Situations Warranting Business Process Improvement
Business Process Improvement programs when designed with specific objectives and sponsored and facilitated by the senior management including Business Unit heads yields the desired results. Organizations use BPI as a tool to raise the bar and take their business operations to another level. BPI as a tool for effecting change management is effective especially when […]
Sourcing Strategies and Procurement Processes
Not long ago, purchase function was seen to be a desk job, monotonous paper work, dull and passive and more of an administrative function. The purchase managements were the fall guys whose only aim was to keep feeding shop floor and avoiding stock out situation. Today the situation has changed totally. Procurement function is considered […]
Six Sigma Control Phase: How Statistical Process Control Works?
Control is all around us. We control the household appliances, the time schedules we follow and such mundane tasks of our everyday lives. We are intuitively aware of these principles. However putting these principles down explicitly helps us develop a formal understanding which we can then use in creating a control plan for our process. […]
Rebuilding Americas Inner Cities
While America is the largest economy in the nation, there is a considerable push towards rebuilding America’s infrastructure. Many Americans believe that they are losing out globally to firms that have better infrastructure in place. Companies in China have been beating America at low-cost manufacturing for decades now. However, even if higher labor costs are […]
What Businesses, Groups, and Professionals can do when Faced with Stagnation
What to do when Businesses and Professionals Stagnate Stagnation can happen to anyone. Whether they are businesses, nations, societies, groups, or individuals, the prospect of withering away due to lack of growth or career mobility or opportunities can make even the most resilient of the institutions to atrophy and stagnate. Indeed, the fact that there […]
The last two decades have changed the way business is getting conducted. Some businesses are still using traditional channel systems but advent of the Internet has revolutionized distribution channels. Companies are changing business models to leverage Internet advantage.
With open proliferation of information, customer expectations are reaching new heights. Companies need to figure out the right channel mix with multi channels’ strategies. From a manager stand point marketing channel is defined as any external agencies, which facilitate distribution of products and services.
The marketing channel is one of the key drivers for strategies around the marketing mix, i.e. product, price, place and promotion.
The channel flow is a flow which relates different agencies involved in the distribution of goods and products.
The channel structure is referred to as the combination of different channel members in achieving organization’s marketing mix strategy.
The marketing channel consists of various players like manufacturers, producers, wholesalers and retailers. Manufacturers and producers develop their own marketing channel to reach the end user. However, not all manufacturers have the expertise in managing channel participants. Therefore, they need wholesalers and retailers for distribution of goods.
There are three types of wholesalers; merchant wholesalers, agents and producer’s branch offices. Merchant wholesalers usually have good capacity of storing and managing goods. In contrast, agent works as middlemen for producers and end users. Retailers are responsible for selling goods and products to end users.
The major role of channel participants is to make the distribution and selling of goods and products efficient. Intermediaries provide manufactures opportunities which for them financially would not be feasible. Intermediaries provide greater market exposure, market intelligence, economies of scale and operational knowledge.
Conflict among channel partners adversely affects the distribution of goods and products. It is important for the channel managers to understand the nature of conflict and come with solution, which strengthens the distribution network.
However, all issues in the channel cannot be considered as a conflict. The channel manager needs to assess the frequency of disagreement, level of disagreement and importance of issue.
The top reasons for an emergence of conflict among channel partners are as follows:
Conflict between the channel partners can be resolved by improving communication among themselves and also with producer. Another way of solving conflict is by directing all channels to a single objective of creating customer delight.
Multi channel marketing system has become a prominent way through which goods and products are delivered to end users. The multi channel system enables the companies to deliver goods and products to end users as per their preference. The delivery of goods can be through store, website, mail order, etc.
Another innovation in the marketing channel system is the franchise. Franchise enables brand recognition, standardization of operation structure, access to learning curve and less financial investment.
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Communication Systems and Groupware – Information System Concepts that Apply in All Functional Areas of Business
February 12, 2025
