination of variables. A factor is not directly observable; it is inferred from the variables. The technique identifies underlying structure among the variables, reducing the number of variables to a more manageable set. Factor analysis groups variables according to their correlation.

The factor loading can be defined as the correlations between the factors and their underlying variables. A factor loading matrix is a key output of the factor analysis. An example matrix is shown below.

	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3
Variable 1
Variable 2
Variable 3
Column's Sum of Squares:

Each cell in the matrix represents correlation between the variable and the factor associated with that cell. The square of this correlation represents the proportion of the variation in the variable explained by the factor. The sum of the squares of the factor loadings in each column is called an eigenvalue. An eigenvalue represents the amount of variance in the original variables that is associated with that factor. The communality is the amount of the variable variance explained by common factors.

A rule of thumb for deciding on the number of factors is that each included factor must explain at least as much variance as does an average variable. In other words, only factors for which the eigenvalue is greater than one are used. Other criteria for determining the number of factors include the Scree plot criteria and the percentage of variance criteria.

To facilitate interpretation, the axis can be rotated. Rotation of the axis is equivalent to forming linear combinations of the factors. A commonly used rotation strategy is the varimax rotation. Varimax attempts to force the column entries to be either close to zero or one.

Cluster Analysis

Market segmentation usually is based not on one factor but on multiple factors. Initially, each variable represents its own cluster. The challenge is to find a way to combine variables so that relatively homogenous clusters can be formed. Such clusters should be internally homogenous and externally heterogeneous. Cluster analysis is one way to accomplish this goal. Rather than being a statistical test, it is more of a collection of algorithms for grouping objects, or in the case of marketing research, grouping people. Cluster analysis is useful in the exploratory phase of research when there are no a-priori hypotheses.

Cluster analysis steps:

Formulate the problem, collecting data and choosing the variables to analyze.
Choose a distance measure. The most common is the Euclidean distance. Other possibilities include the squared Euclidean distance, city-block (Manhattan) distance, Chebychev distance, power distance, and percent disagreement.
Choose a clustering procedure (linkage, nodal, or factor procedures).
Determine the number of clusters. They should be well separated and ideally they should be distinct enough to give them descriptive names such as professionals, buffs, etc.
Profile the clusters.
Assess the validity of the clustering.

Marketing Research Report

The format of the marketing research report varies with the needs of the organization. The report often contains the following sections:

Authorization letter for the research
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Executive summary
Research objectives
Methodology
Results
Limitations
Conclusions and recommendations
Appendices containing copies of the questionnaires, etc.

Concluding Thoughts

Marketing research by itself does not arrive at marketing decisions, nor does it guarantee that the organization will be successful in marketing its products. However, when conducted in a systematic, analytical, and objective manner, marketing research can reduce the uncertainty in the decision-making process and increase the probability and magnitude of success.

Situation Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:56:00 +0000

Situation analysis - a must first step in a problem solving process

From : Mark G. Barkan
Principal, Concept Catalysts, Inc.

The thoughts in this paper are the result of many years of attempts at solving various problems, technical and “soft”. These thoughts have been discussed with my fellow TRIZ practitioners around the world. Over the years I recorded many conversations. However, I did not always remember who said what and when. Thus, the references to written or verbal information that accompanied my thought process can be found in the body of the paper only. Those who believe they are omitted, please stake your claim in a letter to the Editor of the TRIZ Journal.

The need to solve problems is as old as the human civilization. From the earliest years of the history to the present times we are faced with a number of issues, which require resolution, on a daily basis. The two main reasons for problem solving emerged: 1) something around us is not to our liking, thus we need to do something to improve this situation to conform to our beliefs; 2) something potentially useful exists independent of our observations and perception, thus we need to discover this phenomenon and put it to use. The issues of the first kind are as simple as itching back that needs scratching, or so we think. The issues of the second kind could be as complex as differential equations, which, once discovered, can help describe a vast number of natural events.

The itching back, however, may be a result of some malfunction of our body, which may lead to a worse problem than simply itching. Here we face the first question - did we, or did we not, solve the problem. The answer, of course, is yes and no. Yes on the level of the symptom - itching, and no on the level of the real reason for itching. So, what is required to assure a problem solving process addresses the right issue?

Usually, a project process involves the following steps:

1. Recognition of a need - to me it means that the functional requirements have been clearly defined and stated;

2. Generate ideas on how to fulfill the need;

3. Develop viable concepts based on generated ideas;

4. Perform design based on the concepts;

5. Implement the design.

A need can present itself in many forms and shapes. It could be a particular manufacturing or performance issue, or it could be as general as - find the way to improve product/process. What is the normal response to a problem? In many instances, people, responsible for problem solving, start generating ideas immediately. Quite often, for various reasons, these very people have limited knowledge about the system, which houses the problem in hand.

Over the years many different methodologies were developed to aid the problem solving process. Most of those methodologies concentrate on generating as many ideas as possible in a short period of time. The main issue here is the time required to sort and select the best ideas. The idea generation sessions are usually facilitated by an expert in this or other methodology. The most used methodology in team environment is Brainstorming.

Some 6 months ago I facilitated TRIZ supported problem solving process for a team made up of 15 people from 15 different organizations providing various services in the same field. The team just ended a two-week Brainstorming session, which resulted in some 17 pages of ideas. We were invited to help with some promising ideas, which did not have clear path to implementation. In other words, there were some technical issues/problems that had to be resolved in order to implement those ideas. After 45 minutes of questioning we discovered that the members of the team did not agree on the goal of the exercise, nor did they develop any criteria for evaluation of generated ideas. In my practice this is not an isolated case.

Here I would like to compare a problem solving process to a legal case. The US justice system requires withholding judgment until all the facts are known, until all the biases and preconceived notions of guilt or innocence are set aside. We all should display similar discipline when we are faced with a problem. In my opinion, the best way to acquire the knowledge sufficient to engage in a problem solving process is to perform an in-depth functional analysis of the system/situation. The model I prefer to use when I am in a problem solving process is as follows:

1. Organize the knowledge about the system/situation;

2. Develop a functional model of the system/situation;

3. Analyze the model for problem solving ideas

1. Organize the knowledge about the system/situation

Miles recognized the need for functional analysis in the 1940s. He also recognized the difference between the intent of the design, “what it must do”, and “how it does it”. This is a very important distinction. Many a times I was present in a meeting for a discussion of “what to do”, which quickly degenerated into a discussion on “how we will do it”. Miles has developed a list of questions enabling the understanding of intended function.

Since Miles started his work, a number of questionnaires, which address various aspects of the system/situation, were developed. Some are more effective than the others. Boris Zlotin and Ideation team developed the Innovation Situation Questionnaire (ISQ). Zlotin, one of the most prolific problem solvers, once described to me his experience a long time ago when the management of the company he worked for recognized his problem solving skills and appointed him an in-house problem solving consultant. Thus, his job was to solve problems. He was soon dismayed by his inability to solve a single problem. The reason was quite simple - in his new position he did not have anybody bringing any problems to him. He quickly recognized the fact that in order to solve a problem he had to find it first. That’s when Zlotin started development of what is known today as the ISQ. The ISQ is amply described in the “Step-by-Step TRIZ” by Terninko, Zusman, and Zlotin. The power of the questionnaire was demonstrated in many instances. The most recent I observed at NC State University School of Textiles where Drs. Clapp and Slocum teach a semester long TRIZ course. A graduate student, who did not have a chance to join the class, was advised by Dr. Slocum to read the “Step-by-Step TRIZ”. That student applied the ISQ to his research project. He followed the ISQ with a functional model of the system. This process resulted in 7 ideas on how to proceed with the project. 4 of those ideas were accepted by student’s advisor for immediate implementation.

A simple functional analysis of a ballpoint pen we did with Drs. Clapp and Slocum’s class revealed a few additional, unintended, functional capabilities. For one, a ballpoint pen can be used as a weapon. When I described this experience to Len Kaplan, he quickly recalled that a plant in Kishinev, Moldova, produced a batch of ballpoint pens, which housings were made from wound wire. The entire production run was purchased by a battalion of local paratroopers. With this knowledge we may then follow with either designing a ballpoint pen, which can’t be used as a weapon or offer a special design, enhancing weapon functionality. In short, the value of the process/product can be improved significantly when we have good understanding of functional requirements and capabilities.

There is no hard format for a questionnaire. However, it is important to collect information, essential to problem solving process. Some of the most important questions we deal with are the nature of the problem/issue, why it is a problem/issue, who/what will benefit from successful resolution of the problem issue. The next level of questioning should address the structure of the system, its functionality, existing resources, all of the restrictions/limitations placed on the system and their history, the history of the attempted solution is important in that it may illuminate the reason this or other suggestion did not work. Here we need to remember that volumes are written about successful undertakings, and a single sentence about a failure. Yet, the information about failed attempts normally provides very good basis for problem solving.

One important note: There is no single questionnaire that can satisfy every situation. A person facilitating a problem solving process should be skilled enough in the process so he/she can come up with additional questions, unique to the particular situation.

2. Develop a functional model of the system/situation

The next step in the process is a functional diagram of the system/situation. In the early 1970s Bytheway developed Function Analysis System Technique or FAST process. The FAST process supports development of a graphical model that provides means of communication between the members of cross-functional team. Here, the system is described on a functional level in such a way that it ties together every component of the system. There are a number of different modeling techniques in existence today. Among them is the Su-Field model developed by Altshuller and his students. In 1980 Dr. Y.B. Karasik discussed the dual nature of most objects and functions and expressed potential interrelations between the objects in a functional diagram.

Ideation International Inc. has expanded on those ideas by developing its own functional modeling tool - Problem Formulator, PF. PF is a step forward, compared to FAST diagram, as it registers harmful in addition to useful functions. Further, the algorithm of the software enables automatic formulation of questions, answers to which provide potential pathway to solution. Problem Formulator, in my opinion, is not an accurate name for the tool. First and foremost, it is a functional model of the system/situation.

Let’s take a look at “Itching back” diagram

A simple analsis of the above diagram reveals some information, which is known, yet is not normally considered. For example, the fact that scratching, along with elimination of itching, may cause spread of rash is not usually in person’s mind when itching is irresistible. This information may be utilized for solving the problem as well as for in-depth failure analysis process.

How best to transition from a questionnaire to a model? To start with, we need to remember the system approach, which identifies the system, sub-system, and super-system. One may ask - what does the system approach have to do with building a functional model of the system? The answer to this question is quite simple - we need to have a very clear picture in our head of where we need to start and where we need to finish. On what level we want to enter the system for best results of model analysis? When we are looking at the itching issue, discussed above, what is the system we want to model? Is it the itching? Or, is it the itching spot? Or is it the entire back? Or is it the entire body? There is no uniform answer to these questions. Each situation will dictate the most fruitful approach. However, there are few rules that may help in building a model.

First, we need to be at least one level above the level of the perceived problem. For example, when discussing a cooling system in the deep mine what is the system? Is it the cooling system? Or is it the mine? I recommend the mine for a simple reason - entering the system on the problem level may cause addressing the symptom rather than the real issue. On the other hand, when looking to develop a new material we need to start on the bottom, physical, level of required functionality. That’s where we address the fundamental properties and atomic interactions. At times, we are forced to ask additional questions to clarify the issues, which arose in the process of building a diagram. This step of the problem solving process requires, like the first step, participation of the experts in the field of application.

3. Analyze the model for problem solving ideas

Once the model is ready, it provides a very good basis for problem solving in a team environment. The functional model is an excellent generator of questions, answers to which will help idea generation on system/situation improvement. Since it’s a functional model it captures useful, intended, functions and harmful, unintended, functions. Thus, the contradictions are easily recognized as a conflict between useful and harmful functionality of the system’s segment or component. We can clearly see useful functionality we can attempt to enhance, as well as harmful functionality we can attempt to eliminate or diminish. We can now make a well-supported decision concerning the area of the system, which, once addressed, will provide the best return on invested time and other resources.

The “Itching back” diagram provides such questions:

· There are two contradictions: one is “Food intake”, which provides “Nourishment”, yet may cause “Internal disorder”. Therefore, the question here is how to avoid “Internal disorder” resulting from “Food intake”. The other contradiction we discussed earlier, it concerns “Scratching”.

· Clearly, food intake alone is not the cause of internal disorder. It will cause internal disorder if the food is spoiled. Therefore, the question here is how to prevent “Spoiled food”.

· Another question is how to intensify “Proper nutrition” to better eliminate/prevent “Internal disorder”.

The functional model provides specific questions and tasks, which can be solved by one or other TRIZ tools. Again, we use functional characteristics to derive analogy by comparing our situation to many examples, which guide application of TRIZ tools.

Conclusion:

Although it is conceivable to improve the system/situation without an in-depth functional analysis, it is much easier task after we gained good understanding of the benefits and ills of the system/situation.

References:

1. Bytheway, Charles W. “The Creative Aspects of FAST Diagramming”, SAVE Proceedings, Vol. VI, 1979, pp. 301-312.

2. Miles, Lawrence D. “Techniques of Value Analysis and Engineering”, Second edition. McGraw Hill, Inc., 1972

3. Terninko, John; Zusman, Alla; Zlotin, Boris. “Step-by-Step TRIZ: Creating Innovative Solution Concepts”, Responsible Management, Inc., New Hampshire, 1996.

