Organisational Buying Behaviour

Organization buying behaviour is on similar terms as that of consumer buying behaviour and it goes through those same five stages of buying process -

• Problem Recognition
• Information search
• Evaluation of alternatives
• Purchase Decision
• Post purchase behaviour

In this B2B buying process three more points can be added

• Evaluation of quotations, negotiations
• Supplier's choice
• Choice implementation

These three stages help organizations in B2B buying to look for most appropriate product suiting their requirements as well as their customer's requirements and also about which customer is aware of and has positive thinking.

Organizations buying for Kinley Bottled Water

• Kinley is widely used by many organizations like large scale restaurants covering almost all five stars, three stars hotels accompanied with restaurants.
• Kinley is also provided in in-flight meals, buses, trains etc
• Kinley is even offered in corporate office canteens or cafeteria, theatres.

These organizations buy Kinley Bottled water in bulk either from retailers or from franchisees in bulk. They rely on the company and trust them because Kinley has been known for its quality and the brand being liked by its customers blindly.

Consumer Behaviour

Consumer behavior is basically a study to find out how an individual, group or an organization select, buy, use any product or services and what are the factors which influence their decision. As the recent phenomenon says that nowadays consumer is a king and for any organization who wants to survive in the market should know their customer and their preferences. Consumer’s behavior in today’s scenario keeps on changing just because of the availability of the large no. of choices. For the industry like Domino’s it is very necessary to understand its consumer’s behavior than only they can attract them towards their product. There are various factors which influence consumer behavior in day to day life, which make them to decide whether to buy the particular product or not.

These factor Includes:

Market Stimuli :

Product – Bottled water

Service - NA

Price – Wide range from 5rs-75rs

Distribution - NA

Communications – NA

Other Stimuli :

Economic - Cheap and economic

Technological - NA

Political - NA

Cultural – NA

Consumer Psychology :

Motivation – Thirst  

Perception – Pure Water

Learning - NA

Memory – Last experience

Consumer characteristics:

Cultural - NA

social - NA

personal – NA

Buying Process

Problem Recognition –Thirst

Information Search – Retail / grocery / etc

Evaluation of alternatives – Bisleri / Aquafina / Fruit Juice / Aerated Drinks

Purchase Decision – Availability

Post Purchase Behavior – Follow up

Purchase Decision – Brand choice, product choice, dealer choice, purchase amount and purchase timing

Sales Management

The art of meeting and exceeding the sales goals of an organization through effective planning, controlling, budgeting and leadership refers

to sales management.  Sales Management helps the organization to achieve the sales targets efficiently.

Process of Sales Management

1. Sales Planning: 

• Marketers must plan things well in advance for the best results. Essential to have concrete plans.
• Know the product well. Sales professionals must know the USP's and benefits of the product for the consumers to believe them.
• Identify target market.
• Devise proper sales strategies to increase sales. 

2. Sales Reporting:

• Sales strategies are implemented in this stage.
• Sales representatives should be aware of their roles and responsibilities.
• Mapping individual performance is essential so that necessarily course of action can be taken. 

3. Sales Process: 

• Sales representative should work as a single unit for maximum productivity. 
• Management must make sure sales managers follow a proper channel to reach out to customers.

Kinley on the other hand doesn’t has to go all these steps. If asked to summarize then it goes like this

Manufacturing plant sells it to Distributors who then sell it to wholesale retailers and then it goes to outlets/retailers and finally it reaches the consumers.

Distribution Decisions

By tying up with existing facilities, CCI (Coca Cola India) managed to score on the distribution aspect by making its brand, Kinley available throughout the country which gave credence to its rising market share in India. The below diagram represents a typical chain of manufacture to distribution of Kinley, the brand for packaged drinking water of Coca Cola India. The company follows the same chain for all its product. Because of the presence of its strong brand like Coca Cola, Thums Up, Sprite, Limca, etc. it makes it easy for the company to market as well as distribute Kinley through the same channel.

CCI has a wide and well managed network of salesmen appointed for taking up the responsibility of distribution of products to diverse parts of the cities. The distribution channels are constructed in such a way that the demand of customers is fulfilled at the right place and the right time when it is needed by them.

Direct distribution: In direct distribution, the bottling unit or the bottler partner has direct control over the activities of sales, delivery, and merchandising and local account management at the store level.

Indirect distribution: In indirect distribution, an organization which is not part of the Coca-Cola system has control on one or more of the distribution elements (Sales, delivery, merchandising and local account management)

Merchandising: Merchandising means communication with the consumer at the point of purchase to convey product benefit, value and Quality. Sales people and delivery personnel both have this responsibility. In certain locations special teams who go into business locations to specifically merchandise our products.

DISTRIBUTION ROUTES

The various routes formulated by CCI for distribution of products are as follows:

Key Accounts: The customers in this category collectively contribute a large chunk of the total sales of the Company. It basically consists of organizations that buy large quantities of a product in one single transaction. The Company provides goods to these customers on credit, payments being made by them after a certain period of time i.e. either a month or half a month.

Examples: Clubs, fine dine restaurants, hotels, Corporate houses etc.

Future Consumption: This route consists of outlets of Coca-Cola products, wherein a considerable amount of stock is kept in order to use for future consumption. The stock does not exhaust within a day or two, instead as and when required stocks are stacked up by them so as to avoid shortage or non-availability of the product.

Examples: Departmental stores, Super markets etc.

