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Apple is a very good innovator of new products and a leading product champion in the technology industry. They are known to introduce state-of-the-art products long before their rivals can even imagine about those ideas. But they do not follow-through by improving their processes and make these products available to the common user. Apple has to work on improving their business processes and find effective ways to deliver these products through efficient distribution channels and marketing approaches. The only way Apple can prevent the market share being taken away by its rivals who copy Apple’s innovations is to emerge as a process champion as well and work on reducing the cost of their products so that the customers do not turn away for a cheaper product. They should also patent all of its ideas so that they can share the revenues with their rivals who use Apple’s patented ideas.
The core principle of Apple is innovation. They promote creativity and innovation at all levels of their business. Employees are given incentives for coming up with new product ideas and given the freedom to implement prototypes at the expense of the company. They conduct workshops to develop the creative minds of employees and spreads the awarness that creativity and innovation are the keys to success in their industry. Apple is a creative product champion and comes up with new products way before its rivals. The competitors of Apple, like Dell, Acer, HP, IBM, follow the creative ideas of Apple and develop their own products using these ideas. They distribute these products more effectively and gain the market share with a more competitive pricing model and improved business processes.
The differential responses by a consumer in purchasing decisions is used by many firms in market segmentation and design advertising, products etc., based on consumer characteristics. Such segmentation usually involves purchasing rates as the major factor influencing the buyer’s behavior and targets such groups as “heavy users”, “brand loyals”, and similar consumer groups. This study, however, stresses on the importance of other parameters like “awareness”, “general liking”, and “intention to purchase” in defining consumer groups, along with purchase rates. The research is based on the hypothesis that a single segmenting variable like purchase rate is not enough to define consumer characteristics, but require an extended regression model, which includes associated parameters like customer’s awareness to the product features and competing products, his/her likes and dislikes on a particular product group and the degree of intention to purchase.
The major concepts used in the study are the consumer’s overt behavior, learning and cognition. The concept of overt behavior is measured using the variable – purchase rate. Learning can be measured by variables like advertising awareness, motivation, and various preconceptions. Cognitive ability of a consumer is measured using the variables such as his/her attitudes, comprehension, intention to purchase and level of satisfaction. In addition, the study also uses demographic variables related to the consumer’s household. Following is a comprehensive list of variables identified in this study:
Endogenous Variables: Attention, Perceptual Bias, Stimulus Ambiguity, motive, Overt Search, Attitude, Intention to Purchase, Brand Comprehension, Confidence, Purchase and Satisfaction Level.
Exogenous Variables: Exposure to Media, Word-of-Mouth Conversation Activity, Receipt of Samples/Coupons and Price Paid.
Socio-demographic Variables: Mealtime Group, Homemaking Skill, Leadership, Household Size, Size of City, Age of Housewife, Housewife’s Education, Housewife’s Employment, Household Income, Housewife’s Time-Per-Week in Kitchen, Size of Meal and Prior Purchase Behavior.
The study assumes multiple-variable relationship among criterion variables and includes demographic descriptors of the decision units. Explicit functional relationships are defined using flow charts and general functional equations relating the variables, leading to preliminary testing of linear specifications of the complex relationships among different elements of the system.
The research is designed using a statistical model, which evolves under certain benchmarking criteria. The starting point of the design is a linear model under the hypothesis that no segments exist. The design then expands the equation by searching for regression coefficient inequalities and suggests a causal and correlational study among the concepts that are identified for the study.
The study measures different variables using the natural rank order within each of the explanatory variables, all of which are discrete category measures. For example, “income” takes on values from 1 to 5, corresponding to increasing income levels. The variables are measured by splitting the values monotonically into smaller and smaller divisions.