Mark G. Barkan holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA. He has over 30 years of experience in engineering and engineering management. He holds a number of patents in different fields of technology. He began practicing and teaching TRIZ in 1991.

The Marketing Process

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 01:41:00 +0000

The Marketing Process

Under the marketing concept, the firm must find a way to discover unfulfilled customer needs and bring to market products that satisfy those needs. The process of doing so can be modeled in a sequence of steps: the situation is analyzed to identify opportunities, the strategy is formulated for a value proposition, tactical decisions are made, the plan is implemented and the results are monitored.

The Marketing Process

Situation Analysis

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V

Marketing Strategy

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V

Marketing Mix Decisions

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V

Implementation & Control

I. Situation Analysis

A thorough analysis of the situation in which the firm finds itself serves as the basis for identifying opportunities to satisfy unfulfilled customer needs. In addition to identifying the customer needs, the firm must understand its own capabilities and the environment in which it is operating.

The situation analysis thus can be viewed in terms an analysis of the external environment and an internal analysis of the firm itself. The external environment can be described in terms of macro-environmental factors that broadly affect many firms, and micro-environmental factors closely related to the specific situation of the firm.

The situation analysis should include past, present, and future aspects. It should include a history outlining how the situation evolved to its present state, and an analysis of trends in order to forecast where it is going. Good forecasting can reduce the chance of spending a year bringing a product to market only to find that the need no longer exists.

If the situation analysis reveals gaps between what consumers want and what currently is offered to them, then there may be opportunities to introduce products to better satisfy those consumers. Hence, the situation analysis should yield a summary of problems and opportunities. From this summary, the firm can match its own capabilities with the opportunities in order to satisfy customer needs better than the competition.

There are several frameworks that can be used to add structure to the situation analysis:

5 C Analysis- company, customers, competitors, collaborators, climate. Company represents the internal situation; the other four cover aspects of the external situation
PEST Analysis- for macro-environmental political, economic, societal, and technological factors. A PEST analysis can be used as the "climate" portion of the 5 C framework.
SWOT Analysis- strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats - for the internal and external situation. A SWOT analysis can be used to condense the situation analysis into a listing of the most relevant problems and opportunities and to assess how well the firm is equipped to deal with them.

II. Marketing Strategy

Once the best opportunity to satisfy unfulfilled customer needs is identified, a strategic plan for pursuing the opportunity can be developed. Market research will provide specific market information that will permit the firm to select the target market segment and optimally position the offering within that segment. The result is a value proposition to the target market. The marketing strategy then involves:

Segmentation
Targeting (target market selection)
Positioning the product within the target market
Value proposition to the target market

III. Marketing Mix Decisions

Detailed tactical decisions then are made for the controllable parameters of the marketing mix. The action items include:

Product development - specifying, designing, and producing the first units of the product.
Pricing decisions
Distribution contracts
Promotional campaign development

IV. Implementation and Control

At this point in the process, the marketing plan has been developed and the product has been launched. Given that few environments are static, the results of the marketing effort should be monitored closely. As the market changes, the marketing mix can be adjusted to accomodate the changes. Often, small changes in consumer wants can addressed by changing the advertising message. As the changes become more significant, a product redesign or an entirely new product may be needed. The marketing process does not end with implementation - continual monitoring and adaptation is needed to fulfill customer needs consistently over the long-term.

Market Selection

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:46:00 +0000

Target Market Selection

Target marketing tailors a marketing mix for one or more segments identified by market segmentation. Target marketing contrasts with mass marketing, which offers a single product to the entire market. Two important factors to consider when selecting a target market segment are the attractiveness of the segment and the fit between the segment and the firm's objectives, resources, and capabilities.

Attractiveness of a Market Segment

The following are some examples of aspects that should be considered when evaluating the attractiveness of a market segment:

Size of the segment (number of customers and/or number of units)
Growth rate of the segment
Competition in the segment
Brand loyalty of existing customers in the segment
Attainable market share given promotional budget and competitors' expenditures
Required market share to break even
Sales potential for the firm in the segment
Expected profit margins in the segment

Market research and analysis is instrumental in obtaining this information. For example, buyer intentions, salesforce estimates, test marketing, and statistical demand analysis are useful for determining sales potential. The impact of applicable micro-environmental and macro-environmental variables on the market segment should be considered.

Note that larger segments are not necessarily the most profitable to target since they likely will have more competition. It may be more profitable to serve one or more smaller segments that have little competition. On the other hand, if the firm can develop a competitive advantage, for example, via patent protection, it may find it profitable to pursue a larger market segment.

Suitability of Market Segments to the Firm

Market segments also should be evaluated according to how they fit the firm's objectives, resources, and capabilities. Some aspects of fit include:

Whether the firm can offer superior value to the customers in the segment
The impact of serving the segment on the firm's image
Access to distribution channels required to serve the segment
The firm's resources vs. capital investment required to serve the segment

The better the firm's fit to a market segment, and the more attractive the market segment, the greater the profit potential to the firm.

Target Market Strategies

There are several different target-market strategies that may be followed. Targeting strategies usually can be categorized as one of the following:

Single-segment strategy - also known as a concentrated strategy. One market segment (not the entire market) is served with one marketing mix. A single-segment approach often is the strategy of choice for smaller companies with limited resources.
Selective specialization- this is a multiple-segment strategy, also known as a differentiated strategy. Different marketing mixes are offered to different segments. The product itself may or may not be different - in many cases only the promotional message or distribution channels vary.
Product specialization- the firm specializes in a particular product and tailors it to different market segments.
Market specialization- the firm specializes in serving a particular market segment and offers that segment an array of different products.
Full market coverage - the firm attempts to serve the entire market. This coverage can be achieved by means of either a mass market strategy in which a single undifferentiated marketing mix is offered to the entire market, or by a differentiated strategy in which a separate marketing mix is offered to each segment.

The following diagrams show examples of the five market selection patterns given three market segments S₁, S₂, and S₃, and three products P₁, P₂, and P₃.

A firm that is seeking to enter a market and grow should first target the most attractive segment that matches its capabilities. Once it gains a foothold, it can expand by pursuing a product specialization strategy, tailoring the product for different segments, or by pursuing a market specialization strategy and offering new products to its existing market segment.

Another strategy whose use is increasing is individual marketing, in which the marketing mix is tailored on an individual consumer basis. While in the past impractical, individual marketing is becoming more viable thanks to advances in technology.

The Marketing Mix

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:15:00 +0000

The Marketing Mix
(The 4 P's of Marketing)

Marketing decisions generally fall into the following four controllable categories:

Product
Price
Place (distribution)
Promotion

The term "marketing mix" became popularized after Neil H. Borden published his 1964 article, The Concept of the Marketing Mix. Borden began using the term in his teaching in the late 1940's after James Culliton had described the marketing manager as a "mixer of ingredients".The ingredients in Borden's marketing mix included product planning, pricing, branding, distribution channels, personal selling, advertising, promotions, packaging, display, servicing, physical handling, and fact finding and analysis. E. Jerome McCarthy later grouped these ingredients into the four categories that today are known as the 4 P's of marketing, depicted below:

The Marketing Mix

These four P's are the parameters that the marketing manager can control, subject to the internal and external constraints of the marketing environment. The goal is to make decisions that center the four P's on the customers in the target market in order to create perceived value and generate a positive response.

Product Decisions

The term "product" refers to tangible, physical products as well as services. Here are some examples of the product decisions to be made:

Brand name
Functionality
Styling
Quality
Safety
Packaging
Repairs and Support
Warranty
Accessories and services

Price Decisions

Some examples of pricing decisions to be made include:

Pricing strategy (skim, penetration, etc.)
Suggested retail price
Volume discounts and wholesale pricing
Cash and early payment discounts
Seasonal pricing
Bundling
Price flexibility
Price discrimination

Distribution (Place) Decisions

Distribution is about getting the products to the customer. Some examples of distribution decisions include:

Distribution channels
Market coverage (inclusive, selective, or exclusive distribution)
Specific channel members
Inventory management
Warehousing
Distribution centers
Order processing
Transportation
Reverse logistics

Promotion Decisions

In the context of the marketing mix, promotion represents the various aspects of marketing communication, that is, the communication of information about the product with the goal of generating a positive customer response. Marketing communication decisions include:

Promotional strategy (push, pull, etc.)
Advertising
Personal selling & sales force
Sales promotions
Public relations & publicity
Marketing communications budget

Limitations of the Marketing Mix Framework

The marketing mix framework was particularly useful in the early days of the marketing concept when physical products represented a larger portion of the economy. Today, with marketing more integrated into organizations and with a wider variety of products and markets, some authors have attempted to extend its usefulness by proposing a fifth P, such as packaging, people, process, etc. Today however, the marketing mix most commonly remains based on the 4 P's. Despite its limitations and perhaps because of its simplicity, the use of this framework remains strong and many marketing textbooks have been organized around it.

Marketing Concept

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:34:00 +0000

The Marketing Concept

The marketing concept is the philosophy that firms should analyze the needs of their customers and then make decisions to satisfy those needs, better than the competition. Today most firms have adopted the marketing concept, but this has not always been the case.

In 1776 in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote that the needs of producers should be considered only with regard to meeting the needs of consumers. While this philosophy is consistent with the marketing concept, it would not be adopted widely until nearly 200 years later.

To better understand the marketing concept, it is worthwhile to put it in perspective by reviewing other philosophies that once were predominant. While these alternative concepts prevailed during different historical time frames, they are not restricted to those periods and are still practiced by some firms today.

The Production Concept

The production concept prevailed from the time of the industrial revolution until the early 1920's. The production concept was the idea that a firm should focus on those products that it could produce most efficiently and that the creation of a supply of low-cost products would in and of itself create the demand for the products. The key questions that a firm would ask before producing a product were:

Can we produce the product?
Can we produce enough of it?

At the time, the production concept worked fairly well because the goods that were produced were largely those of basic necessity and there was a relatively high level of unfulfilled demand. Virtually everything that could be produced was sold easily by a sales team whose job it was simply to execute transactions at a price determined by the cost of production. The production concept prevailed into the late 1920's.

The Sales Concept

By the early 1930's however, mass production had become commonplace, competition had increased, and there was little unfulfilled demand. Around this time, firms began to practice the sales concept (or selling concept), under which companies not only would produce the products, but also would try to convince customers to buy them through advertising and personal selling. Before producing a product, the key questions were:

Can we sell the product?
Can we charge enough for it?

The sales concept paid little attention to whether the product actually was needed; the goal simply was to beat the competition to the sale with little regard to customer satisfaction. Marketing was a function that was performed after the product was developed and produced, and many people came to associate marketing with hard selling. Even today, many people use the word "marketing" when they really mean sales.

The Marketing Concept

After World War II, the variety of products increased and hard selling no longer could be relied upon to generate sales. With increased discretionary income, customers could afford to be selective and buy only those products that precisely met their changing needs, and these needs were not immediately obvious. The key questions became:

What do customers want?
Can we develop it while they still want it?
How can we keep our customers satisfied?

In response to these discerning customers, firms began to adopt the marketing concept, which involves:

Focusing on customer needs before developing the product
Aligning all functions of the company to focus on those needs
Realizing a profit by successfully satisfying customer needs over the long-term

When firms first began to adopt the marketing concept, they typically set up separate marketing departments whose objective it was to satisfy customer needs. Often these departments were sales departments with expanded responsibilities. While this expanded sales department structure can be found in some companies today, many firms have structured themselves into marketing organizations having a company-wide customer focus. Since the entire organization exists to satisfy customer needs, nobody can neglect a customer issue by declaring it a "marketing problem" - everybody must be concerned with customer satisfaction.

The marketing concept relies upon marketing research to define market segments, their size, and their needs. To satisfy those needs, the marketing team makes decisions about the controllable parameters of the marketing mix

Overclocking

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:44:00 +0000

The purpose of overclocking

A processor is normally designed to operate at a given frequency, namely the one for which its operation has been certified. It can, however, be advantageous to increase this frequency as it is what governs the processor's speed of computation. In this way, you can increasing your computing power without spending any money.

Furthermore, it is also possible to increase the frequency of the motherboard bus, in other words, the communication speed between the processor and other components.

This process of increasing the processor frequency is generally referred to as overclocking.

However, this process can also be dangerous for your computer. First of all, an increase in frequency is accompanied by an increase in temperature in the components whose frequency was increased. You therefore must make sure that the components affected by this increase in temperature are properly ventilated (the processor is one component that will obviously experience a major increase in temperature, but other components will be affected as well...). The first thing to do, therefore, is to add additional heat sinks / fans to evacuate the extra heat.

Furthermore, add-on cards may not be able to accept too great an increase in frequency (a PCI card, for example, is initially designed to operate at 33 MHz).

In a best-case scenario, the system will operate correctly. It may, however, become unstable or lock up, in which case you need to go back to the previous configuration. Some components may even overheat and burn, in which case you will need to change them and the process of overclocking could potentially become more expensive than changing the processor!

