MARKETING CHANNELS AND LOGISTICS

Marketing Channels and Logistics



Marketing Channels and Logistics

Task 1: Identification Of Four Key Marketing And Logistics Strategy Challenges That The Company's (Presto) Senior Management Is Facing

Following lines discuss four marketing and Logistics strategy challenges in a concise way.

1. Customer Value Learning In Global Supply Chains

We know that customer value perceptions can be multifaceted involving product/service perceptions, use situations, and values/goals and that value hierarchies are a useful way to think about how customers think and feel about the interaction between products/services and the benefits and sacrifices they create. We also know that business customers value functional, service, and relationship benefits and consider those benefits in light of monetary and nonmonetary sacrifices. Developing sound marketing strategies that drive key initiatives in areas such as brand (re)positioning, product development, and pricing rest on a sound understanding of these notions of value as perceived by customers.

Armstrong & Kotler (2003) mention a supply chain perspective in the context of Presto Limited means the senior management must understand what their immediate down-stream customers and their customers' customers value, ideally through to what endue customers value. In business-to-business commerce where multiple people inside customer organizations influence buying decisions, marketers must integrate multiple individual value perceptions to arrive at a clear vision of what each customer organization values. In other words, viewing the supply chain through a customer value lens, we see a need to understand, compare, contrast, and reconcile desired attributes, consequences, and goals for many managers within Presto Limited. When these supply chains span multiple nations, the differences in firm and decision-maker values, goals, use situations, and relative importance rankings of product and service attributes becomes more pronounced (Armstrong & Kotler, 2003). Thus, the challenge here is in first recognizing that supply chain partners must understand what each firm (firm used in the context of Presto Limited) in their supply chain values at a depth far greater than most firms do now.

Second, that this understanding involves taking into account complexities not only inherent in organizations generally, but also those created by the fact that many of those organizations are embedded in very different national cultures, regional business norms, economic situations, and regulatory environments. These and other differentiating variables will not only drive firms to value different benefits and tolerate different sacrifices around the globe, but will also create more barriers to gaining an understanding of these different value perceptions. For example, market researchers generally know that where surveys may be an effective means of collecting data in the United Kingdom (although that is also debatable), surveys are much less effective in other regions of the world. The first step for Presto Limited is recognizing that everyone in the supply chain may value something different (Cachon, Randall & Schmidt, 2005). The second step is recognizing that many methods, both qualitative and quantitative, will be needed to capture those different value perceptions.

2. Understanding Customer Value Change in Global Supply

The senior management of Presto Limited considers that chains customers constantly change what they value ...