Video

In the class of Tuesday, us visit a professor of the Czech Republic and we gave the class with her.
First of all, we saw one video where had that to listen I engage in a dialog between 2 personages and to fill up the parts that lacked of he himself .

Soon, after often listening I engage in a dialog because pronunciacón was not very clear, we made ejercios several about the video.

Finally, we saw another video about the SWOT that tapeworm a circus company and to answer questions on he himself video and thus we finished the class because it was very behind schedule.

Finance and accounts

In the class of yesterday, we began with visualized of had videos where that to fill up the spaces that lacked of the text that says a personage.

Next, we made an exercise on in marketing kids divided in 3 parts. First he was pre - listening where have that to respond to questions, second listening where a man explained what kids was marketing and finally an exercise of post - listening.

In order to finalize the class, the teacher explained the subject to us of the class that now I am going to happen to comment.

FINANCE and ACCOUNTS

This divided in five parts

- Key Terms
- Purpose of Accounts
- Break Even
- Balance Sheet - Snapshot
- Profit and Loss Account - Flow

Key Terms
Is divides in:

- Costs
- Revenue
- Profit/Loss

Costs

- Fixed – are not influenced by the amount produced but can change in the long run e.g., insurance costs, administration, rent, some types of labour costs (salaries), some types of energy costs, equipment and machinery, buildings, advertising and promotion costs.

- Variable – vary directly with the amount produced, e.g., raw material costs, some direct labour costs, some direct energy costs

Total Costs (TC) = Fixed Costs (FC) + Variable Costs (VC)

Average Costs = TC/Output (Q)

–AC (unit costs) show the amount it costs to produce one unit of output on average
lMarginal Costs (MC) – the cost of producing one extra or one fewer units of production
–MC = TCn – TCn-1


Revenue

-Total Revenue – also known as turnover, sales revenue or ‘sales’ = Price x Quantity Sold
-TR = P x Q
-Price – may be a variety of different prices for different products in the portfolio
-Quantity – could be global sales

Profit

Profit = TR – TC
- Normal Profit – the minimum amount required to keep a business in a particular line of production.
- Abnormal/Supernormal Profit – the amount over and above the amount needed to keep a business in its current line of production.

Break Even

Occurs where Total Costs = Total Revenue
–Start-up costs – fixed costs
–Running costs – variable costs
–Revenue stream depends on price charged
–‘Low’ price – need to sell more to break-even
–‘High’ price – lower level of sales required before breaking even


Purpose of Accounts
Is divided in:
- Provide Information
- Monitor Activities
- Transparency
- Reduce chance of fraud

Provide information for stakeholders – customers, shareholders, suppliers, etc.
Provides the opportunity for the business to monitor its own activities
Provides transparency to enable the firm to attract investment
Reduces the chance for fraud – not 100% successful!!


Profit and Loss Account - Flow
Is divided in:
- Gross profit
- Net (operating profit)
- Profit after tax
- Dividend
- Retained profit

Shows the flow of sales and costs over a period
Shows the level of profit or loss made
Shows what has been done with the profit or loss

Dividend – the share of the profit returned to shareholders
Retained Profit – the amount kept back for future investment, etc.


Balance Sheet - Snapshot

A snapshot of the firm’s position at a point in time
Shows what a company owns (assets) and what it owes (liabilities)
Balance Sheet shows what assets a company has (use of funds) and where the money came from to acquire those assets (source of funds)

Current Assets: assets that are used up during production and which are likely to yield cash in the coming year – for example, stock will be sold and debtors owing the business money will pay up!

Subtracted from the assets are the money the company owes to creditors – suppliers for example.

A guide to the structure of the assets of a company
Gives a guide as to the degree of working capital – the amount the company has to be able to pay its everyday debts (current assets – current liabilities)
Shows the total value of a firm at that moment in time.

09/05/2007

In the last class, we began the class doing an exercise of reporting nouns where have that to put reporting verb that belongs. Later we saw reported structures and so that to use.

We continued with exercises of you practice to order phrases and to complete with information that they gave us in circles.

Later we continued with but exercises on rewrite the sentences using to reponting verb under that the meaning is the same and an exercise of transform the sentences from direct to indirect speech.

Next, in another exercise, have a series of reporting verbs with its suitable preposition and we filled up an exercise with some of them in five phrases.

In the part of vocabulary, we made an exercise of synonymous and antonym (ej. earn - spend) and another one on different words that mean (ej the same. Assessment: Appraisal, Evaluation, Test).

Finally, we saw the part of reading & writing that consist in ordering the paragraphs of a text, reading texts and to put title to them and to answer some questions about the text. Also we saw a presentation on a subject in Spanish to translate to the English and with a conclusion that I am not going to comment.

Pricing Strategies

In the class of yesterday, we began with the subject of the day, was the Pricing Strategies. Now I am going to speak of a theme.

