Merry Christmas and Happy New Year - Enjoy the holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

As it is the Christmas Holidays it is unlikely any new content is going to be uploaded. This is due to this content being largely created at school and I won't obviously be having lessons (or free/study period) to create it in if I am not there. However, there may be some content as I prepare for AS Mocks in January 2017.

And, well, when this is posted we have not broken up yet. It has been posted on the morning of the last day before the holidays!
 

Types of Product and Managing Products

Managing Products

·         The product lifecycle.

·         Analysis of product portfolios.

·         Branding.

·         New product development.

Types of Product

	Convenience	Shopping	Speciality
Example	Chewing Gum	TV	Sports Car
Distribution (Place)	Very Wide	Wide	Limited
Price	The price isn’t really that important as it is normally relatively low	The price is important as customers shop around and compare different products	The price isn’t very significant, as it is a special purchase.
Product	There is some brand loyalty.	There is some brand loyalty, but there is also comparison between brands	There is strong brand awareness
Promotion	They aim the product at large numbers of customers, they aim to draw them into the store and use in store promotions to attract impulse buys	Will raise brand awareness	The products are very targeted (e.g. people of different wealth)
Process	They are often impulse buys	They may have payment and credit terms	May want payment terms
Physical Environment	It is not very significant	It is relatively significant	It is very significant
People	There is limited importance	Important as customers want staff to know about strengths of brands and the particular model product that they are buying	Very important as staff in store reflect on the brand a lot

Analysis of the Marketing Mix

Analysis of new product development decisions

May be required because…

• ·         An existing product is coming to the end of its product lifestyle.
• ·         There are new opportunities opening up due to changes happening in the market.
• ·         The business has a desire to build on the strengths of the brand.
• ·         It is a way of achieving growth.
• ·         To allow them to match what their competitors are doing.

Pricing decisions

• ·         Costs.
• ·         Positioning of the product.
• ·         The stage of the products lifecycle.
• ·         Price elasticity of demand.
• ·         The competitiveness of the market.
• ·         Other elements of the marketing mix.

Promotion decisions

• ·         The target market.
• ·         The message the business is trying to bring across.
• ·         The promotion budget.
• ·         The positioning of the business or the product.
• ·         The competitive environment.

Branding decisions

• ·         The brand represents a promise made by the business.
• ·         As customers, we recogniser brands and associate the brands with particular values.
• ·         The brand’s logo, slogan and anything else that makes it different from competitors recognised.

Distribution decisions

• ·         The degree of coverage (locally, globally and nationally).
• ·         Costs of different distribution strategies.
• ·         The target market.
• ·         Positioning
• ·         Competitors.

Labour Productivity, Calculating Costs and Capacity Utilisation

Green highlighted text is an formula.

Labour Productivity

Measures how many units one employee makes

Labour Productivity = Total Output/Number of Employees

Calculating Unit Cost

Measures the cost per unit.

Unit costs = Total costs/Total output

Calculating Costs

Total fixed costs = Total costs – Total variable costs

Total variable costs = Total costs – Total fixed costs

Total Costs = Total variable costs + Total fixed costs

Total Cost = Unit costs x no of unit costs

Unit cost = Total costs/number of units

No of units = Total costs/unit costs.

Capacity Utilisation

Capacity utilisation shows what percentage of the maximum possible output is being utilised (existing output).

Capacity Utilisation = Existing Output/Maximum Possible Output

Characteristics of Documents

Documents have many things.

Characters

• These are single letters or numbers.
• They can be formatted.

Paragraph

• A paragraph is a set of sentences.
• They are separated by line gaps. This done by pressing the enter key twice.
• Paragraphs can be formatted with indentation, alignment, line spacing and borders.

Page

• A page is a single side of paper, once printed.
• Pages can contain text, numbers, images, shapes, tables and other items.
• They can have multiple properties such as size, orientation, margins, backgrounds and borders.

Section

• A section is an area of a document.
• It can contain multiple and single pages.
• It has its own properties, which are similar to properties for pages.

Frames

• Frames are an independent area of a page that can contain text, images or tables.
• They have the same properties as paragraphs as well as other properties such as word wrapping, order, alignment and rotation.

Headers and Footers

• There are areas at the top and at the bottom of the page.
• They can contain text, images, etc and can also be formatted.
• They often contain page numbers.
• The first page and odd/even pages can have different headers and footers.

Footnote

• A footnote is additional information for reference. 
• They are indicated by a number letter or symbol.
• They appear at the bottom of the page.

The Boston Matrix

The Boston Matrix is used to analyse product portfolios. Each product can be put in an area based on Market Share and Market Growth.