...An Investigation into the Marketing Strategies used by Commercial Banks in Managing Service Breakdown among SME Customers. Some Experiences in Kenya By Anyim Kevin Ouma and Dr Justus M Munyoki Paper for presentation during the 1st AIBUMA Conference to be held in Nairobi from 25th to 27th August 2010 in Nairobi, Kenya ABSTRACT This study sought to establish the strategies used by ccommercial banks in Kenya in Managing Service Breakdown among SME Customers. The study focused on five commercial banks namely Barclays, Kenya Commercial Bank, Standard Chartered, Equity and Fina bank which currently offer services to SME customers. A self-administered open and closed ended questionnaire was utilized in collecting primary data from the field. Data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The study found that lack of clear communication with customers, long procedures; intrusive documentation and lack of flexibility are some of the causes resulting in service breakdown. It also established that the main strategies used by banks to deal with services breakdown include; designing services to fit the needs of customers; ensuring that services are always oh high quality without compromise; putting relevant systems in place; having competent employees in place; on time delivery of services and ensuring that services are driven by customers to increase acceptance and satisfaction. Key words: Services Break down, strategies Introduction This...
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...* Positioning * Marketing Strategies for SME’s in Bahrain Marketing Strategies for SME’s in Bahrain Product differenciation * cost leadership * brand legacy * Branding A name, logo or anything associated with the brand which has a better customer recall brand image arise from customer experience. * Pricing consider :- * cost * competitor’s price * value to end user * Distribution selecting channels which best support the operation. * Marketing Tools for SME’s Marketing Tools for SME’s Naming * uniqueness * recallable * relevance to business * Messaging * short & precise * catchy * Corporate identity * Websites * helps enhance customer experience * initiate campaigns * wider reach * Sales tools & techniques * Recruiting * finding the right talent enhances operational efficiency * C.R.M * integrates marketing ,sales &customer service * results are evident Customer Acquisition Customer Acquisition Planning Process * Sales Process * from prospecting to after sales consulting * Campaign Planning * selecting the theme * selecting suitable media * Marketing Plan * a concrete marketing plan helps implement the marketing ideas & strategies within budget constrains. Traditional media * Direct Mail * effective for targeted campaigns * measurable results * Publicity * PR activities raising awareness both on internet & print medias....
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...all countries. Small and medium -sized enterprises (SME’s) play an effective role in solving many economic problems such as unemployment. Therefore, SME’s are at the heart of economic growth. The purpose of my report is to show how SME’s help the economy in overcoming some problems. Also, this report discusses some SME difficulties and their solutions. This report has three chapters. The first chapter consists of background. The second chapter is about SME problems. The last chapter discusses a real life example of a small business in Saudi Arabia. I. BACKGROUND This chapter defines SME’s and explains their importance. A. Definition of SME’s The SME definition is different from one country to another. In Saudi Arabia for example, small firms are identified by the Saudi Chambers of Commerce as firms which have 10-25 staff and whose assets are SR one million. On the other hand, the firms that employ 25-100 staff and their assets are SR 5 million are called medium- sized firms. (5:197) The definition of SME’s in the UK is as follows: the enterprises that have less than 50 workers are small enterprises whereas the enterprises that employ more than 249 workers are medium- sized. (1:1) B. SME’s Importance The effect of SME’s on the economy appears in many dimensions. Governments face several problems related to unemployment; SME’s can solve these problems (6:1). In Saudi Arabia for example, SME’s comprise greater than 90 percent of private firms (2:1)...