The Pricing Strategies is divided in 15 possible strategies:

Penetration Pricing

- Price set to ‘penetrate the market’
- Low’ price to secure high volumes
- Typical in mass market products – chocolate bars, food stuffs, household goods, etc.
- Suitable for products with long anticipated life cycles
- May be useful if launching into a new market

Market Skimming

- High price, Low volumes
- Skim the profit from the market
- Suitable for products that have short life cycles or which will face competition at some point in the future (e.g. after a patent runs out)
- Examples include: Playstation, jewellery, digital technology, new DVDs, etc.

Value Pricing

- Price set in accordance with customer perceptions about the value of the product/service
- Examples include status products/exclusive products

Loss Leader

- Goods/services deliberately sold below cost to encourage sales elsewhere
- Typical in supermarkets, e.g. at Christmas, selling bottles of gin at £3 in the hope that people will be attracted to the store and buy other things
- Purchases of other items more than covers ‘loss’ on item sold
- e.g. ‘Free’ mobile phone when taking on contract package

Psychological Pricing

-Used to play on consumer perceptions
- Classic example - £9.99 instead of £10.99!
- Links with value pricing – high value goods priced according to what consumers THINK should be the price

Going Rate (Price Leadership)

- In case of price leader, rivals have difficulty in competing on price – too high and they lose market share, too low and the price leader would match price and force smaller rival out of market
- May follow pricing leads of rivals especially where those rivals have a clear dominance of market share
- Where competition is limited, ‘going rate’ pricing may be applicable – banks, petrol, supermarkets, electrical goods – find very similar prices in all outlets

Tender Pricing

- Many contracts awarded on a tender basis
- Firm (or firms) submit their price for carrying out the work
- Purchaser then chooses which represents best value
- Mostly done in secret

Price Discrimination

- Charging a different price for the same good/service in different markets
- Requires each market to be impenetrable
- Requires different price elasticity of demand in each market

Destroyer/Predatory Pricing

- Deliberate price cutting or offer of ‘free gifts/products’ to force rivals (normally smaller and weaker) out of business or prevent new entrants
- Anti-competitive and illegal if it can be proved

Absorption/Full Cost Pricing

- Full Cost Pricing – attempting to set price to cover both fixed and variable costs
- Absorption Cost Pricing – Price set to ‘absorb’ some of the fixed costs of production

Marginal Cost Pricing

- Marginal cost – the cost of producing ONE extra or ONE fewer item of production
- MC pricing – allows flexibility
- Particularly relevant in transport where fixed costs may be relatively high
- Allows variable pricing structure – e.g. on a flight from London to New York – providing the cost of the extra passenger is covered, the price could be varied a good deal to attract customers and fill the aircraft

Contribution Pricing

- Contribution = Selling Price – Variable (direct costs)
- Prices set to ensure coverage of variable costs and a ‘contribution’ to the fixed costs
- Similar in principle to marginal cost pricing
- Break-even analysis might be useful in such circumstances

Target Pricing

- Setting price to ‘target’ a specified profit level
- Estimates of the cost and potential revenue at different prices, and thus the break-even have to be made, to determine the mark-up
- Mark-up = Profit/Cost x 100

Cost-Plus Pricing

- Calculation of the average cost (AC) plus a mark up
- AC = Total Cost/Output

Influence of Elasticity

- Any pricing decision must be mindful of the impact of price elasticity
- The degree of price elasticity impacts on the level of sales and hence revenue
- Elasticity focuses on proportionate (percentage) changes
- PED = % Change in Quantity demanded/% Change in Price


Price Inelastic:
- % change in Q < % change in P - e.g. a 5% increase in price would be met by a fall in sales of something less than 5% -Revenue would rise - A 7% reduction in price would lead to a rise in sales of something less than 7% - Revenue would fall Price Elastic:
- % change in quantity demanded > % change in price
- e.g. A 4% rise in price would lead to sales falling by something more than 4%
- Revenue would fall
- A 9% fall in price would lead to a rise in sales of something more than 9%
- Revenue would rise

Later, we made an exercise on a video where had that to find the words that were incorrect and to change them by the correct ones of the dialog between several people.

In order to finalize the class, we made an exercise of vocabulary on the used suffixes that are used to form adjectives from verbs and prefixes that are used to form words with negative meanings.

Video Post

In the last class, I saw a video about the promotion of new shampoo.

In the video, the executives of the company were reunited to determine the name that was going to receive the product, for who went directed and the opinion that each member tapeworm of this product.

Later, I fill up questions about the video, dialogues between the executives, if true or false phrases that says were etc…Finally, I am made an exercise on like writing words in relation to its phonetic sound.

Market Research

In the last class, we began with an exercise of listening, we watched a video and we had that to fill up activities about the video and to make a brief writing on which to have happened.

After, the teacher explained the market research to us

Market Research

Learning objectives

- To understand the difference between primary and secondary market research
- To understand how primary and secondary market research may be used by a business to help inform its marketing decisions.