The research was conducted on a consumer panel, which was established in a test market that consisted of 300,000 households and 1,000,000 people. A sample of 70,000, selected systematically (probabilistic systematic sampling + judgment) from area telephone directories, received recruitment letters and screening questionnaires. About 8,300 people responded and 1,100 were selected for the panel. After the screening questionnaire, members reported every 2 weeks on their purchases of fife food product classes identified for the study. The eating habits, involvement in homemaking, impulsiveness, gregariousness, time pressures, and concerns with nutrition were measured using mailed questionnaires. Respondents were also asked whether they had ever heard of brands in the related product class. And for each brand they had heard of, they were asked about the usage of these products, their attitudes towards that brand, importance of these attitudes in their purchase decisions, and the likelihood of their purchasing the brand in the next month. Another phase of telephone interviews was conducted over the telephone and only those families who completed all phases of data collection procedure were used for analysis. After screening out a handful of other data points due to missing data, produced a final sample of 693 households used for the study.
The results are provided as tables and cross-tabs and analyzed equation by equation. First, attitude is analyzed as a dependent variable and the results show a significant increase in the coefficient of determination of this segmented specification. The study finds that the coefficient of previous purchase divides for respondents whose intention level is smaller than 2 and is raised significantly when intention is greater than or equal to 2.0, indicating that previous purchase is a strong segmenting variable. Analysis of intention to purchase as a dependent variable show that communication activities like word-of-mouth, company at meal etc., have a significant impact on buyer’s behavior. Heavy purchasers had a lower attitude coefficient, and homemaking skills turned out to be significant for people with measured confidence of 4.0 or higher. Analysis of purchase as the dependent variable show that the sole endogenous variable had a statistically significant coefficient, but re-specification of the variable to include a broader set of exogenous variables, divided it into several categories of dummy variables, each of which implies positive relationships between intention and purchase.
The research ends with a discussion of results and a summary. Market segments for a convenience food product were defined in terms of parametric relationships between three criterion variables (attitude, intention to purchase, and purchase) and a variety of causal factors including endogenous behavioral measures and exogenous socioeconomic variables. Goodness-of-fit measures and tests of significance on coefficients were used to detect different interrelationships. The analysis show that the segment identified turned out to be composed of relationships among endogenous variables, a disappointment to the focus of study, because these variables are not subject to direct manipulation but rather are phenomena, which intervene in the decision process. Sociodemographic measures used in the study provided a basis for segment identification. The study, however, does not clearly summarize the results and say about whether the hypothesis is supported or not. It just concludes by indicating that more time and money are required for a segmentation study like this.
The research is well designed and focuses on the hypothesis. The sampling procedure and measurements are well suited for the field of study. But the results are not discussed well, and often tend to be too technical and difficult to understand. I would recommend interpreting the mathematical results to plain English so that it is easier to understand by companies/individuals who are looking at the results of similar research, to improve their market segmentation strategies. A longitudinal study, including the same panel, on the behavioral changes would also help in getting an accurate picture of the buyer behavior model.
Some of the key principles of time and stress management:
- Make a list of things to accomplish in a day. Focus on what to achieve, not just on what to do.
- Prioritize the tasks. Focus first on important tasks and then deal with urgent tasks.
- Do one important thing at a time and several trivial things simultaneiously.
- Divide up large projects.
- Save your best time for important matters.
- Reserve some time during the day when others don’t have access to you so that you could complete your important tasks without any interruption.
- Keep track of your time as an important time management strategy.
- Reach closure on at least one thing every day.
- Hold routine meetings at the end of the day.
- Insist that subordinates suggest solutions to problems.
- Have someone else answer telephone calls, scan e-mail and do small routine tasks.
- Delegate work, identify the amount of initiative recipients should take with the tasks they are assigned, and give others credit for their success. Effective delegation is a key time management technique.
Past and current studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between the amount/type of television programs watched and the personal and social traits of an individual. The television significantly influences the personal action system of an individual by negatively affecting his/her reading, sleeping and eating habits and the amount of time an individual spends on activities related to hobbies and exercising. It has also been proven that television affects the development of one’s cognitive skills.
Television viewing also plays a key role in the social and cultural behaviors of people and affects the way in which they interact with their social environment. The more time an individual spends on watching television, the less time he/she gets to spend in social activities, family gatherings, religious activities and other cultural programs that are essential for him/her to be an effective social animal.