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...Development of Marketing Capability of Small Businesses: The use of Diagnostic Audits to Benchmark an SME’s competencies against critical marketing success factors Contents Introduction-2 The Identification of Critical Success Factors in Marketing-2 Showcasing/Evaluation of key diagnostic audit tools-4 Conclusion-6 References-7 Introduction In this paper I will showcase how supporting the Development of Marketing Capability of Small Businesses and The use of Diagnostic Audits to Benchmark an SME’s competencies against critical marketing. Small businesses struggle with lots of elements of the business world both external and internally exploring the use of business tool kits, the paper will discuss how these will help SME’s and which kind of tool kit is best for certain company’s. Small micro-businesses generally only employee between 0-9 people, which in 2012, there were 4.7 million micro businesses within the UK. This figure constituted towards 96% of all businesses (Parliament.uk, 2013). SME’s will play a key role in helping to stimulate economic growth in the UK and help the recovery from recession. The Identification of Critical Success Factors in Marketing The introduction of a product to a market place with success is a difficult process, given that successes in a sector can be few and far between for small business. Segmentation is a key issue, exploiting gaps within this market, can lead to rapid growth when coupled with a good marketing plan. It...
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...strongly focuses on the development of personalized, long-term relationships with their customers, delivering competitive suite of products and services as well as offering advisory at each stage of their customer’s business life-stage. They have established an extensive network of Alliance Business Centre’s across the country to reach out and serve all customers better and they continue to expand these facilities in an effort to fully satisfy the needs of their customers. (Reference Alliance bank website) The following report is a marketing plan for ‘Alliance BizSmart Online Banking’, which is one of the services offered specifically to the business market. Objective Few steps are as critical in marketing planning as setting objectives. Objectives are designed to ensure the organisation knows what its strategies are expected to achieve and when a strategy has achieved its purpose. (Refrbuildingmrkpln) The main objective of this marketing plan is to increase the number of Alliance BizSmart Online Banking service users up to 30% while retaining the existing customers, within the duration of one year starting from January 2015 by the end of January 2016. Alliance Bank is the first Malaysian bank to provide the same online banking tools and services to...
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...ENTRY STRATEGIES OF POLISH SMES TO FOREIGN MARKETS To: Prof. Ewa Baranowska-Prokop Ph.D. Performed by: Alexander Omelyashko 50803 Warsaw 2013 Entry strategies of Polish SMEs to foreign markets Introduction The number of SMEs operating on the international markets is constantly skyrocketing since friendly policy of the EU authorities towards small firms and diminishing barriers of the international trade. Nowadays the percentage of SMEs to the whole number of all enterprises is constantly rising, playing a decisive role in EU economic development and competitiveness: in the EU they constitute about 98% of businesses (more that 20 million SME’s), providing two thirds of the total employment and 80% of new created jobs. This number in Poland is high as well. According to surveys Enterprises give out more than 70 percent of all GDP, and 72 percent of them were SMEs, which are 99.9% of all enterprises. STRUCTURE OF GDP IN POLAND IN 2012 CUSTOMS 11% MICRO 32% ENTERPRISES 70% OTHERS 19% MIDDLE 11% SMALL 8% BIG 19% OTHERS CUSTOMS MICRO SMALL MIDDLE BIG The competition is harsh, and enormous number of new enterprises is coming up every year. Thus, no doubt that that is crucially important for an SME to choose the right entry strategy in order to operate the internalization process successfully. The appropriate entry strategy will have great consequences on the development of the firm, its revenues and the way it will hold on the stark market. It’s essential...
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...SME’s is like blood veins in the human body. National development depends upon the growth of small and medium business enterprises. They provide the largest share of employment after agriculture. They are the nurseries for entrepreneurship and innovation. They are widely dispersed across the country and produce a diverse range of products to meet the needs of the local markets, the global market and the national and international value chains. SME’s sector has emerged as a highly vibrant and dynamic sector of the Indian economy. SME’s not only play crucial role in providing large employment opportunities at comparatively lower capital cost than large industries but also help in industrialization of rural & backward areas, thereby, reducing regional imbalances, assuring more equitable distribution of national income and wealth. SME’s are complementary to large industries as ancillary units and this sector contributes enormously to the socioeconomic development of the country. XIV. References: [1]Annual Reports 2013-14, Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprise, Government of India. [2]“Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises, 2007: Micro, Small...