At first, we will see the first step about primary research, then secondary reseach, purpose and finally the sampling methods.


The primary research contains:

- Questionnaires
- Focus groups
- User groups
- Postal Survey
- Telephone Surveys
- Customer Interviews
- Test markets
- Technology - Internet feedback

Primary Research

– First hand information
– Expensive to collect, analyse and evaluate
– Can be highly focussed and relevant
– Care needs to be taken with the approach and methodology to ensure accuracy
– Types of question – Closed – limited information gained; Open – useful information but difficult to analyse.


Quantitative and Qualitative Information:

- Quantitative – based on numbers – 56% of eighteen year olds drink alcohol at least four times a week.

Doesn’t tell you why, when, how.

- Qualitative – more detail – tells you why, when and how

The secondary step is about secondary research which contains internal and external sources

Internal Sources consist of

- Company Accounts
- Internal Reports and Analysis
- Stock Analysis
- Retail data - till data, etc

External Sources consist of

- Government Statistics
- EU - Euro Stat
- Household Expenditure Survey
- Magazine surveys
- Other firms’ research
- Research documents – publications, journals, etc.
- Web sites: commercial & non-commercial


The Sampling Methods are based on
- Random Samples
- Stratified or Segment Random Sampling
- Quota Sampling
- Cluster Sampling
- Contact or "snowball" Sampling
- Multi-Stage Sampling


Sampling Methods:

Random Samples – equal chance of anyone being picked

– May select those not in the target group – indiscriminate
– Sample sizes may need to be large to be representative
– Can be very expensive


Stratified or Segment Random Sampling

– Samples on the basis of a representative strata or segment
– Still random but more focussed
– May give more relevant information
– May be more cost effective


Quota Sampling

– Again – by segment
– Not randomly selected
– Specific number on each segment are interviewed etc
– May not be fully representative
– Cheaper method


Cluster Sampling

–Primarily based on geographical areas or ‘clusters’ that can be seen as being representative of the whole population

Multi-Stage Sampling

–Sample selected from multi stage sub-groups

Snowball Sampling

–Samples developed from contacts of existing customers – ‘word of mouth’ type approach

The purpose consist of:

- Size of market
- Market Trends
- Forecasting
- Planning
- Evaluation of Strategies/Promotion
- Assessing Marketing Mix
- Identifying market segments
- Identifying consumer needs
- Identifying Competition
- Identifying Opportunities/gaps in the market
- Reduce Risk



Advantages of Market Research

– Helps focus attention on objectives
– Aids forecasting, planning and strategic development
– May help to reduce risk of new product development
– Communicates image, vision, etc.
– Globalisation makes market information valuable


Disadvantages of Market Research

– Information only as good as the methodology used
– Can be inaccurate or unreliable
– Results may not be what the business wants to hear!
– May stifle initiative and ‘gut feeling’
– Always a problem that we may never know enough to be sure!

Market Analysis

In the last class, we began with an exercise of pronunciation where we have to pronunciate the different letter sounds to understand the differences between longer or shorter sounds.

Then, the teacher has explained the market analysis theme.

Market Position: The questions are:

Market niche?
Market leader?
Market follower?
Market Challenger?


Market Position

- Market Niche – small part of an existing market
- Market Leader – maintain dominant position in the market?
- Market Follower – Follow the lead of the market leader – pricing, product development etc
- Market Challenger – Seek to adopt strategies to challenge market leader’s position


Market Objectives

- National Growth
- International Growth
- Ethical Objectives
- Market Share
- Consumer Focus
- Product Focus
- Image
- Social Responsibility
- Revenue Maximisation
- Shareholder Value
- Overcome Competitors

Will involve/determine some or all of the following:

– Market Penetration
– New Product Development
– Branding
– Diversification
– SWOT Analysis


Market Segments

- Age
- Religion
- Gender
- Incomer Level
- Lifestyle
- Ethnic Grouping
- Social Class
- Geographical region
- Family Circumstances
- Behaviouristic


Social Class

Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) Grouping

A – Higher managerial, professional and administrative
B – Middle management, professional and administrative
C1 – Supervisory, clerical and junior management
C2 – Skilled Manual Workers
D – Semi and unskilled manual workers
E – Pensioners, casual workers, unemployed


Which Segment?

Mass Markets – high volume, low margin goods – confectionary, cars, clothing, food stuffs

Multiple Segments – appealing to wider range of groups – e.g. 4x4 vehicles – town, country, gender, lifestyle, social class?

Single Segment – often a specialised product, e.g. machinery, exclusive goods


Market Structure

- Highly Competitive
- Impefect Competition
- Oligopoly
- Duopoly
- Monopoly


Nature of the market structure determines marketing strategy:

–Pricing strategy
–Branding?
–Product Differentiation?
–Market Penetration?
–Direct Selling?