Understanding the concept of frequency

To understand overclocking, you need to understand the concept of frequency and the relationships that exist between the frequencies of the motherboard and the microprocessor.

First of all, you need to know how manufacturers determine the frequency at which the processor will operate:
the processors manufactured by a manufacturer all come from the same base series. However, after manufacturing the processors undergo frequency tests, which means that the processors are subjected to a given frequency and then the processor is checked to see if it operates stably. The processor may, however, be able to operate at a higher frequency, and this, in fact, is almost always the case, as manufacturers use a wide safety margin to guarantee the quality of their processors, and it is into that safety margin that you start encroaching when you push the processor to its limits in order to gain megahertz, the equivalent of computing power!
For example, a Pentium 150 will not be much different than a Pentium 166.

As the processor runs at a higher speed than the motherboard, there exists what is called a multiplier coefficient (or multiplication coefficient) that defines the processor speed in relation to the motherboard speed. A coefficient of 2 therefore means that: "the processor runs at double the frequency of the motherboard".

Overclocking can be achieved in two ways:

by modifying the multiplier coefficient (the motherboard will not experience any change in frequency, only the processor will run at a higher speed)
by modifying the base frequency, in other words, the motherboard's frequency (the processor will then also experience an increase in frequency proportional to the multiplier coefficient). The possible frequencies for the motherboard depend on the type of motherboard (a recent motherboard will obviously be capable of higher frequencies), but will be one of the following:
- 50MHz
- 60MHz
- 66MHz
- 75MHz
- 83MHz
- 100MHz
- and higher...

Overclocking possibilities

Base processor	System bus (motherboard)	PCI bus	Multiplier Coefficient	Result
Pentium 75	60 MHz 66 MHz	30 MHz 33 MHz	1.5 1.5	Pentium 90 Pentium 100
Pentium 90	60 MHz 66 MHz	33 MHz 33 MHz	1.5 2	Pentium 100 Pentium 133
Pentium 100	66 MHz	33 MHz	2	Pentium 133
Pentium 120	66 MHz 66 MHz	33 MHz 33 MHz	2 2.5	Pentium 133 Pentium 166
Pentium 150	66 MHz 66 MHz	33 MHz 33 MHz	2.5 3	Pentium 166 Pentium 200
Pentium 166	66 MHz	33 MHz	3	Pentium 200

Which type of overclocking should you choose?

As mentioned above, there are two main ways of overclocking your system:

overclocking the processor only
overclocking the motherboard and all its components

So, which type of overclocking should you choose?

The frequency of a PCI-type bus, for example, is linked to the motherboard frequency by a coefficient of 0.5, which means that with a motherboard operating at 66MHz the PCI bus will have a frequency of 33MHz. So increasing the base frequency of the motherboard will have, as a direct consequence, a proportional increase in the frequency of the PCI bus, in other words on all the components that are attached to it.

It is therefore better to increase the motherboard than the multiplier coefficient. Lets look at an example: a Pentium 166 with a base frequency of 83MHz and a multiplier coefficient of 2 (2x83=166) will have better performance than a Pentium 200 with a base frequency of 66MHz and a multiplier coefficient of 3 (3x66=200). What happens is that certain components play the role of a brake, in that the processor "waits" until they have completed their operations before it continues with its own!

Cooling and aeration

As soon as you start overclocking, the temperature of the overclocked components becomes significantly higher, which could be harmful to them. A processor is normally tested to withstand a temperature on the order of 80°C, beyond which damage may be irreversible. That is why you can never talk about overclocking without also talking about cooling and aeration. A processor is usually cooled by a special-purpose fan. It is not, however, the only element that suffers from the overheating associated with overclocking: chipsets, memory modules, and voltage regulators must also be cooled.

Which cooling systems should you use?

The system most commonly used is a fan mounted on a heat sink (a heat sink is a metal plate with small fins that improves the heat exchange between the processor on which it is mounted and the ambient air). The fan can also be mounted directly on the processor, but the cooling will not be as effective; sometimes a small metal plate inserted between the fan and the processor can help to dissipate the processor heat. The fan must be as large as possible (use, for example, a Cyrix 6x86 M1 special fan, which is known for its heat dissipation) to allow major air movement which will also contribute to the ventilation of the case...

Some overclocking aficionados use a (silicon-type, heat-)conductive paste between the processor and the fan to achieve the best possible heat exchange. There are also fans that are equipped with an alarm (connected to the speaker of your computer) which will sound if the fan breaks down. In fact, a fan failure can directly cause the death of your processor. This type of fan is therefore recommended if you are severely overclocking your processor.
Finally, there are components designed to provide excellent cooling: these are Peltier effect plates, which act like a heat pump, by significantly lowering the temperature on one side (the processor side), but heating the other side, which must be cooled by a fan. This type of system is recommended for overclocking!

Aeration is also very important as it is air movement inside the case that makes it possible to evacuate the heat (transferred to the air from the components). For this reason, a well-arranged case minimises obstacles to ventilation. In particular, hard drive ribbon cables (particularly SCSI ribbon cables, which are very wide), if they are located in front of an element that heats up (the processor, for example), will obstruct air circulation and could cause overheating (even for processors that are not overclocked...).

In addition, the hard drive is also sensitive to excessive heat increases, so you must make sure that you don't locate it in a confined part of the case; instead it should be in an area where it will benefit from fan airflow.

Overclock Intel

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:56:00 +0000

What is overclocking?

Overclocking is pushing your CPU to run at a faster clock speed than the manufacturer has it set at.

What is involved?

FSB
For Intel Core 2 Duo’s typically you overclock by simply raising the FSB (front side buss). This speed is set at 266Mhz for the E6xxx-X6800. The FSB is set at 200Mhz for the e4xxx series. Raising the FSB is the only way to overclock your Core 2 Duo, unless it is an engineer sample chip or an X6800+ (Both of these have unlocked multipliers.)

Multiplier
To overclock your Intel Core 2 Duo by using the multiplier, you simply change that number to a higher number than its stock multiplier. For example an engineer sample chip E6300 has a multiplier of 7x, but you can change it to a higher value, say 9x. If you leave the FSB at 266, then 9x266 = 2400Mhz = 2.4Ghz.

PCI-E
When you overclock your CPU by raising the FSB, you not only overclock the CPU, but you also overclock your PCI-E. On most motherboards you can lock your PCI-E to 100Mhz (recommended).

RAM
By overclocking your CPU by upping the FSB, you also cause your RAM to be overclocked. But is that a bad thing? Yes and no. For cheap value RAM you can not overclock your RAM much at all. You would be lucky with 50-100Mhz. By simply changing your RAM/CPU divider you can adjust your RAM speed also. Typically a good stable overclock consists of the RAM and the CPU running at a 1:1 ratio. For example if your CPU’s FSB speed set to 400Mhz and your in a 1:1 ratio, then your RAM will show up as running at 400Mhz in the BIOS. Because it is DDR2 the RAM is actually running at 800Mhz effective, which is PC6400 stock speeds.

Socket 775 Motherboards usually support different types of DDR2 Memory. Motherboards natively support 533Mhz DDR2 all the way up to 800Mhz DDR2. It is possibly to run faster memory like DDR2-1000 and even higher like 1200Mhz, but this is only possibly by changing the CPU/RAM divider or overclocking the CPU via FSB.

When looking at RAM, and the speed of the RAM there are two things to take into account. What is the rated speed of the RAM? DDR2 memory typically ranges from 533Mhz to upwards of 1200Mhz. The memory frequency is not the only thing to look at when comparing the speed of RAM. The timings or latencies are also important.

Most value RAM has very “loose” latencies. 5-5-5-15 is quite common for value RAM. Mid end RAM is usually somewhere around 4-4-4-12. Mid-High end RAM has timings like 4-4-3-5 or 4-4-3-8. High end RAM will have low latencies like 3-4-3-9. The most important number is the first number. The lower the first digit the faster the memory.

By default, most motherboards will set the RAM timings to 5-5-5-15, so it is necessary to go into the BIOS and change these timings to the timings recommended by the manufacturer.

Loosening up your RAM timings will allow for a higher overclock. For example if your memory is rated at 4-4-4-12 and is PC6400 and runs at 800Mhz, then “loosening” the timings to 5-5-5-15, might allow for an overclock of upwards of 900Mhz. While at the stock 4-4-4-12, 850Mhz was achievable.

On some motherboards, like my Gigabyte DS3P, all the memory latencies and voltages are locked by default. To view these advanced settings in your BIOS, I pressed Ctrol+F1. This unlocked a hidden menu with advanced features.

NB (North Bridge) Straps
The northbridge has a series of straps. As you overclock, and the FSB increases the NB strap occasionally will change. What changes in the NB is the NB’s latencies. If you ever hit a wall and can not even overclock 1Mhz more then it quite possibly could be your NB strap. To get around this you could try a large jump of 10 or maybe even 20Mhz and see if your PC posts. If you are able to run your CPU and NB at a high strap with tighter timings, it is often times faster then running your CPU at a slightly higher clock. For example depending on the CPU, FSB, and multiplier a Core 2 Duo overclocked to 2.8Ghz may be faster than a CPU overclocked to 2.9Ghz. The NB strap idea is fairly new, and there isn’t all that much information out there.

Vcore (CPU voltage)

The CPU voltage is commonly referred to as “vcore.” The stock voltage for the Intel Core 2 Duo chips is 1.325v. When overclocking, almost always the voltage needs to be increased. But don’t increase the voltage unless you need to.

If you hit a wall and you can’t overclock any further then up the voltage a bit. I usually up it by my vcore by .025v. Once I reach an overclock that I am satisfied with, I will lower the voltage by as little as possible, until Orthos fails. This way I can figure out the lowest vcore required to run my CPU at the speed it is at.

The more volts you put through your CPU, the more heat it is going to create and the more watts it is going to consume.

It is not recommended to exceed 1.5v on air cooling, simply because temperatures are usually far too high. If your overclocking on water cooling or better cooling then 1.5v or a bit higher is nothing to be afraid of, as long as the temperatures are good.

Fans, heatsinks and thermal compound.

It is not recommended to overclock very much on the retail heatsink provided by Intel. It is a relatively small heatsink and will not handle large amounts of heat generated by a high OC.

It is recommended to overclock using an aftermarket heatsink. Some good ones include: the Tuniq Tower 120, Big Typhoon, Artic Freezer 7 PRO, Thermaltake Ultra -90, Zalaman 9700. Larger heatsinks have a larger surface area, and thus disperse heat a lot better than smaller ones.

To improve temperatures for any heatsink you can do a couple of things. First, be sure and use some good, high quality thermal compound such as Artic Silver 5. Second, you can lap your heatsink. Lapping is the process of sanding down your heatsinks surface. This gets rid of some of the small machine marks and tiny pits in the heatsink. Lapping is done by using different grits of sand paper – 400 all the way up to 2000 or higher. Lapping is not very hard but takes a lot of time and patience. Lapping a heatsink will typically yield performance gains ~2-8C.

Monitoring temperatures

There is a handful of software out there that will allow you to monitor the temps of your CPU. Probably the most trusted program is called TAT (Thermal Analysis Tool) and can be downloaded directly from Intel. It usually gives accurate readings for most Core 2 Duo CPU’s. It measures the temperature of both CPU cores and this data can be monitored by TAT.

Intel recommends that the temperature of both CPU cores does not exceed 60C. The general rule of thumb I follow however is I like to stay under 65C max load, because I know in every day applications I will never even come close to reaching 60C. Gaming, encoding and other tasks never fully max out both CPU cores at 100% full load like Orthos does.

Software needed:

To safely overclock, you will need some sort of CPU monitoring program. I personally recommend TAT. Other programs such as Gigabytes Easy Tune, can be terribly off. I had Easy tune at one time reporting negative temps, while on air cooling. :p

The second program you will need is Orthos. Orthos is a program designed to torture your CPU and put it under the most extreme conditions. It tests stability and halts and lets you know when an error has been detected. Orthos is a mod of Prime95. The earlier versions of Prime95 would not stress a core2duo CPU, because it was designed for single core processors. Orthos is a mod that basically runs two instances of Prime95 in one window.

Another piece of software that I’d recommend is Super Pi. Super pi is a small CPU benchmarking program. It doesn’t put nearly as much stress on your CPU as Orthos, but is a good program for monitoring increases in performance. Super pi calculates Pi – 3.14159… from 64k all the way up to 32M or 32 Million digits. Usually pi is calculated to 1 or 2 million digits for benchmarking purposes.

Another program that is not required but is recommended is memtest86. Memtest86 is a program that puts stress on your memory and will scan it for errors. If you are ever going to be overclocking your memory or playing with the memory timings, this program is highly recommended.

The following software can be downloaded from: http://www.asusreviews.com/Download.html

Lets Get started!

The first step is to enter your BIOS. To do this, boot up your computer and while it begins to post hit the Delete key.

There are two main ways people go about overclocking. The first way is by increasing your FSB by 10mhz at a time and running Orthos and monitory temps, and increasing voltage when needed.