Immediate Consumption: The outlets in this route are those which require stocks on a daily basis. The stocks of products in these outlets are not stored for future use instead, are exhausted on the same day and might run a little into the next day i.e. the products are consumed at a fast pace.

Examples: Small sized bars and restaurants, educational institutions etc.

General: Under this route, all the outlets that come in a particular area or an area along with its neighboring areas are catered to. The consumption period is not taken into consideration in this particular route.

Promotion - ATL & BTL

Kinley follows majorly ATL activities since its advertisements or promotions are not region specific and caters to a vast audience. See the below chart to know its  ATL and BTL activities..

    

ATL	USES?	BTL	USES?
Hoardings	Yes	Direct Mailers	No
Print Ad	Yes	Sales Promotion	No
TV Commercials	Yes	Flyers	No
Radio Ad	Yes	Point of Sale	Yes
Cinema	No	Telemarketing	No

Promotion Decisions-The IMC Approach

Promotion can be defined as the advancement of a product idea, or point of view through publicity and/or advertising. It plays a very important role in boosting up a product image and creating demand for it in the market. Kinley’s initial television commercial was built on the trust & safety platform. It depicted doctor’s endorsement which forced CCI to pull out the commercial off air after the notification by The Health Ministry of India that made doctor’s endorsement illegal.

The new and slickly presented set of four television commercials was built on the platform of trust - Boond boond mein vishwas and was aired on national television. The communication strategy was a montage of a slice of Indian life and emotions depicted by the boy scouts, the football match and the family celebrating Holi. The ads took the communication to a different emotional level by depicting trust in the context of the largeness of water. The Commercial is in the form of a travelogue, where a young boy keeps the faith by going through a long journey to meet his grandmother. The film opens on the boy, who is en route to his ancestral home. The background score says, 'Mann Kaanch jaisa, Aar Paar Aisa, Aasman Sa Khula Saaf Dil Hai Tera'. Somewhere along the journey, he is looking for drinking water, and is skeptical about finding pure water. A shopkeeper, on sensing his dilemma, calls him and gives him the new bottle of Kinley. The boy, on seeing the trusted quality seal on the bottle, is happy that he has found his trusted Kinley. All along the journey – on the bus, at a roadside dhaba, he uses Kinley to quench his thirst. At his grandmother’s home, he is welcomed with lot of love and affection. His grandmother asks him to wash his hands (a symbol of purification) with Kinley. The commercial closes on the shot of the old lady and the grandson catching up with each other, with the super — 'Boond Boond Mein Vishwas'. As part of its new re-branding campaign, Coca-Cola has changed the packaging design on Kinley water bottle which would be available in 500 ml and 1 litre packages and 20 and 25 litre bulk jars in the price range of Rs 8 to Rs 75. The bottle now comes in a new 'easy to hold' shape; and the label has changed from the previous blue to a transparent one. Apart from television, outdoor and on-truck advertising is also being used as part of its communication strategy. Kinley has around 19.5 per cent market share followed by Aquafina (18 per cent), in t

he packaged drinking water segment.

Pricing Decisions

Pricing strategy refers to method companies use to price their products or services. Almost all companies, large or small, base the price of their products and services on production, labor and advertising expenses and then add on a certain percentage so they can make a profit. There are several different pricing strategies, such as penetration pricing, price skimming, discount pricing, product life cycle pricing and even competitive pricing.  Pricing should take into account the following factors:

1. Fixed and variable costs.
2. Competition
3. Company objectives
4. Proposed positioning strategies.
5. Target group and willingness to pay.

With respect kinley For 500ml pack, the company offered an introductory price of Rs. 4 which was against the price of Rs. 5 for 500ml Bisleri pack. With national rollout in consecutive months, pricing played a significant role for Kinley. For rural areas, Kinley introduced 200ml pouch at an attractive price of Re.1. Simultaneously, the company launched 200ml water cups priced at Rs. 3 per cup. Till 2003, the one litre bottle was available for Rs.10 the other being Bisleri for the same price. In 2009 when Pepsi co’s Aquafina and Parle’s Bisleri hiked prices from Rs. 8 to Rs. 10 for 500ml, Coke’s Kinley was still available for Rs. 5 in Delhi and for Rs. 8 in many other parts of the country.

Pricing strategy should be an integral part of the market- positioning decision, which in turn depends, to a great extent, on your overall business development strategy and marketing plans.

Geographical Pricing- Geographical pricing involves the company in deciding how to price its products to different. Customers in different locations and countries. For example in the case of Kinley, the price of kinley 500ml varies in different parts of the country as discussed earlier. 

Price allowances and discounts - The role of discount Offering discounts can be a useful tactic in response to aggressive competition by a competitor. However, discounting can be dangerous unless carefully controlled and conceived as part of your overall marketing strategy. Discounting is common in many industries – in some it is so endemic as to render normal price lists practically meaningless. This is not to say that there is anything particularly wrong with price discounting provided that you are getting something specific that you want in return. Promotional-pricing strategies are often a zero-sum game. If they work, competitors Copy them and they lose their effectiveness. If they do not work, they waste money that could have been put into other marketing tools, such as building up product quality and service or strengthening product image through advertising.

Companies often adjust their basic price to accommodate differences in customers, products, locations, and so on. Price discrimination occurs when a company sells a product or service at two or more prices that do not reflect a proportional difference in costs.

Location Pricing: - The same product is priced differently at different locations even though the cost of offering at each location is the same. A theater varies its seat prices according to audience preferences for different locations. Kinley at regular grocery store will be sold at its mrp but at locations such as theatres, events etc will be sold at higher price.