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...INTRODUCTION Difficult access to funding is one of the most important constraints to the growth and development of SME’s. Recent developments in our country, the global economic and financial crisis has further degraded the situation in the area and increased the pressure to find alternative sources of funding. Therefore, the search for alternative sources of funding has become increasingly common in recent years. It is based on the close co-operation between investors, intermediaries and entrepreneur. Crowdfunding is solicitation of funds which are collected in small amount from multiple investors through a web-based platform or social networking site for a specific project, business venture or social cause. It allow entrepreneurs to raise...
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...developed the market into a size that is sufficiently big and profitable. A better strategy choice for the SMEs might be to offer products/services that are substitutable to, but differentiated from, that offered by the incumbent bigger firms. This paper, through the use of deductive logic and actual case examples, shows why a substitution strategy might indeed be a better strategic choice for the SMEs. Introduction Conventional wisdom (see for examples Perry, 1987; Waterworth 1987; and Kotler, 1996) suggests that niching is the strategy choice of SMEs given that SMEs have limited resources. They do not have plentiful financial resources, and very often are also short on manpower especially those with the necessary managerial skills and marketing expertise. However, it is this very lack of resources that may impede the SMEs' ability to niche successfully and sustain its market entry in the long run This is because, in following the niching strategy, the SMEs must possess some sustainable competitive advantages, advantages that often require substantial resources and time to develop. The potential entry of bigger firms into the SMEs' markets should not be overlooked nor underestimated. This is especially so once the SMEs have successfully built up the market niches to the extent that demand becomes...
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...[pic] A B E R D E E N B U S I N E S S S C H O O L Course Work Submission Form |Name: |Vigneshwaran Palanisamy | |Email: |1118562@rgu.ac.uk | |Course: |Msc Purchasing & Supply Chain Management | |Module: |BSM577 - Research Methods | |Assignment and Title: |Implementing E-procurement in Indian organisation : surveys of SMEs | |Date: |7/1/13 | |For the attention of: |Dr Elizabeth Tait | WORD COUNT: ABSTRACT: This report was undertaken for the commitment of future research in dissertation. E-commerce is gaining a lot more attention in current global market. E-commerce models such as B2B, B2C, B2E and B2G has been successful due to many implementation and adoption of standardized process tools like EDI, shipping, tracking, payment and delivery among the suppliers around the globe through a strong supply network. The most vital element of B2B...
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...E-Business in Students Life’s Behavioral simulations are often used as a way of exposing students to "real life" situations to gain firsthand experience of business problems and solutions, however at the University of the Sunshine Coast we chose to use "experiential learning" as one of the teaching strategies in the unit INF320 Electronic Commerce by exposing final year Bachelor of Business, Information Systems students to implement actual electronic commerce business solutions by drawing on their previous theoretical and behavioral classroom simulations in a tripartite collaborative activity over a whole semester involving the student, the business owner and the university. While behavioral simulations provide an effective way of exposing students to realistic situations, our experience demonstrates that the integration of the university with the local business owner not only raises the profile of university and keeps it in the public eye but also for the students gaining practical insight into the day-to-day operational forces affecting business decision. Students have the opportunity to make a worthwhile contribution to business, by applying, the knowledge and skills accumulated over the years and hence, build up self-confidence before moving out into the business world as graduates. Introduction == The traditional teaching method used in many classrooms is to devise one or more case studies based on business activities for students to solve...