The second way is to just jump into a moderate overclock. This is my favorite way, especially with the Core 2 Duo line and all of its potential. When I overclocked my e4300, I immediately overclocked from 2.4Ghz from the stock 1.8Ghz. I did this by upping my FSB to 266. I then ran Orthos and continued to overclock the FSB 10-20Mhz at a time until I hit a problem. Once I got an error or could not post, I’d add some vcore to the CPU. Then would boot up and run Orthos again.

When trying to figure out your CPU’s max overclock, set your memory to a 1:1 ratio. That way you are not putting unnecessary stress on your RAM. Once you figure on your CPU’s max overclock then play around with the memory/cpu ratio and tighten up your timings if needed.

What kind of overclock can I expect for my Core 2 Duo?

On high end air cooling, and the right RAM and a good overclocking motherboard, you should expect something around the following:
E4300 – 2.8-3.2Ghz

E6300 – 2.8-3.4Ghz

E6400 – 3-3.6Ghz

E6600 – 3.2-3.8Ghz

E6700 – 3.3-3.8Ghz

X6800 – 3.4-3.9Ghz

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What Is Overclocking?

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:01:00 +0000

Introduction

Many people probably don't know what overclocking is but have possibly heard the term used before. To put it in its simplest terms, overclocking is taking a computer component such as a processor and running at a specification higher than rated by the manufacturer. Every part produced by companies such as Intel and AMD are rated for a specific speeds. They have tested the capabilities of the part and certified it for that given speed. Of course, most parts are underrated for increased reliability. Overclocking a part simply takes advantage of the remaining potential out of a computer part that the manufacturer is unwilling to certify the part for but it is capable of.

Why Overclock a Computer?

The primary benefit of overclocking is additional computer performance without the increased cost. Most individuals who overclock their system either want to try and produce the fastest desktop system possible or to extend their computer power on a limited budget. In some cases, individuals are able to boost their system performance 25% or more! For example, a person may buy something like an AMD 2500+ and through careful overclocking end up with a processor that runs at the equivalent processing power as a AMD 3000+, but at a greatly reduced cost.

There are drawbacks to overclocking a computer system. The biggest drawback to overclocking a computer part is that you are voiding any warranty provided by the manufacturer because it is not running within its rated specification. Overclocked parts that are pushed to their limits also tend to have a reduced functional lifespan or even worse, if improperly done, can be destroyed completely. For that reason, all overclocking guides on the net will have a disclaimer warning individuals of these facts before telling you the steps to overclocking.

Bus Speeds and Multipliers

To first understand overclocking a CPU in a computer, it is important to know how the speed of the processor it computed. All processor speeds are based upon two distinct factors, bus speed and multiplier.

The bus speed is the core clock cycle rate that the processor communicates with items such as the memory and the chipset. It is commonly rated in the MHz rating scale referring to the number of cycles per second that it runs at. The problem is the bus term is used frequently for different aspects of the computer and will likely be lower than the user expects. For example, an AMD XP 3200+ processor uses a 400 MHz DDR memory, but the processor is in fact using a 200MHz frontside bus that is clock doubled to use 400 MHz DDR memory. Similarly, the new Pentium 4 C processors have an 800 MHz frontside bus, but it is really a quad pumped 200 MHz bus.

The multiplier is the multiple that the processor will run at compared to the bus speed. This is the actual number of processing cycles it will run at in a single clock cycle of the bus speed. So, a Pentium 4 2.4GHz "B" processor is based on the following:

133 MHz x 18 multiplier = 2394MHz or 2.4 GHz

When overclocking a processor, these are the two factors that can be used to influence the performance. Increasing the bus speed will have the greatest impact as it increases factors such as memory speed (if the memory runs synchronously) as well as the processor speed. The multiplier has a lower impact than the bus speed, but can be more difficult to adjust.

Let's look at an example of three AMD processors:

CPU Model	Multiplier	Bus Speed	CPU Clock Speed
Athlon XP 2500+	11x	166 MHz	1.83 GHz
Athlon XP 2800+	12.5x	166 MHz	2.08 GHz
Athlon XP 3000+	13x	166 MHz	2.17 GHz
Athlon XP 3200+	11x	200 MHz	2.20 GHz

Let's then look at two examples of overclocking the XP2500+ processor to see what the rated clock speed would be by changing either the bus speed or the muliplier:

CPU Model	Overclock Factor	Multiplier	Bus Speed	CPU Clock
Athlon XP 2500+	Bus Increase	11x	(166 + 34) MHz	2.20 GHz
Athlon XP 2500 +	Multiplier Increase	(11+2)x	166 MHz	2.17 GHz

In the above example, we have done two changes each with a result that places it at either the speed of the 3200+ or a 3000+ processor. Of course, these speeds are not necessarily possible on every Athlon XP 2500+. In addition, there may be a large number of other factors to take into consideration to reach such speeds.

Because overclocking was becoming a problem from some unscrupulous dealers who were overclocking lower rated processors and selling them as higher priced processors, the manufacturers started to implement hardware locks to make overclocking more difficult. The most common method is through clock locking. The manufacturers modify traces on the chips to run only at a specific multiplier. This can still be defeated through modification of the processor, but it is much more difficult.

Voltages

Every computer part is regulated to specific voltages for their operation. During the process of overclocking the parts, its possible that the electrical signal will be degraded as it traverses the circuitry. If the degradation is enough, it can cause the system to become unstable. When overclocking the bus or multiplier speeds, the signals are more likely to get interference. To combat this, one can increase the voltages to the CPU core, memory or AGP bus.

There are limits to the amount of additional voltage that can be applied to the processor. If too much voltage is applied, the circuits inside the parts can be destroyed. Typically this is not a problem because most motherboards restrict the possible voltage settings. The more common problem is overheating. The more voltage supplied, the higher the thermal output of the processor.

HEAT!

The biggest obstacle to overclocking the computer system is heat. Today's high-speed computer systems already produce a large amount of heat. Overclocking a computer system just compounds these problems. As a result, anyone planning to overclock their computer system should be very aware of the needs for high performance cooling solutions.

The most common form of cooling a computer system is through standard air cooling. This comes in the form of CPU heatsinks and fans, heat spreaders on memory, fans on video cards and case fans. Proper airflow and good conducting metals are key to the performance of air cooling. Large copper heatsinks tend to perform better and the greater number of case fans to pull in air into the system also helps to improve cooling.

Beyond air cooling there is liquid cooling and phase change cooling. These systems are far more complex and expensive than standard PC cooling solutions, but they offer a higher performance at heat dissipation and generally lower noise. Well-built systems can allow the overclocker to really push the performance of their hardware to its limits, but the cost can end up being more expensive than processor to begin with. The other drawback is liquids running through the system that can risk electrical shorts damaging or destroying the equipment.

Component Considerations

Throughout this article we have discussed what it means to overclock a system, but there are a lot of factors that will affect whether a computer system can even be overclocked. The first and foremost is a motherboard and chipset that has a BIOS that allows the user to modify the settings. Without this capability, it is not possible to modify the bus speeds or multipliers to push the performance. Most commercially available computer systems from the major manufacturers do not have this capability. This is why most people interested in overclocking tend to buy specific parts and build their own systems or from integrators who sell the parts that make it possible to overclock.

Beyond the motherboards ability to adjust the actual settings for the CPU, other components must also be able to handle the increased speeds. Cooling has already been mentioned, but if one plans on overclocking the bus speed and keeping the memory synchronous to offer the best memory performance, it is important to buy memory that is rating or tested for higher speeds. For example, overclocking an Athlon XP 2500+ frontside bus from 166 MHz to 200 MHz requires that the system have memory that is PC3200 or DDR400 rated. This is why companies such as Corsair and OCZ are very popular with overclockers.

The frontside bus speed also regulates the other interfaces in the computer system. The chipset uses a ratio to reduce the frontside bus speed to run at the speeds of the interfaces. The three major desktop interfaces are AGP (66 MHz), PCI (33 MHz) and ISA (16 MHz). When the frontside bus is adjusted, these buses will also be running outside of specification unless the chipset BIOS allows for the ratio to be adjusted down. So it is important to know how adjusting the bus speed can impact stability through the other components. Of course, increasing these bus systems can also improve performance of them, but only if the components can handle the speeds. Most expansion cards are very limited in their tolerances though.

Slow and Steady

Now those who are looking to actually do some overclocking should be warned not to push things too far right away. Overclocking is a very tricky process of trial and error. Sure a CPU may be able to be greatly overclocked in the first try, but it is generally better to start out slow and gradually work the speeds up. It is best to test the system fully in a taxing application for an extended period of time to ensure the system is stable at that speed. This process is repeated until the system does not test fully stable. At that point, step things back a bit to give some headroom to allow for a stable system that has less chance of damage to the components.

Conclusions

Overclocking is a method for increasing performance of standard computer components to their potential speeds beyond the rated specifications of the manufacturer. The performance gains that can be obtained through overclocking are substantial, but a lot of consideration must be done before taking the steps to overclocking a system. It is important to know the risks involved, the steps that must be done to obtain the results and a clear understanding that results will very greatly. Those who are willing to take the risks can get some great performance from systems and components that can end up being far less expensive than a top of the line system.

For those who want to do overclocking, it is highly recommended to do searches on the Internet for information. Researching your components and the steps involved are very important to being successful.

Accounting Information System

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:12:00 +0000

Accounting Information Systems

Accounting Information Systems (AISs) combine the study and practice of accounting with the design, implementation, and monitoring of information systems. Such systems use modern information technology resources together with traditional accounting controls and methods to provide users the financial information necessary to manage their organizations.

Ais Technology

Input The input devices commonly associated with AIS include: standard personal computers or workstations running applications; scanning devices for standardized data entry; electronic communication devices for electronic data interchange (EDI) and e-commerce. In addition, many financial systems come "Web-enabled" to allow devices to connect to the World Wide Web.

Process Basic processing is achieved through computer systems ranging from individual personal computers to large-scale enterprise servers. However, conceptually, the underlying processing model is still the "double-entry" accounting system initially introduced in the fifteenth century.

Output Output devices used include computer displays, impact and nonimpact printers, and electronic communication devices for EDI and e-commerce. The output content may encompass almost any type of financial reports from budgets and tax reports to multinational financial statements.

Management Information Systems (MIS)

MISs are interactive human/machine systems that support decision making for users both in and out of traditional organizational boundaries. These systems are used to support an organization's daily operational activities; current and future tactical decisions; and overall strategic direction. MISs are made up of several major applications including, but not limited to, the financial and human resources systems.

Financial applications make up the heart of an AIS in practice. Modules commonly implemented include: general ledger, payables, procurement/purchasing, receivables, billing, inventory, assets, projects, and budgeting.

Human resource applications make up another major part of modern information systems. Modules commonly integrated with the AIS include: human resources, benefits administration, pension administration, payroll, and time and labor reporting.

Ais—information Systems in Context

AISs cover all business functions from backbone accounting transaction processing systems to sophisticated financial management planning and processing systems.

Financial reporting starts at the operational levels of the organization, where the transaction processing systems capture important business events such as normal production, purchasing, and selling activities. These events (transactions) are classified and summarized for internal decision making and for external financial reporting.

Cost accounting systems are used in manufacturing and service environments. These allow organizations to track the costs associated with the production of goods and/or performance of services. In addition, the AIS can provide advanced analyses for improved resource allocation and performance tracking.

Management accounting systems are used to allow organizational planning, monitoring, and control for a variety of activities. This allows managerial-level employees to have access to advanced reporting and statistical analysis. The systems can be used to gather information, to develop various scenarios, and to choose an optimal answer among alternative scenarios.

Development

The development of an AIS includes five basic phases: planning, analysis, design, implementation, and support. The time period associated with each of these phases can be as short as a few weeks or as long as several years.

Planning—project management objectives and techniques The first phase of systems development is the planning of the project. This entails determination of the scope and objectives of the project, the definition of project responsibilities, control requirements, project phases, project budgets, and project deliverables.

Analysis The analysis phase is used to both determine and document the accounting and business processes used by the organization. Such processes are redesigned to take advantage of best practices or of the operating characteristics of modern system solutions.

Data analysis is a thorough review of the accounting information that is currently being collected by an organization. Current data are then compared to the data that the organization should be using for managerial purposes. This method is used primarily when designing accounting transaction processing systems.

Decision analysis is a thorough review of the decisions a manager is responsible for making. The primary decisions that managers are responsible for are identified on an individual basis. Then models are created to support the manager in gathering financial and related information to develop and design alternatives, and to make actionable choices. This method is valuable when decision support is the system's primary objective.

Process analysis is a thorough review of the organization's business processes. Organizational processes are identified and segmented into a series of events that either add or change data. These processes can then be modified or reengineered to improve the organization's operations in terms of lowering cost, improving service, improving quality, or improving management information. This method is appropriate when automation or reengineering is the system's primary objective.

