Marketing

Parma first time under the name "Prosciutto di Parma" on the Canadian market

For Parma ham is a historic moment: With the approval of the European Parliament on the FTA CETA between the EU and Canada Parma ham must now be sold without restriction under the brand name "Prosciutto di Parma" in Canada. Products with EU protection were given a special status under the Agreement. For Parma ham this is a co-existence of the marks "Prosciutto di Parma" and "Parma". The latter has so far owned by the Canadian company Maple Leaf ...

Read more

Food industry: May it be a little bit more?

As companies in the food industry to decouple itself from the stagnating market and write their own growth story

The consulting firm Munich Strategy Group (MSG) has taken the forces of growth in the German food industry closer look. How can individual SMEs, to step out of the development of their industry and to write their own growth story? Then are the created in cooperation with HSH Nordbank recent study by the MSG surprising answers.

The study findings are based on research and analyzes in the period from September to December 2013. In addition to a comprehensive enterprise survey and numerous interviews with experts in the food industry in particular forms a performance analysis of 144 companies from all segments of the medium-sized food industry, the empirical basis of the study.

Read more

Trading companies must be strategic

Study: Trading Company tend to short-term process and cost optimization measures?

Study of IIHD Institute and the consulting firm BearingPoint shows: Trading Company have weaknesses in the strategy implementation / management work to surgically

German trade is more than ever in transition. Efficiency improvement projects, surplus space in almost all areas and formats, as well as increasing competition from former pure online retailers, international retail giant and increasingly vertikalisierende manufacturers are trading companies and their executives are coming under pressure. A change in their business models should have the highest priority - this in practice, however, there is a lack of strategic skills. This underlines a recent study of management and technology consultancy BearingPoint and IIHD Institute, were interviewed for the executives of 30 German trading company.

Read more

Only real feelings worthwhile

Researchers at the University of Jena show that the services sector is only of honest friendliness

The wishes of the customer in mind and always smiling: For employees in the retail and service company which is part of everyday life. Because whether the customer buys something, depends crucially also on whether he was served courteously. But sometimes good is also the most beautiful smile nothing, namely, if it is only played. This was demonstrated with colleagues from Münster and Australia now empirical scientists of University of Jena.

The research team has investigated whether the efforts of an employee to a customer arrives alike in this. The scientists were able to find a positive relationship between customer-oriented behavior of the employee and the perception by the customer. Come add a high level of authentic friendliness, the effect increases significantly, they write in an advance online published article in the journal British Journal of Management (DOI: 10.1111 / 1467-8551.12049).

Read more

German companies address their customers to wrong

Companies have large backlog in the targeted customer approach: apply both in terms of the communication channel as well as with their offers not the needs of customers, so the result of the representative study "Customer Centricity Management" by Steria Mummert Consulting. Most companies offer general information on the product, although customers prefer promotions and tailored information. And they underestimate the most desired communication channel: the e-mail.

Almost all companies (94 percent) send general information, but only slightly more than half provide customers with special offers. Consumers prefer exactly the opposite: More than half do not want any information about services at all. Just over a third prefer information on special price promotions and offers. Companies should therefore emphasize special offers more than before in their active customer communication.

Read more

No prospects? - New study on East German retail appeared

The many places mashed out of the ground after the turn shopping centers on greenfield complicate retailers in many eastern German medium and large cities even now the existence. "To date, created in the first years after reunification retail structures to act," says Dr. Gerd Hessert, the lecturer of Retail Management at the University of Leipzig. Together with Prof. Dr. Arnd Jenne from the degree program trading and logistics of Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences in Suderburg he has the situation of retailers in 29 East German cities with more than 50.000 population studied empirically.

The results of the analysis, the two authors now published in the book "Future Perspectives of the inner-city retailing in eastern medium and large cities". The data are based on written surveys of each charge of urban planning, economic development and city marketing, the Chambers of Commerce and on its own surveys to stores in so-called 1a locations locally. Also already present retail reports were included in the analysis. "We describe every single city with tables and data as total sales, purchasing power, sales areas, of offerings, 1a locations, shopping center space and vacant retail space," said Hessert.

Read more

Please smile! The correct approach to clients

Economists Jena University analyze emotion work in the service sector

Whether in the chic boutique, at the cheese counter in the supermarket or at the counter of the local transport: the customer can expect to be served by friendly staff. Although permanent smile and exaggerated enthusiastic standard phrases are also not always well received. What is certain: The often expressed in the past accused the service sector in Germany is not sufficiently customer-oriented, so is no longer correct. "Today service companies expect their employees to treat customers courteous and friendly - no matter in what state of mind they are themselves straight," says Prof. Gianfranco Walsh of the University of Jena. This "emotion work" put considerable demands on the staff, finally ", the emotion shown outwardly so much at odds with one's own feelings are," said the Chair of General Business Administration and Marketing.

And this comes at a price: There is hardly a sector employee turnover is as high as in the services sector. The constant contact with customers is a mental challenge that can lead to stress and fatigue, and in extreme cases to sickness absence or even termination. As Prof. Walsh and his colleague Prof. Boris Bartikowski could now prove by the Euromed Business School in Marseille in a study that emotion work for the overall satisfaction of the service staff plays a decisive role. The report economists in the current "European Journal of Marketing".

Read more

BVDW: 97 percent of German Internet users to communicate via e-mail

New magazine with study material on e-mail marketing, service and business communication

The e-mail is one of the most popular means of communication of German Internet users: 97 percent communicate via emails, three quarters of them engage daily on their emails. Over the past four years, the proportion of Internet users using at least monthly emails to total 25 percent increase. In addition, Germany is in the stationary E-mail use was slightly above the EU average, with mobile usage just below. This confirms the Bundesverband Digitale Wirtschaft (BVDW) eV with the representative study Mediascope 2012, which is a core element of the new specialist publication "Email Monitor". In addition to these results, the e-mail specialists and authors provide further extensive study material for e-mail marketing, business and service communications and summarize the current state of e-mail, upcoming trends and development opportunities in the B-to-C and B- to-B environment together. More details are available on the BVDW website at www.bvdw.org.

Christoph Becker (United Internet Dialog), Head of Labs Email 360 ° BVDW: "E-mail is the most widely used Internet application and also the most efficient communication channel to encourage consumers to buy Therefore digital communication via email is also. from a commercial perspective, a topic on which no company comes over. email is the central "Linking Pin" in the digital business and communications services as well as in e-mail marketing. "

Read more