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...Introduction In a country like Bangladesh, Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME) plays a significant role in boosting up the overall health of the economy. Their contribution towards the economy includes generation of large scale employment, investment, improvement of indigenous skill and technology, promotion of exports and opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovativeness. Bangladesh has around 27,000 medium-sized enterprises and 150,000 small-sized enterprises (defined by the government of Bangladesh as registered enterprises). Different countries and organizations define SME’s in different way. The SMEs are defined on the basis of two criteria across the world: volume of turnover and number of person employed in a particular organization. Small firms cover a wide variety of firms ranging from the single proprietor business, independent business owners who employ a handful of workers. The central bank of Bangladesh defines any business having a “Net-Worth” of up-to Tk. 10 Million or number of employees between 10 to 50 persons as small and business having a “Net-Worth” between Tk. 10 to 100 Million, or employees between 50 to 100 persons as Medium enterprises (Ahmed at al, 2011) 1. The Government of Bangladesh has categorized SME into two broad classes: Manufacturing enterprise and Non Manufacturing activities. The International Consultancy Group (ICG) of the UK, in collaboration with the Micro Industries Development Assistance and Services (MIDAS), conducted in...
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...uniCredit is to provide financial services that are specifically tailored to the needs of personal customers and micro, small and medium scale enterprises. The company currently has nine(9) department which comprises of the Human Resource, Business Development, Internal control, Risk and Compliance, Marketing and Service quality, Credit department, Information Technology, Finance and Administration, Operations, Legal, Small and Medium Enterprises(credit) department performance There had been mixed up in the jobs descriptions of four departments that is Marketing and Service quality, Business Development, SME’s and the credit departments. Mostly both managers at Marketing and Business development ends up taken each other’s role. There has also not been clearly defined role or job description for both Head of SME’s and Credit manager. Again Relationship officers at various branches currently reports to these four departments. They are seen as credit officers who does clients loans appraisal and recoveries and reports to both the head of SME’s and the credit manager, as marketing officers thus sell products of the uniCredit to prospective clients and reports to the marketing manager, as business development officers, who does the account management of clients and reports to the business development manager. This...
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...Make money online is by using information and communication technology (ICT). Multi award-winning businesswoman Fione Tan is the pioneer of eCommerce in Asia. She started her Internet marketing company eOneNet.com in 1999. It also recently teamed up with the world’s biggest online shopping mall, Amazon, to help Asian SME’s sell items online to the US market. Fione Tan give some tips to make money through ICT. First of all make money doing what you love. Think what you want to be in five or ten years more and see which ideas can actually be turned into a business then you can create an online business. Now a day ICT is the best way to start your business without using a big modal and can gain more profit faster. Next is combine offline and online. It means if you already have physical stores, the best way to expand is by moving online. Most global brands also combine their marketing to drive traffic from offline shops to online websites and vice versa. Through ICT you also can earn money in US dollar no matter if you are a new woman entrepreneur or current businesswoman. Need to prepare product for the three billion-strong global audience online. Sell globally and earn US dollars is helping you to gain more profit. Even if you already selling online via auctions or social sites, you’ll need to learn how to set up an online branded store. New CrowdFunding for Business seminar. Many entrepreneurs feel that lack of money is the reason they cannot succeed. But with crowdfunding...
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...Small Places Can Change the World The Role of Information Technology in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Kosova Dr. Mihane Berisha-Namani1 Abstract Information technology had a great impact in all aspects of life and the global economy is currently undergoing fundamental transformation. Information technology has very real impact in most of industries and in all aspects of economy, while businesses and enterprises continue to undergo considerable changes. Usage of these technologies is revolutionizing the rules of business, resulting in structural transformation of enterprises. Modern businesses are not possible without help of information technology, which is having a significant impact on the operations of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME) and it is claimed to be essential for the survival and growth of economies in general. SME is drawing attention in developed and developing countries as well as in transition countries. It is generally recognized that SME play a key role in the revitalization and development of national economy in many countries and particular in the context of Kosova. It is encouraging the development of SME and the role that SME sector can play in promoting economic and social development by creating opportunities for employment. These components are described and discussed while more research and studies on the adoption of information technology in SME in Kosova are proposed as necessary. Key words: Information technology, Small and Medium...
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