Design The design phase takes the conceptual results of the analysis phase and develops detailed, specific designs that can be implemented in subsequent phases. It involves the detailed design of all inputs, processing, storage, and outputs of the proposed accounting system. Inputs may be defined using screen layout tools and application generators. Processing can be shown through the use of flowcharts or business process maps that define the system logic, operations, and work flow. Logical data storage designs are identified by modeling the relationships among the organization's resources, events, and agents through diagrams. Also, entity relationship diagram (ERD) modeling is used to document large-scale database relationships. Output designs are documented through the use of a variety of reporting tools such as report writers, data extraction tools, query tools, and on-line analytical processing tools. In addition, all aspects of the design phase can be performed with software tool sets provided by specific software manufacturers.

Reporting is the driving force behind an AIS development. If the system analysis and design are successful, the reporting process provides the information that helps drive management decision making. Accounting systems make use of a variety of scheduled and on-demand reports. The reports can be tabular, showing data in a table or tables; graphic, using images to convey information in a picture format; or matrices, to show complex relationships in multiple dimensions.

There are numerous characteristics to consider when defining reporting requirements. The reports must be accessible through the system's interface. They should convey information in a proactive manner. They must be relevant. Accuracy must be maintained. Lastly, reports must meet the information processing (cognitive) style of the audience they are to inform.

Reports are of three basic types: A filter report that separates select data from a database, such as a monthly check register; a responsibility report to meet the needs of a specific user, such as a weekly sales report for a regional sales manager; a comparative report to show period differences, percentage breakdowns and variances between actual and budgeted expenditures. An example would be the financial statement analytics showing the expenses from the current year and prior year as a percentage of sales.

Screen designs and system interfaces are the primary data capture devices of AISs and are developed through a variety of tools. Storage is achieved through the use of normalized databases that assure functionality and flexibility.

Business process maps and flowcharts are used to document the operations of the systems. Modern AISs use specialized databases and processing designed specifically for accounting operations. This means that much of the base processing capabilities come delivered with the accounting or enterprise software.

Implementation

The implementation phase consists of two primary parts: construction and delivery. Construction includes the selection of hardware, software and vendors for the implementation; building and testing the network communication systems; building and testing the databases; writing and testing the new program modifications; and installing and testing the total system from a technical standpoint. Delivery is the process of conducting final system and user acceptance testing; preparing the conversion plan; installing the production database; training the users; and converting all operations to the new system.

Tool sets are a variety of application development aids that are vendor-specific and used for customization of delivered systems. They allow the addition of fields and tables to the database, along with ability to create screen and other interfaces for data capture. In addition, they help set accessibility and security levels for adequate internal control within the accounting applications.

Security exists in several forms. Physical security of the system must be addressed. In typical AISs the equipment is located in a locked room with access granted only to technicians. Software access controls are set at several levels, depending on the size of the AIS. The first level of security occurs at the network level, which protects the organization's communication systems. Next is the operating system level security, which protects the computing environment. Then, database security is enabled to protect organizational data from theft, corruption, or other forms of damage. Lastly, application security is used to keep unauthorized persons from performing operations within the AIS.

Testing is performed at four levels. Stub or unit testing is used to insure the proper operation of individual modifications. Program testing involves the interaction between the individual modification and the program it enhances. System testing is used to determine that the program modifications work within the AIS as a whole. Acceptance testing ensures that the modifications meet user expectations and that the entire AIS performs as designed.

Conversion entails the method used to change from an old AIS to a new AIS. There are several methods for achieving this goal. One is to run the new and old systems in parallel for a specified period. A second method is to directly cut over to the new system at a specified point. A third is to phase in the system, either by location or system function. A fourth is to pilot the new system at a specific site before converting the rest of the organization.

Support The support phase has two objectives. The first is to update and maintain the AIS. This includes fixing problems and updating the system for business and environmental changes. For example, changes in generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) or tax laws might necessitate changes to conversion or reference tables used for financial reporting. The second objective of support is to continue development by continuously improving the business through adjustments to the AIS caused by business and environmental changes. These changes might result in future problems, new opportunities, or management or governmental directives requiring additional system modifications.

Attestation

AISs change the way internal controls are implemented and the type of audit trails that exist within a modern organization. The lack of traditional forensic evidence, such as paper, necessitates the involvement of accounting professionals in the design of such systems. Periodic involvement of public auditing firms can be used to make sure the AIS is in compliance with current internal control and financial reporting standards.

After implementation, the focus of attestation is the review and verification of system operation. This requires adherence to standards such as ISO 9000-3 for software design and development as well as standards for control of information technology.

Periodic functional business reviews should be conducted to be sure the AIS remains in compliance with the intended business functions. Quality standards dictate that this review should be done according to a periodic schedule.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

ERP systems are large-scale information systems that impact an organization's AIS. These systems permeate all aspects of the organization and require technologies such as client/server and relational databases. Other system types that currently impact AISs are supply chain management (SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM).

Traditional AISs recorded financial information and produced financial statements on a periodic basis according to GAAP pronouncements. Modern ERP systems provide a broader view of organizational information, enabling the use of advanced accounting techniques, such as activity-based costing (ABC) and improved managerial reporting using a variety of analytical techniques.

Advertising Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:49:00 +0000

An advertising strategy is a campaign developed to communicate ideas about products and services to potential consumers in the hopes of convincing them to buy those products and services. This strategy, when built in a rational and intelligent manner, will reflect other business considerations (overall budget, brand recognition efforts) and objectives (public image enhancement, market share growth) as well. As Portable MBA in Marketing authors Alexander Hiam and Charles D. Schewe stated, a business's advertising strategy "determines the character of the company's public face." Even though a small business has limited capital and is unable to devote as much money to advertising as a large corporation, it can still develop a highly effective advertising campaign. The key is creative and flexible planning, based on an indepth knowledge of the target consumer and the avenues that can be utilized to reach that consumer. Today, most advertising strategies focus on achieving three general goals, as the Small Business Administration indicated in Advertising Your Business: 1) promote awareness of a business and its product or services; 2) stimulate sales directly and "attract competitors' customers"; and 3) establish or modify a business' image. In other words, advertising seeks to inform, persuade, and remind the consumer. With these aims in mind, most businesses follow a general process which ties advertising into the other promotional efforts and overall marketing objectives of the business.

STAGES OF ADVERTISING STRATEGY
As a business begins, one of the major goals of advertising must be to generate awareness of the business and its products. Once the business' reputation is established and its products are positioned within the market, the amount of resources used for advertising will decrease as the consumer develops a kind of loyalty to the product. Ideally, this established and ever-growing consumer base will eventually aid the company in its efforts to carry their advertising message out into the market, both through its purchasing actions and its testimonials on behalf of the product or service. Essential to this rather abstract process is the development of a "positioning statement," as defined by Gerald E. Hills in "Marketing Option and Marketing" in The Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship: "A 'positioning statement' explains how a company's product (or service) is differentiated from those of key competitors." With this statement, the business owner turns intellectual objectives into concrete plans. In addition, this statement acts as the foundation for the development of a selling proposal, which is composed of the elements that will make up the advertising message's "copy platform." This platform delineates the images, copy, and art work that the business owner believes will sell the product. With these concrete objectives, the following elements of the advertising strategy need to be considered: target audience, product concept, communication media, and advertising message. These elements are at the core of an advertising strategy, and are often referred to as the "creative mix." Again, what most advertisers stress from the beginning is clear planning and flexibility. And key to these aims is creativity, and the ability to adapt to new market trends. A rigid advertising strategy often leads to a loss of market share. Therefore, the core elements of the advertising strategy need to mix in a way that allows the message to envelope the target consumer, providing ample opportunity for this consumer to become acquainted with the advertising message.

TARGET CONSUMER
The target consumer is a complex combination of persons. It includes the person who ultimately buys the product, as well as those who decide what product will be bought (but don't physically buy it), and those who influence product purchases, such as children, spouse, and friends. In order to identify the target consumer, and the forces acting upon any purchasing decision, it is important to define three general criteria in relation to that consumer, as discussed by the Small Business Administration:
1. Demographics—Age, gender, job, income, ethnicity, and hobbies.
2. Behaviors—When considering the consumers' behavior an advertiser needs to examine the consumers' awareness of the business and its competition, the type of vendors and services the consumer currently uses, and the types of appeals that are likely to convince the consumer to give the advertiser's product or service a chance.
3. Needs and Desires—Here an advertiser must determine the consumer needs—both in practical terms and in terms of self-image, etc.—and the kind of pitch/message that will convince the consumer that the advertiser's services or products can fulfill those needs.

PRODUCT CONCEPT
The product concept grows out of the guidelines established in the "positioning statement." How the product is positioned within the market will dictate the kind of values the product represents, and thus how the target consumer will receive that product. Therefore, it is important to remember that no product is just itself, but, as Courtland L. Bovee and William F. Arens stated in Contemporary Advertising, a "bundle of values" that the consumer needs to be able to identify with. Whether couched in presentations that emphasize sex, humor, romance, science, masculinity, or femininity, the consumer must be able to believe in the product's representation.

COMMUNICATION MEDIA
The communication media is the means by which the advertising message is transmitted to the consumer. In addition to marketing objectives and budgetary restraints, the characteristics of the target consumer need to be considered as an advertiser decides what media to use. The types of media categories from which advertisers can choose include the following:
• Print—Primarily newspapers (both weekly and daily) and magazines.
• Audio—FM and AM radio.
• Video—Promotional videos, infomercials.
• World Wide Web.
• Direct mail.
• Outdoor advertising—Billboards, advertisements on public transportation (cabs, buses).
After deciding on the medium that is 1) financially in reach, and 2) most likely to reach the target audience, an advertiser needs to schedule the broadcasting of that advertising. The media schedule, as defined by Hills, is "the combination of specific times (for example, by day, week, month) when advertisements are inserted into media vehicles and delivered to target audiences."

ADVERTISING MESSAGE
An advertising message is guided by the "advertising or copy platform," which is a combination of the marketing objectives, copy, art, and production values. This combination is best realized after the target consumer has been analyzed, the product concept has been established, and the media and vehicles have been chosen. At this point, the advertising message can be directed at a very concrete audience to achieve very specific goals. Hiam and Schewe listed three major areas that an advertiser should consider when endeavoring to develop an effective "advertising platform":
• What are the product's unique features?
• How do consumers evaluate the product? What is likely to persuade them to purchase the product?
• How do competitors rank in the eyes of the consumer? Are there any weaknesses in their positions? What are their strengths?
Most business consultants recommend employing an advertising agency to create the art work and write the copy. However, many small businesses don't have the up-front capital to hire such an agency, and therefore need to create their own advertising pieces. When doing this a business owner needs to follow a few important guidelines.

COPY
When composing advertising copy it is crucial to remember that the primary aim is to communicate information about the business and its products and services. The "selling proposal" can act as a blueprint here, ensuring that the advertising fits the overall marketing objectives. Many companies utilize a theme or a slogan as the centerpiece of such efforts, emphasizing major attributes of the business's products or services in the process. But as Hiam and Schewe caution, while "something must be used to animate the theme …care must be taken not to lose the underlying message in the pursuit of memorable advertising."
When writing the copy, direct language (saying exactly what you mean in a positive, rather than negative manner) has been shown to be the most effective. The theory here is that the less the audience has to interpret, or unravel the message, the easier the message will be to read, understand, and act upon. As Jerry Fisher observed in Entrepreneur, "Two-syllable phrases like 'free book,' 'fast help,' and 'lose weight' are the kind of advertising messages that don't need to be read to be effective. By that I mean they are so easy for the brain to interpret as a whole thought that they're 'read' in an eye blink rather than as linear verbiage. So for an advertiser trying to get attention in a world awash in advertising images, it makes sense to try this message-in-an-eye-blink route to the public consciousness—be it for a sales slogan or even a product name."
The copy content needs to be clearly written, following conventional grammatical guidelines. Of course, effective headings allow the reader to get a sense of the advertisement's central theme without having to read much of the copy. An advertisement that has "50% Off" in bold black letters is not just easy to read, but it is also easy to understand.

ART WORK AND LAYOUT
Small business owners also need to consider the visual rhetoric of the advertisement, which simply means that the entire advertisement, including blank space, should have meaning and logic. Most industry experts recommend that advertisers use short paragraphs, lists, and catchy illustrations and graphics to break up and supplement the text and make the document both visually inviting and easy to understand. Remember, an advertisement has to capture the reader's attention quickly.

ADVERTISING BUDGET
The advertising budget can be written before or after a business owner has developed the advertising strategy. When to make a budget decision depends on the importance of advertising and the resources available to the business. If, for instance, a business knows that they only have a certain amount of money for advertising then the budget will tend to dictate what advertising is developed and what the overall marketing objectives will be. On the other hand, if a business has the resources available, the advertising strategy can be developed to meet predetermined marketing objectives. For small businesses, it is usually best to put together an advertising budget early in the advertising process.
The following approaches are the most common methods of developing an effective budget. All the methods listed are progressive ones that look to perpetuate growth:
• Percentage of future or past sales
• Competitive approach
• Market share
• All available funds
• The task or objective approach
The easiest approach—and thus the one that is most often used—is the percentage of future or past sales method. Most industry experts recommend basing spending on anticipated sales, in order to ensure growth. But for a small business, where survival may be a bigger concern than growth, basing the advertising budget on past sales is often a more sensible approach to take.