Current Business and Academic Thinking
There are several researches that focus on examining the impacts of television on family interactions. Some of them follow a non-traditional approach by conducting interviews with individual family members on the viewing habits, when they watch television with other family members.
The research on family perceptions of television viewing habits by Nancy M. Hopkins and Ann K. Mullis sheds light on how television can influence individual behavior and family interactions. The research is conducted with 24 mother-father-child triads with specialized interview questions targeted to each family member. The study was conducted from Monday through Friday and the informal way in which children are interviewed helps in avoiding various research errors. The information about viewing behavior of the same program is collected from the different perspectives of each family member. The research provides a detailed analysis of the findings and tries to find the degree of concordance amount the father/mother/child triads. The study finds that there is a difference in agreement between the father and the mother on the television viewing habits of their children. The research finds that fathers tend to think that their children watch more television when compared to what mothers think about the television viewing habits of their children. The research also discusses the possible reasons by which the degree of agreement between children/father varies from those between children/mother. Fathers spend less time with their children than mothers. When the father is at home watching a television program, the study finds that kids are most likely to watch the program with him. This makes a perception on the part of the father to think that the kids are watching lots of television.
Past studies have also focused on the influence of television viewing in the way in which it affects people’s perceptions of the society. The “Cultivation Theory” by Gerbner and his colleagues is centered on the theory that television viewing presents a systematic distortion of reality. There are some significant negative impacts of television on people’s minds and how they relate the crime, violence and sexual content to their personal lives. The studies presented in this theory are based on two of the previous well know models:
Heuristic Processing Model of Cultivation Effects: A group of undergraduate students were chosen to answer a questionnaire that assess their perceptions on the prevalence of crime and particular occupations. The participants were randomly assigned to three different priming conditions and the responses were tabulated. The results are presented based on several regression analysis that assessed the relation of television viewing to social reality estimates within each priming conditions. The study ends by discussing the main causes of the effects of television on people’s perceptions.
The second study is based on the hypothesis that people take a neutral stand when asked to judge the amount of television that they watch on a scale of ordered alternatives. Again a group of undergraduate students were grouped randomly into classes of four conditions and were asked to estimate their viewing based on a frequency scale. This study confirms the conclusions drawn from the first study.
In general, the research methods used for this topic are scientific and focuses on several aspects of people’s perceptions and do extensive secondary research based on proven standards. Several studies also give an in-depth view of the causal effects of television on how people relate their television viewing habits to their day-to-day life.
The impact of television on the cultural values of society is significant and enforces its influence on the personal behavior of an individual. Several studies have shown the importance of conducting a scientific research and providing the results based on the personal, social and cultural impacts of television on society. All these studies explain how television becomes a substitute for social activity within and outside the family circle and how it emerges as an expected form of social interaction among friends.
| One of the research studies puts its perspective on the process by which a family establishes its television schedule and how the socio-economic status and the education levels of parents impact the television viewing habits among their children. |  |
The study is based on in-depth interviews with parents. Interviewers were graduate and under-graduate level students and the interviews were conducted for an hour.
The study measures the impact of television on the education of children using three different topics of scientific, moral and social contribution of television on education. The research uses social class of the family as the independent variable. The results of the research found dramatic differences in the responses of parents among different classes of society (see Table 1). The study concludes that television watching is more extensive in the working classes than in the other social groups, and fathers in particular judge their children to watch more television at this level.
A longitudinal study by Steven L. Gortmaker, Charles A. Salter, Debora K. Walker and William H. Dietz Jr. discusses the influence of television viewing habits onto the cognitive abilities of growing children. The study tries to eliminate the errors by sampling a wide range of audience from a national level. The focus of the study was on young children who participate in Cycle 2 and Cycle 3 of surveys, each of which are three years apart. During Cycle 2, parents were interviewed on the amount of television watching by their children, and during Cycle 3, children themselves were interviewed on the same topic. The result shows that there was a substantial variance in the data from Cycle 2 and Cycle 3. The research concludes that there are no significant causal relationship between the amount of television viewed and the aptitude changes of young children. The following table shows the correlation of the survey results conducted during cycle 2 and cycle 3 of the studies.
