In the lessons I use a more reader friendly language to describe official definitions. All used definitions are listed here. You can find more details about each definition on the website of ‘Business Dictionary’. You can also install their app on your phone or tablet.
Advertising
The activity or profession of producing information for promoting the sale of commercial products or services.
Brand identity
The visible elements of a brand (such as colors, design, logotype, name, symbol) that together identify and distinguish the brand in the consumers’ mind.
Competition
Rivalry in which every seller tries to get what other sellers are seeking at the same time: sales, profit, and market share by offering the best practicable combination of price, quality, and service. Where the market information flows freely, competition plays a regulatory function in balancing demand and supply.
Consumer
A purchaser of a good or service . An end user, and not necessarily a purchaser, in the distribution chain of a good or service.
Distribution
The movement of goods and services from the source through a distribution channel, right up to the final customer, consumer, or user, and the movement of payment in the opposite direction, right up to the original producer or supplier.
Marketing
The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings (product/ service <-> for money) that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large”. (source: http://www.ama.org)
Marketing is based on thinking about the business in terms of customer needs and their satisfaction. Marketing differs from selling because (in the words of professor Levitt) “Selling concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting people to exchange their cash for your product. It is not concerned with the values that the exchange is all about.And it does not, as marketing does, view the entire business process to discover, create, arouse and satisfy customer needs.”
Marketing Mix
A planned mix of the controllable elements of a product’s marketing plan commonly termed as 4Ps: product, price, place, and promotion. These four elements are adjusted until the right combination is found that serves the needs of the product’s customers, while generating optimum income.
Market Segmentation
The process of defining and subdividing a large homogenous market into clearly identifiable segments having similar needs, wants, or demand characteristics. Its objective is to design a marketing mix that precisely matches the expectations of customers in the targeted segment.
Few companies are big enough to supply the needs of an entire market; most must breakdown the total demand into segments and choose those that the company is best equipped to handle.
Four basic factors that affect market segmentation are:
- clear identification of the segment
- measurability of its effective size,
- its accessibility through promotional efforts, and
- its appropriateness to the policies and resources of the company.
The four basic market segmentation-strategies are based on
- behavioural,
- demographic,
- psychographic, and
- geographical differences.
Mind Mapping
Graphical technique for visualizing connections between several ideas or pieces of information. Each idea or fact is written down and then linked by lines or curves to its major or minor (or following or previous) idea or fact, thus creating a web of relationships. Developed by the UK researcher Tony Buzan in his 1972 book ‘Use Your Head,’ mind mapping is used in note taking, brainstorming, problem solving, and project planning. Like other mapping techniques its purpose is to focus attention, and to capture and frame knowledge to facilitate sharing of ideas and concepts.
PEST Analysis
A type of situation analysis in which political-legal (government stability, spending, taxation), economic (inflation, interest rates, unemployment), socio-cultural (demographics, education, income distribution), and technological (knowledge generation, conversion of discoveries into products, rates of obsolescence) factors are examined to chart an organization’s long-term plans.
Resources
An economic or productive factor required to accomplish an activity, or as means to undertake an enterprise and achieve desired outcome. Three most basic resources are land, labor, and capital; other resources include energy, entrepreneurship, information, expertise, management, and time.
Selling
The last step in the chain of commerce where a buyer exchanges cash for a seller’s good or service, or the activity of trying to bring this about. See also marketing.
Supplier
A party that supplies goods or services. A supplier may be distinguished from a contractor or subcontractor, who commonly adds specialized input to deliverables. Also called vendor.
Supply Chain
Entire network of entities, directly or indirectly interlinked and interdependent in serving the same consumer or customer. It comprises of vendors that supply raw material, producers who convert the material into products, warehouses that store, distribution centers that deliver to the retailers, and retailers who bring the product to the ultimate user. Supply chains underlie value-chains because, without them, no producer has the ability to give customers what they want, when and where they want, at the price they want. Producers compete with each other only through their supply chains, and no degree of improvement at the producer’s end can make up for the deficiencies in a supply chain which reduce the producer’s ability to compete.
SWOT Analysis
Situation analysis in which internal strengths and weaknesses of an organization, and external opportunities and threats faced by it are closely examined to chart a strategy. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.