METHODS OF ADVERTISING
Small business owners can choose from two opposite philosophies when preparing their advertising strategy. The first of these, sometimes called the push method, is a stance wherein an advertiser targets retail establishments in order to establish or broaden a market presence. The second option, sometimes called the pull method, targets end-users (consumers), who are expected to ask retailers for the product and thus help "pull" it through the channel of distribution. Of course, many businesses employ some hybrid of the two when putting together their advertising strategy.

PUSH METHOD
The aim of the push method is to convince retailers, salespersons, or dealers to carry and promote the advertiser's product. This relationship is achieved by offering inducements, such as providing advertising kits to help the retailer sell the product, offering incentives to carry stock, and developing trade promotions.

PULL METHOD
The aim of the pull method is to convince the target consumer to try, purchase, and ultimately repurchase the product. This process is achieved by directly appealing to the target consumer with coupons, in-store displays, and sweepstakes.

ANALYZING ADVERTISING RESULTS
Many small businesses are distressingly lax in taking steps to monitor whether their advertising efforts are having the desired effect. Instead, they simply throw a campaign out there and hope for the best, relying on a general sense of company health when determining whether to continue, terminate, or make adjustments to advertising campaigns. These small business owners do not seem to recognize that myriad factors can influence a business's fortunes (regional economic straits, arrival of new competition, seasonal buying fluctuations, etc.). The small business owner who does not bother to adequately analyze his or her advertising efforts runs the danger of throwing away a perfectly good advertising strategy (or retaining a dreadful one) if he or she is unable to determine whether business upturns or downturns are due to advertising or some other factor. The only way to know with any accuracy how your advertising strategy is working is to ask the consumer, the opinions of whom can be gathered in several ways. Although many of the tracking alternatives are quite specialized, requiring either a large budget or extensive advertising research expertise, even small businesses can take steps to measure the effectiveness of their advertising strategies. The direct response survey is one of the most accurate means of measuring the effectiveness of a company's advertising for the simple reason that it measures actual responses to a business's advertisements. Other inexpensive options, such as use of redeemable coupons, can also prove helpful in determining the effectiveness of an advertising campaign.

ADVERTISING AGENCIES
The decision whether or not to use an advertising agency depends both on a company's advertising strategy and its financial resources. An agency has professionals who can organize, create, and place advertising so that it will meet established objectives better than most small businesses can do on their own, but of course the expense associated with soliciting such talent is often prohibitive for smaller companies. Still, some small- and mid-sized businesses have found that agencies can be helpful in shaping and monitoring advertising strategies. Because of their resources and expertise, agencies are useful when a business is planning a broad advertising campaign that will require a large amount of resources. An advertising agency can also help track and analyze the effectiveness of the advertising. Some criteria to consider when choosing an agency include size of the agency, size of their clients (small companies should avoid allying themselves with agencies with a large stable of big corporate clients so that they are not treated as afterthoughts), length of time that the principals have been with the agency, the agency's general advertising philosophy, and the primary nature of the agency's accounts (are they familiar with your industry and the challenges involved in differentiating your company's products or services from others in that industry?).

ADVERTISING LAWS
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) protects consumers from deceptive or misleading advertising. Small business owners should be familiar with the following laws, which pertain to marketing and advertising and are enforced by the Commission:
• Consumer Product Safety Act—Outlines required safety guidelines and prohibits the sale of harmful products.
• Child Protection and Toy Safety Act—Prohibits the sale of toys known to be dangerous.
• Fair Packaging and Labeling Act—Requires that all packaged products contain a label disclosing all ingredients.
• Antitrust Laws—Protects trade and commerce from unlawful restraints, price deception, price fixing, and monopolies.
Many complaints against advertisers center on allegedly deceptive advertisements, so small business consultants urge entrepreneurs and business owners to heed the following general rules of thumb:
1. Avoid writing ads that make false claims or exaggerate the availability of the product or the savings the consumer will enjoy.
2. Avoid running out of advertised sale items. If this does happen, businesses should consider offering "rain-checks" so that the consumer can purchase the item later at the same reduced price.
3. Avoid calling a product "free" if it has cost closely associated with it. If there are costs associated with the free item they need to be clearly disclosed in the ad.
Since advertising is a complex process, and business law undergoes continual change, business owners should consult an attorney before distributing any advertising.

Overclocking

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:08:00 +0000

OVERCLOCKING

Description:

Overclocking is the somewhat unknown and uncommon practice of running your CPU (or other parts) past the speed that it is rated at. An example is running a 1.2 GHz CPU at 1.4 GHz or a 200 MHz CPU at 233 MHz. How can this be achieved? The following description isn't exact, but it captures the basic idea. Most CPU companies create their CPUs and then test them at a certain speed. If the CPU fails at a certain speed, then it is sold as a CPU at the next lower speed. The tests are usually very stringent so a CPU may be able to run at the higher speed quite reliably. In fact, the tests are often not used at all. For example, once a company has been producing a certain CPU for awhile, they have gotten the process down well enough that all the CPUs they make will run reliably at the highest speed the CPU is designed for. Thus, just to fill the demand, they will mark some of them as the slower CPUs.
Beware, however, that some vendors may sell CPUs already overclocked. This is why it is very important to buy from a dealer you can trust.
Some video cards are also very overclockable with some companies selling their cards already overclocked (and advertised this way). The Programs like Powerstrip can often be used to easily overclock the cards.
Also, if you're afraid to overclock your CPU, let another company do it for you! Companies like ComputerNerd sell CPUs pretested at overclocked speeds.

What To Consider:

Do you NEED to overclock? It may not be worth the risk if your computer is running fine as it is. However, if it seems a little too slow and/or you're a speed freak, it may be worth the risk.
How important is your work? If you're running a very important network server, it may not be worth it to put the extra strain on the computer. Likewise, if your computer does a lot of highly CPU intensive operations, you may also want to not overclock. Obviously the most stable computer is going to be one that is not overclocked. This is not to say that an overclocked computer can not be 100% stable because they CAN. If you just use your computer to play games and would like to have a little faster frame rates, then overlcocking may be worth it.

Potential Side-Effects?

The first impression people usually have of overclocking is "isn't that dangerous?" For the most part, the answer is no. If all you do to try to overclock your computer is change the CPU's speed, there is very little chance that you will damage your computer and/or the CPU as long as you do not push your computer too hard (i.e. trying to run a 500 MHz CPU at 1 GHz. Damage has happened, but it's a rare thing. Also, if you start increasing voltage settings to allow your CPU to run at a higher speed, there is more of a risk there.
The best way to prevent damage is to keep your CPU as cool as possible. The only way you can really damage your CPU is if it gets too hot. Adequate cooling is one of the keys to successful overclocking. Using large heatsinks with powerful ball-bearing fans will help to achieve this. How hot is too hot? If you can't keep your finger on the CPU's heatsink comfortably, then it is probably too hot and you should lower the CPU's speed.
Changing the bus speed is actually more beneficial than changing the CPU's speed. The bus speed is basically the speed at which the CPU communicates with the rest of the computer. When you increase the bus speed, in many cases you will be overclocking all the parts in your AGP, PCI slots, and your RAM as well as the CPU. Usually this is by a small margin and won't hurt these components. Pay attention to them though. If they're getting too hot, you may need to add extra cooling for them (an additional fan in your case). Just like your CPU, if they get too hot, they may be damaged as well.

Difficulty Level:

Believe it or not, it's actually quite simple. In many cases all you have to do is change a couple of jumpers on the motherboard or change settings in your motherboard's BIOS.

Recommendations:

Most of today's CPUs are multiplier locked, but you can change the bus speed. As an example, you could run a 1.2 GHz Thunderbird that normally runs at 133 bus (also called 266 because it is "double-pumped) at:

Multiplier * Bus Speed = CPU speed in MHz
9 * 133 = 1,200 MHz = 1.2 GHz = default
9 * 140 = 1,260 MHz = 1.26 GHz
9 * 145 = 1,305 MHz = 1.3 GHz
9 * 150 = 1,350 MHz = 1.35 GHz

Even though that CPU is multiplier locked, you can change the multiplier by connecting the "L1" dots on the CPU itself with a normal pencil (it's just enough to conduct electricity to allow you to change the multipliers). If you do this properly, it is perfectly safe. Here's an article on how to do this.

9 * 133 = 1,200 MHz = 1.2 GHz = default
9.5 * 133 = 1,264 MHz = 1.264 GHz
10 * 133 = 1,333 MHz = 1.333 GHz
Or change both together, like this:
10 * 140 = 1,400 MHz = 1.4 GHz

All you need to do here is use common sense really. For example, you wouldn't want to try to run a 233 MHz CPU at 400 MHz. For one thing, it won't work. For another, that probably would damage your CPU. I would advise starting out low and slowly trying to go higher. If you have a 233 MHz CPU, try running it one step higher, then the next step. Most likely you won't be able to get a CPU like this to run much higher than 300, but that is a possibility.
Be more concerned with changing the bus speed than the CPU speed as that will provide the greatest amount of speed improvement. For example, running a CPU at 250 (83.3x3) would be better than 262.5 (75x3.5) in most cases because the bus speed of 83 is higher than 75. The default for most CPUs is at 66 MHz bus speed. The newer P2's bus speed is 100 MHz by default. Many computers will not have options on bus speeds, but if you get any of the motherboards I recommend, you will have different bus speed options. The higher bus speed you can run at reliably, the better. Depending on what your other components are though, they may cause your computer to crash or become unstable if they can't handle the higher bus speeds. With bus speeds like 133, you have to have higher quality PC133 or PC2100 DDR SDRAM to be able to achieve this bus speed reliably.

What you'll need:

An open computer case and your motherboard manual is all you'll really need to try it, but more efficient cooling may be useful as well. Of course, your motherboard needs to support the bus speeds you plan to use and the multiplier you plan to use. Your motherboard manual should tell you whether or not it supports certain bus speeds and certain multipliers. If the exact CPU speed using a particular multiplier and bus speed isn't listed, don't worry. If you have the proper multiplier and bus speed in your manual, then you should be okay.

How to calculate your desired speed:

First consider your default speed. For simplicity, lets say it's 1 GHz. If this is an Athlon processor, it would most likely be running at the 133 MHz bus speed with a multiplier of 7.5 (100x7.5 = 1000 MHz = 1 GHz) or at the 100 MHz bus speed and multiplier of 10 (10x100 = 1000). Let's use the latter instance as an example - 100 MHz bus and 10 multiplier.
If you wanted to run at around 1.2 GHz you could increase the multiplier to 12 and leave the bus speed alone (100x12 = 1200). *Please note* most of today's CPUs prevent you from changing the multiplier and only allow you to change the bus speed! The step below explains how to do this.
If you wanted to increase the bus speed and the motherboard supported the higher MHz bus speeds, you could do something like 10x120 for 1200 MHz. Calculate your new speed by multiplying the bus speed by your CPU's multiplier.
You could also try increasing both the bus speed and multiplier. An example would be increasing the multiplier to 11 and bus speed to 110 MHz for just over 1.2 GHz (11x110 = 1210 MHz).

How to SET this speed:

In your motherboard manual, find the jumper settings for the particular bus speed and multiplier you want to use. Locate those jumpers on your motherboard and change them to fit the jumper settings in the manual. If it says "closed" for a jumper, then you need to have the little "shunt" placed over the two pins for that jumper which "closes" the connection. If it says "open" you may need to pull off the shunt.
If your motherboard has a "SoftMenu," then you can change your bus speed and / or multiplier in the computer's BIOS. Usually you will have to press F1 or Del to enter your BIOS while your computer is starting up. Try to locate the CPU speed settings and rotate through the available bus speeds until you find the one you are wanting to try.
Some motherboards will have both jumpers and a SoftMenu and you can use either one. Others have a combination and you may need to change the bus speed on the motherboard with jumpers, and change the multiplier in the BIOS. That's all there is to it!

Visit Indonesia

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:05:00 +0000

'Visit Indonesia Year 2008' in the works

In a concrete effort to finally do something to improve the country's tourism fortunes, the government is set to stage a "Visit Indonesia Year" in 2008.

As part of the drive to improve visitor numbers, improvements will also be made to basic infrastructure in some of the country's top tourist destinations.

The official announcement of the campaign, the second that will be held by the country after an earlier one in 1992, will be made next month, and will kick off a months' long promotion campaign, the Culture and Tourism Ministry's director general of marketing, Thamrin B. Bachri, said Tuesday.

Throughout 2008, the country will stage 100 international-scale events and cultural festivals, with the "visit Indonesia" campaign being timed to coincide with the World Culture Forum 2008.

"We have held meetings with the provincial administrations to outline our plans and ensure that their regions are ready for the events," Thamrin said.

The ministry, he said, was encouraging them to develop tourist attractions in their respective regions by improving facilities and access to the attractions.

In the first Visit Indonesia Year in 1992, the country boosted foreign tourist arrivals by more than 20 percent to 3.1 million from 2.5 million the previous year.

Thamrin did not say how many visitors were expected to visit Indonesia during next year's campaign.

For this year, the ministry is hoping to attract 6 million foreign tourists -- expected to generate around US$5 billion in foreign exchange earnings -- through its "tourism acceleration program".
Last year, foreign tourist arrivals stood at 4.8 million.