The study, however, fails to take other external factors like region, size of place, parent’s education level, neighborhood etc., into consideration and bases its thesis mainly on a very broad question rather than dealing with specific attributes of television viewing.
Conclusion
Television acts as a major force in social integration and cultural uniformity. Several studies have proven that the time spent by an individual in front of television plays a significant role in the personal habits of that individual and the way in which he/she interacts with his/her social environment. The different types of television programs that an individual watches are also an important determinant of his/her personal and social traits.
Recommendations
In order to prove the hypothesis that there exist a direct correlation between the amount/type of television programs watched and the personal and social traits of an individual, a detailed research is recommended to study the various personal and social behaviors of an audience and analyze the data to find the behavioral changes imposed by television viewing. A self-administrated survey is proposed to measure the personal action system of an individual by collecting data about the reading habits, sleeping habits, eating habits, hobbies and exercise related activities of an individual and try to study the correlation between these behaviors and the impact of television on each one of these personal behaviors. We could also study the impact of television on the social traits of an individual by collecting data about how much time an individual spends in social activities like outdoor games, family picnics, religious activities and other cultural programs. The survey would include questions that measure these attributes and would be handed out to an audience of 100 individuals, selected randomly from as broad a spectrum as possible.
References
Family Perceptions of Television Viewing Habits – Nancy M. Hopkins; Ann K. Mullis
Family Relations > Vol. 34, No. 2
The Effects of Television Consumption on Social Perceptions – L. J. Shrum; Robert S. Wyer
The Journal of Consumer Research > Vol. 24, No. 4
Television Within the Social Matrix – Robert V. Hamilton; Richard H. Lawless
The Public Opinion Quarterly > Vol. 20, No. 2
Parental Perceptions of the Role of Television in Parent-Child Interaction - Cora A. Martin; Leonard Benson
Journal of Marriage and the Family > Vol. 32, No. 3
The Impact of Television Viewing on Mental Aptitude and Achievement: A Longitudinal Study - Steven L. Gortmaker; Charles A. Salter; Deborah K. Walker; Wiliam H. Dietz. Jr.
The Public Opinion Quarterly > Vol. 54, No. 4
Television and American Culture: The Mass Medium and the Pluralist Audience – W. Russel Neuman
The Public Opinion Quarterly > Vol. 46, No. 4
Television and behavior: Research conclusions of the 1982 NIMH report and their policy implications – Rubenstein, E. A. > American Psychologist
This article from World Business helps us understand an important period in history—the decade when the U.S. dollar kept falling. The constant rise in the Japanese yen caused extreme problems for Japanese companies. This proves that the principles are same regardless of which currency happens to be up or down at a particular moment in time.
The article says “the wholesale prices exporters could command had essentially been cut by two thirds.” What it means is that the yen had appreciated against US dollar from $1 = 240 yen in 1985 to $1 = 80 yen in early 1995. In order to remain competitive in the market, Japanese exporters had to cut down their profits by two thirds.
The company profiled here did worse and worse as the yen got stronger. As the yen got stronger, the company’s exports became less profitable and their products became less competitive compared to the other low-wage Asian economies. In order to improve things, Endaka reduced employee bonuses and relied on quality manufacturing and service. They invested in R&D to build low-cost semi-automatic machines to compete with their low-waged Asian rivals. The company also setup a new plant in Bangkok to gain a cost advantage.
Reducing employee bonuses and building low-cost machines reduces the operating costs, thereby keeping the prices same as before, to be competitive in the market. This allows them to export at the same price without passing through the exchange rate fluctuation. Starting a plant in Bangkok whose currency was on the decline, helped the company to compete against other low-waged countries, there by reducing the production costs.
The article was written at the exact time that the yen reversed and started its decline. When the yen starts to decline, the firm’s exports will become cheaper and more competitve in the world markets. The firm should now export more. The firm should also reduce the amount of imports which they had relied on during the period when yen was appreciating. They should also return to their previous bonus scale to revive employee satisfaction and morale.