To support the acceleration program and prepare for next year, the ministry has requested additional funding of Rp 158.4 billion (US$17.6 million) from the revised 2007 budget, which is currently under deliberation in the House of Representatives.

The original 2007 budget allocated Rp 982 billion to the ministry.
Of the additional funding, the acceleration program -- which includes overseas promotional campaigns and improvements to basic infrastructure, such as roads, and electricity and telephone access in tourist areas -- will get the lion's share of Rp 153 billion.

The planned overseas promotional campaign includes advertising on international television channels, said Culture and Tourism Minister Jero Wacik.

"Advertisements on such TV channels are one of the most effective ways of attracting foreign tourists," he said, adding that other countries, such as Malaysia and Thailand, spent vast sums on such advertising.

"We will be out of sight of the rest of the world if we don't take effective and immediate action to raise awareness among overseas tourists that Indonesia is a safe and attractive place to visit."

Malaysia is targeting 20 million foreign tourists this year through its "Visit Malaysia Year" campaign. The country hosted 17.5 million overseas tourists last year.

Source: www.thejakartapost.com

Marketing Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:35:00 +0000

Marketing Strategy

The marketing concept of building an organization around the profitable satisfaction of customer needs has helped firms to achieve success in high-growth, moderately competitive markets. However, to be successful in markets in which economic growth has leveled and in which there exist many competitors who follow the marketing concept, a well-developed marketing strategy is required. Such a strategy considers a portfolio of products and takes into account the anticipated moves of competitors in the market.

The Case of Barco
In late 1989, Barco N.V.'s projection systems division was faced with Sony's surprise introduction of a better graphics projector. Barco had been perceived as a leader, introducing high quality products first and targeting a niche market that was willing to pay a higher price. Being a smaller company, Barco could not compete on price, so it traditionally pursued a skimming strategy in the graphics projector market, where it had a 55% market share of the small market. Barco's overall market share for all types of projectors was only 4%. Even though Barco's market was mainly in graphics projectors, the company had not introduced a new graphics projector in over two years. Instead, it was spending a large portion of its R&D budget on video projector products. However, video projectors were not Barco's market. Barco's engineers had been working long hours on their new projector that would not be as good as Sony's. Some people thought they should not stop work on that product since the engineers' morale would suffer after being told how important it was to work hard to get the product out. However, even considering the morale of the product team, it would not have been a good idea to introduce a product that was inferior to that of Sony. Barco wisely stopped working on the inferior product and put a major effort in developing a projector that outperformed Sony's. The Barco case illustrates several marketing strategy concepts:
• Price / Selling Effort Strategies: A firm that follows a skimming strategy seeks to be the first to introduce a product with very good performance, selling it to the innovator market segment and charging a premium price for it. It makes as much profit as possible, then moves on when the competition arrives. The price is likely to fall over time as competition is encountered. Such a skimming strategy contrasts with a penetrating strategy, which seeks to gain market share by sacrificing short-term profits, and increasing the price over time as market share is gained.
• Competitors have certain strengths and abilities. To succeed, a firm must leverage its own unique abilities.
• A firm should prepare defensive strategies before potential threats arrive. If the competition surprises a firm with the introduction of a vastly superior product, the firm should resist the temptation to proceed with its mediocre product. A firm never should introduce a product that is obsolete when it hits the market.
• The competition's probable response to a firm's actions should be considered carefully.

Marketing Research for Strategic Decision Making
The two most common uses of marketing research are for diagnostic analysis to understand the market and the firm's current performance, and opportunity analysis to define any unexploited opportunities for growth. Marketing research studies include consumer studies, distribution studies, semantic scaling, multidimensional scaling, intelligence studies, projections, and conjoint analysis. A few of these are outlined below.
• Semantic scaling: a very simple rating of how consumers perceive the physical attributes of a product, and what the ideal values of those attributes would be. Semantic scaling is not very accurate since the consumers are polled according to an ordinal ranking so mathematical averaging is not possible. For example, 8 is not necessarily twice as much as 4 in an ordinal ranking system. Furthermore, each person uses the scale differently.
• Multidimensional scaling (MDS) addresses the problems associated with semantic scaling by polling the consumer for pair-wise comparisons between products or between one product and the ideal. The assumption is that while people cannot report reliably which attributes drive their choices, they can report perceptions of similarities between brands. However, MDS analyses do not indicate the relative importance between attributes.
• Conjoint analysis infers the relative importance of attributes by presenting consumers with a set of features of two hypothetical products and asking them which product they prefer. This question is repeated over several sets of attribute values. The results allow one to predict which attributes are the more important, the combination of attribute values that is the most preferred. From this information, the expected market share of a given design can be estimated.

Multi-Product Resource Allocation
The most common resource allocation methods are:
• Percentage of sales
• Executive judgement
• All-you-can-afford
• Match competitors
• Last year based
Another method is called decision calculus. Managers are asked four questions:
What would sales be with:
1. no sales force
2. half the current effort
3. 50% greater effort
4. a saturation level of effort.
From these answers, one can determine the parameters of the S-curve response function and use linear programming techniques to determine resource allocations. Decision algorithms that result in extreme solutions, such as allocating most of the sales force to one product while neglecting another product often do not yield practical solutions. For mature products, sales increase very little as a function of advertising expenditures. For newer products however, there is a very positive correlation. Portfolio models may be used to allocate resources among major product lines or business units. The BCG growth-share matrix is one such model.

New Product Diffusion Curve
As a new product diffuses into the market, some types of consumers such as innovators and early adopters buy the product before other consumers. The product adoption follows a trajectory that is shaped like a bell curve and is known as the product diffusion curve. The marketing strategy should take this adoption curve into account and address factors that influence the rate of adoption by the different types of consumers.

Dynamic Product Management Strategies
Two fundamental issues of product management are whether to pioneer or follow, and how to manage the product over its life cycle. Order of market entry is very important. In fact, the forecasted market share relative to the pioneering brand is the pioneering brand's share divided by the square root of the order of entry. For example, the brand that entered third is forecasted to have 1/√3 times the market share of the first entrant (Marketing Science, Vol. 14, No. 3, Part 2 of 2, 1995.) This rule was determined empirically. The pioneering advantage is obtained from both the supply and demand side. From the supply side, there are raw material advantages, better experience effects to provide a cost advantage, and channel preemption. On the demand side, there is the advantage of familiarity, the chance to set a standard, and the choice of perceptual position. Once a firm gains a pioneering advantage, it can maintain it by improving the product, creating a standard, advertise that it was the first, and introduce a new product in the market that may cannibalize the first but deter other firms from entering. There also are disadvantages to being the pioneer. Being first allows a competitor to leapfrog the early technology. The incumbent develops inertia in its R&D and may not be a flexible as newcomers. Developing an industry has costs that the pioneer must bear alone, and the way the industry develops and its potential size are not deterministic. There are four classic price/selling effort strategies:

Selling Effort Price
Low High
Low Necessity Goods

Classic Skim Strategy
Vulnerable to new entrants

High

Classic Penetration Strategy

Luxury Goods

In general, products are clustered in the low-low or high-high categories. If a product is in a mixed category, after introduction it will tend to move to the low-low or high-high one. Increasing the breadth of the product line as several advantages. A firm can better serve multiple segments, it can occupy more of the distributors' shelf space, it offers customers a more complete selection, and it preempts competition. While a wider range of products will cause a firm to cannibalize some of its own sales, it is better to do so oneself rather than let the competition do so.
The drawbacks of broad product lines are reduced volume for each brand (cannibalization), greater manufacturing complexity, increased inventory, more management resources required, more advertising (or less per brand), clutter and confusion in advertising for both customers and distributors. To increase profits from existing brands, a firm can improve its production efficiency, increase the demand through more users, more uses, and more usage. A firm also can defend its existing base through line extensions (expand on a current brand), flanker brands (new brands in an existing product area), and brand extensions.

Tourism Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Paulus) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:36:00 +0000

TOURISM MARKETING

The marketing mix-the 4 Ps-target audience-segmentation-objectives-evaluation. These and other terms are all used in the process of "marketing." In tourism and tourism related Industries, success means understanding this process. This bulletin is designed for those in the tourism industry who may not be completely familiar with marketing or who may simply wish to refresh their basic marketing skills. Covered will be important concepts used in marketing, the relationship of marketing to tourism, and a process for developing a marketing plan for tourism/recreation businesses and/or communities. It will be impossible to cover in detail all the aspects of marketing within the scope of this bulletin. There are, however, other bulletins in this series that will provide more in-depth information on the different components of a marketing plan.

WHAT IS MARKETING ?

People hold a variety of misconceptions about marketing. Most common is its confusion with selling and advertising. Selling and advertising are actually types of promotion which is only a component of marketing. Marketing involves much more, including product/service development, place (location and distribution), and pricing. It requires information about people, especially those interested in what you have to offer (your "market"), such as what they like, where they buy and how much they spend. Its role is to match the right product
or service with the right market or audience. Marketing, as you will see, is an art and a science. According to the American Marketing Association, marketing is "the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives." Simply stated it is creating and promoting a product (ideas, goods or services) that satisfies a customer's need or desire and is available at a desirable price and place. Modern marketing is a way of doing business, heavily based on the "marketing concept" which holds that businesses and organizations should:
(1) design their products/services to meet customer needs and wants;
(2) focus on those people most likely to buy their product rather than the entire mass market; and
(3) develop marketing efforts that fit into their overall business objectives.

By adopting this concept you not only provide your customers with better products, you will avoid wasting valuable time and money developing and promoting a product or service nobody wants.

RECREATION AND TOURISM MARKETING
Earlier it was mentioned that a product can be "ideas, goods, or services." Since tourism is primarily a service based industry, the principal products provided by recreation / tourism (R/T) businesses are recreational experiences and hospitality. These are intangible products and more difficult to market than tangible products such as automobiles. The intangible nature of services makes quality control difficult but crucial. It also makes it more difficult for potential customers to evaluate and compare service offerings. In addition, instead of moving the product to the customer, the customer must travel to the product (area/community). Travel is a significant portion of the time and money spent in association with recreational and tourism experiences and is a major factor in people's decisions on whether or not to visit your business or community. As an industry, tourism has many components comprising the overall "travel experience." Along with transportation, it includes such things as accommodations, food and beverage services, shops, entertainment, aesthetics and special events. It is rare for one business to provide the variety of activities or facilities tourists need or desire. This adds to the difficulty of maintaining and controlling the quality of the experience. To overcome this hurdle, tourism related businesses, agencies, and organizations need to work together to package and promote tourism opportunities in their areas and align their efforts to assure consistency in product quality.

THE MARKETING PLAN

One of the most important steps a business or community can take to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their marketing efforts is to develop a written marketing plan. This plan will guide their marketing decisions and assist them in allocating marketing resources such as money and personnel time. The plan should include:
(1) the overall business objectives--what you want to accomplish;
(2) an assessment of the market environment--what factors may affect your marketing efforts;
(3) a business/community profile--what resources are available,
(4) market identification (segmentation)--the specific groups or clientele most interested in your product;
(5) the marketing objectives for each segment;
(6) the marketing strategies (or mixes) for different markets you target--the best combination of the 4 Ps
(product, price, place, promotion) for each segment;
(7) an implementation plan--how to "make it work;"
(8) the marketing budget-how much you have to spend; and
(9) a method for evaluation and change.

Figure 1 shows a framework which can be used to develop a marketing plan. Each component will be briefly discussed in the remainder of the bulletin. For more information regarding different components of the plan be sure to consult other bulletins in this series.

OVERALL BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
Businesses, agencies, and communities should develop overall objectives and regularly monitor their progress. The objectives should provide guidance for all decisions including finances, personnel and marketing. They should be quantitative and measurable statements of what the business or community wants to accomplish over a specified period of time. Business objectives are often stated in terms of sales, profits, market shares and/or occupancy rates. Communities frequently establish objectives relating to such things as increasing the number of tourists, developing or changing their image, facility and activity development, cooperation among tourism related businesses and increasing length of stay and local expenditures. It is important that the objectives be reasonable given the market conditions and the firm's or organization's resources. Establish a few reasonable objectives instead of a long, unrealistic "wish list." This is especially true for new businesses or communities which do not have much experience in tourism development and/or marketing.

MARKET ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS
The next step in developing a marketing plan is to assess the impact of environmental factors (such as economic, social and political) on present and future markets. Changes in these factors can create marketing opportunities as well as problems. Demographic and Lifestyle Trends Changing demographics and lifestyles are having a major impact on R/T participation. An assessment of these trends is important to understand how they will likely affect your business or community. Some of the important trends that bear watching:
(1) population growth and movement;
(2) rural community growth compared to metropolitan areas;
(3) number of adult women employed outside the home;
(4) the number of households is growing, especially non family and single parent households, but family size is decreasing;
(5) the impact of two wage earner households on real family income;
(6) the number of retired persons with the financial ability to travel;
(7) better health to an older age; and
(8) continued aging of the population (we are becoming a middle aged society).

Economic Conditions
Overall economic conditions can have significant impacts on recreation and tourism markets. A marketing strategy that is effective during periods of low unemployment rates may have to be significantly adjusted if unemployment increases. Businesses and communities should monitor and assess the likely impact of factors such as unemployment rates, real family income, rate of inflation, credit availability, terms and interest rates. Consideration should also be given to the prices of complementary products, such as lodging, gasoline and recreation equipment.

Laws and Government Actions

As a complex industry, tourism is significantly affected both positively and negatively by laws and by actions of governmental agencies. For instance, rulings on such things as liability issues or decisions regarding building and health codes may change or possibly prevent the construction of a proposed facility. If a public facility changes the prices of its services, this could affect the service offerings of associated private businesses. These actions may have both positive and negative effects on the marketing efforts of the business and community. To avoid wasting valuable resources it is important that R/T businesses, agencies, and communities continually monitor and evaluate governmental actions.

Technology
Technological developments are increasing rapidly. New recreation products, such as all-terrain vehicles and wind surfers, provide new ways for people to satisfy their recreational preferences. New production technologies and materials offer recreation and tourism businesses ways to reduce costs and improve the quality of their products/services. Advances in telecommunications have and will continue to create new promotional opportunities. Technological innovations, in relation to jobs and the home, have resulted in increased leisure time for many people.

Competition
Businesses and communities must identify and analyze existing and potential competitors. The objective of the analysis is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the competition's marketing strategies. The analysis should include the competition's:
(1) product/service features and quality;
(2) location relative to different geographic markets;
(3) promotional themes and messages;
(4) prices; and
(5) type of customer they are attracting.

BUSINESS AND COMMUNITY PROFILES

Too many communities attempt to market themselves as tourist destinations without accurate information about their resources (facilities, services, staff), image (projected vs. actual), and how well their customers are satisfied. Without this information, it is difficult to make other decisions in the planning process. Included should be such things as recreational and entertainment facilities, cultural and historic sites, overnight accommodations, restaurants, shopping opportunities, special events and activities, staff size, and transportation. Each item of the "inventory" should also be assessed in terms of quality and availability.

MARKET SEGMENTATION (IDENTIFICATION)

Recreation and tourism businesses and communities often make the mistake of attempting to be all things to all people. It is difficult, and risky, to develop marketing strategies for the mass market. Strategies designed for the "average" customer often result in unappealing products, prices, and promotional messages. For example, it would be difficult to develop a campground that would be equally attractive to recreational vehicle campers and backpackers or promote a property to serve both snowmobilers and nature oriented cross country skiers. Marketing is strongly based on market segmentation and target marketing. Market segmentation is the process of:
(1) taking existing and/or potential customers/visitors (market) and categorizing them into groups with similar preferences referred to as "market segments;"

(2) selecting the most promising segments as "target markets;" and
(3) designing "marketing mixes," or strategies (combination of the 4 Ps), which satisfy the special
needs, desires and behavior of the target markets.

There is no unique or best way to segment markets, but ways in which customers can be grouped are:
(1) location of residence---instate, out-of-state, local;
(2) demographics---age, income, family status, education;
(3) equipment ownership/use---RV's, sailboats, canoes, tents, snowmobiles;
(4) important product attributes---price, quality, quantity; and
(5) lifestyle attributes---activities, interests, opinions.

To be useful, the segment identification process should result in segments that suggest marketing efforts that will be effective in attracting them and at least one segment large enough to justify specialized marketing efforts. After segments have been identified, the business or community must select the "target markets," those segments which offer them the greatest opportunity. When determining target markets, consideration should be given to:
(1) existing and future sales potential of each segment;
(2) the amount and strength of competition for each segment;
(3) the ability to offer a marketing mix which will be successful in attracting each segment;
(4) the cost of servicing each segment; and
(5) each segment's contribution to accomplishing overall business/community objectives.

It is often wiser to target smaller segments that are presently not being served, or served inadequately, than to go after larger segments for which there is a great deal of competition.

MARKETING OBJECTIVES FOR EACH SEGMENT

Marketing objectives which contribute to the accomplishment of the overall business objectives should be established for each target market. Objectives serve a number of functions including:
(1) guidance for developing marketing mixes for different target markets;
(2) information for allocating the marketing budget between target markets;
(3) a basis for objectively evaluating the effectiveness of the marketing mixes (setting standards); and
(4) a framework for integrating the different marketing mixes into the overall marketing plan.

The target market objectives should:
(1) be expressed in quantitative terms;
(2) be measurable;
(3) specify the target market; and
(4) indicate the time period in which the objective is to be accomplished.

For example, increase the number of overnight stays by people from the Chicago market over the next two years by five percent. Remember, rank objectives by priority and carefully evaluate them to ensure that they are reasonable given the strength of the competition and resources available for marketing.

MARKETING STRATEGY (MIX)

The marketing strategy, or mix, should be viewed as a package of offerings designed to attract and serve the customer or visitor. Recreation and tourism businesses and communities should develop both external and internal marketing mixes for different target markets.

External Mix
The external marketing mix includes product/service, price, place/location, and promotion.

Product
Earlier we said the principal products that recreation and tourism businesses provide are recreational experiences and hospitality. The factors that create a quality recreational experience often differ among people. A quality experience for one skier might include an uncrowded, steep slope. To another it might be a good restaurant and a chance to socialize. Decisions on what facilities, programs and services to provide should be based on the needs and desires of the target market(s). They should not be based on the preferences of the owner/manager or necessarily on what the competition is providing. Recognize that a recreational/tourism experience includes five elements: trip planning and anticipation; travel to the site/area; the experience at the site; travel back home; and recollection. Businesses should look for ways to enhance the quality of the overall experience during all phases of the trip. This could be accomplished by providing trip planning packages which include maps, attractions en route and on site, and information regarding lodging, food and quality souvenirs and mementos. Recreation and tourism businesses should also view their service/product in generic terms. Thinking of products/services in this manner helps focus more attention on the experiences desired by customers and also the facilities, programs and services that will produce those experiences. For example, campgrounds are the business of providing recreational "lodging" not just campsites to park an RV or set up a tent. Marinas should provide recreational "boating" experiences, not just slippage.

Location and Accessibility---Place
Too many tourism businesses and communities fail to recognize their role in improving travel to and from their areas. They focus instead on servicing the customer once they arrive at the site/community. A bad experience getting to or leaving an R/T site can adversely affect a person's travel experience. Ways to help prevent this include:
(1) providing directions and maps;
(2) providing estimates of travel time and distances from different market areas;
(3) recommending direct and scenic travel routes;
(4) identifying attractions and support facilities along different travel routes; and
(5) informing potential customers of alternative travel methods to the area such as airlines and railroads.

Potential businesses should also carefully assess alternative locations for:
(1) distance and accessibility to target markets;
(2) location of competitors with respect to target markets;
(3) modes of travel serving the area; and
(4) other attractions and activities that might induce travel to the area.

Pricing
Price is one of the most important and visible elements of the marketing mix. When setting prices it is important to take into consideration all of the following:
(1) business and target market objectives;
(2) the full cost of producing, delivering and promoting the product;
(3) the willingness of the target market to pay for the product or service you provide;
(4) prices charged by competitors offering a similar product/service to the same target market(s);
(5) the availability and prices of substitute products/services (for example, campgrounds, motels, and bed and breakfast are all substitutes for lodging);
(6) the economic climate (local and national); and
(7) the possibility of stimulating high profit products/services (such as boats) by offering related services (such as maintenance) at or below cost.

When establishing prices, R/T businesses should give attention to pricing strategies which may encourage off season and non-peak period sales, longer stays, group business, and the sale of package plans (combination of room, meals, and recreational facilities).

Promotion
Promotion provides target audiences with accurate and timely information to help them decide whether to visit your community or business. The information should be of importance and practical use to the potential or existing visitor and also accurate.

Misrepresentation often leads
to dissatisfied customers and poor recommendations. Don't make claims you cannot live up to. Developing a promotional campaign is not a science with hard and fast rules. Making decisions regarding which type or combination of promotion types to use (personal selling, advertising, sales promotions, or publicity) is not always easy. If, however, you follow a logical process and do the necessary research, chances for success will be improved. It will be necessary to make decisions regarding:
(1) Target audience---the group you are aiming at;
(2) Image---that which your community or business wants to create or reinforce;
(3) Objectives---those of the promotional campaign;
(4) Budget---the amount of money available for your promotion;
(5) Timing---when and how often should your promotions appear;
(6) Media---which methods (television, radio, newspaper, magazine) will most effectively and efficiently communicate your message to the target audience; and
(7) Evaluation---how can the effectiveness of the promotional campaign be determined.

Internal Mix
As stated, marketing services such as recreation and tourism differ from marketing tangible products. Recreation and tourism businesses must direct as much attention at marketing to customers on site as they do to attracting them. In this respect, internal marketing is important because dissatisfied customers can effectively cancel out an otherwise effective marketing strategy. The success of internal marketing is dependent on creating an atmosphere in which employees desire to give good service and sell the business/community to visitors. To create such an atmosphere requires the following four important elements:
(1) Hospitality and Guest Relations---An organization wide emphasis on hospitality and guest relations, including a customer oriented attitude on the part of the owners and managers as well as the employees. If the owner/manager is not customer sensitive, it is unlikely the lower paid employees will be.
(2) Quality Control---A program which focuses on improving both the technical quality (the standards associated with what the customer receives) and the functional quality (the standards associated with how the customer receives the service). All employees who come into contact with customers should receive hospitality training.
(3) Personal Selling---Training the staff in the selling aspects of the property (business) or community. This also includes rewarding them for their efforts. By being informed about the marketing objectives, and their role in accomplishing those objectives, they can help increase sales.
(4) Employee Morale---Programs and incentives aimed at maintaining employee morale. The incentives can be both monetary and non-monetary.

A customer oriented atmosphere usually results in customers that are more satisfied, do less complaining and are more pleasant to serve. This helps build employee morale, their desire to provide good service and their efficiency.

MARKETING BUDGET
Successful marketing requires that sufficient money and personnel time be made available to implement activities comprising the marketing strategy. A marketing budget is a financial plan which shows the total amount to be spent on marketing during different times of the year and how it is to be allocated among alternative activities. Separate marketing budgets should be developed for each marketing mix strategy. The separate budgets should then be aggregated to develop an overall marketing budget. If the total amount is too great it will be necessary to modify the overall objectives and the target market objectives, narrow down or drop target markets, or adjust marketing mixes. The final budget should be realistic given your objectives. When deciding on a marketing budget, consideration should be given to the job that needs to be done as defined by the objectives. Basing marketing budgets on some percent of sales or what the competition spends usually leads to over spending or under spending. Decisions should also be based on the costs, projected revenues, and desired profitability of different activities, not just costs alone. Successful marketing activities will generate additional revenues which can be projected based on the marketing objectives (such as increase off season stay by 5%). Although budgets should be viewed as flexible plans, every effort should be made to adhere to them. Revisions in the budget should only be made after careful consideration of the likely impact of the change on the marketing mix and accomplishment of your objectives.

IMPLEMENTATION
Many well designed marketing plans fail because they are poorly executed. Businesses, agencies, and communities can increase the likelihood of successful implementation if they:
(1) identify specific tasks which must be accomplished;
(2) assign people or departments specific responsibility for different tasks;
(3) provide employees with information on the marketing plan (rationale, objectives, strategies);
(4) develop time lines and deadlines;
(5) adhere as much as possible to the budget; and
(6) regularly monitor and evaluate progress.

EVALUATION
It is important that marketing efforts be continually evaluated. This will improve the effectiveness of marketing strategies by quickly identifying differences between actual results and expected performance and determining likely reasons for the success or failure to realize objectives.
A framework for evaluation would include:
(1) determining which elements of the different marketing mixes are most important to evaluate.----It is rarely possible or cost effective to evaluate all elements;
(2) establishing performance standards to compare against actual results.---Marketing objectives, if properly formulated, should serve as performance standards;
(3) development of formal and informal methods for collecting data on actual results.---There are many ways different elements of the marketing mix can be evaluated. For example, promotions can be evaluated with money off coupons. Special information request forms, telephone numbers to call or post office box numbers to write to can identify the area the request is coming from. Also, formal (written) and informal (face-to-face) surveys can be used to determine the promotional material the customer used in planning the trip;
(4) comparison of results with objectives;
(5) determination of needed change(s).

CONCLUSION
Customer satisfaction in tourism is greatly influenced by the way in which the service (hospitality) is delivered and the physical appearance and personality of the business. It is critical that these elements be communicated in the best possible manner to convince people to come and experience what your business or community has to offer. Equally important is the ability to generate repeat business because of your efforts. Thus, marketing becomes the method to reach potential visitors. It is a vital part of tourism management and can be done effectively and well, with sophistication and tact, or it can be done poorly in a loud, crass and intrusive manner. Hopefully, this bulletin has given you the basics for the former rather than the latter. Remember that to do an effective job at marketing:
(1) adopt a strong customer orientation which includes regular research and assessment of their needs, wants and attitudes;
(2) allocate sufficient resources and time to marketing;
(3) assign formal responsibility for marketing to one person or department; and
(4) develop and regularly update a marketing plan.