An Assessment of the Impact of Marketing Segmentation on Production Planning in an Organisation
Chapter One
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The importance of market segmentation in any business organization cannot be over emphasized. Every business organization is faced with the impact of selecting a suitable market of that will be follows to entire effective marketing penetration.
The following are the objectives of this study
- To determine the most effective segmentation strategies to used in an organization
- To identify the requirements for effective market segmentation
- To establish the bases of segmenting a answer market.
- To identify what the requirements and what customers wants in each market for its uses.
- To determine the benefits of market segmentation to the consumers and the organization at large.
- To solve the problems of segmenting a market
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
INTRODUCTION
Our focus in this chapter is to critically examine relevant literatures that would assist in explaining the research problem and furthermore recognize the efforts of scholars who had previously contributed immensely to similar research. The chapter intends to deepen the understanding of the study and close the perceived gaps.
Precisely, the chapter will be considered in two sub-headings:
- Conceptual Framework
- Chapter Summary
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Market Segment
A market segment is a group of individuals, groups or organisations who may share the same interests, traits and characteristics. The consumer segments may have similar needs, wants and expectations. Therefore, businesses should ask themselves which segments should they serve? To answer this question, the businesses must determine the most appropriate ways to distinguish and to differentiate their segments. Once the segments have been identified they must customise their offerings to satisfy each and every one of them.
Market Segmentation
The concept of Market Segmentation was first introduced into marketing terminology in 1956 by an American Marketing Professor, Wendell, Smith and was proposed as an alternative technique for market development where there are few competitors with identical products.
Market segmentation is the actual process of identifying segments of the market and the process of dividing a broad customer base into sub-groups of consumers consisting of existing and prospective customers. Market segmentation is a consumer-oriented process and can be applied to almost any type of market. In dividing or segmenting markets, researchers typically look for shared characteristics such as common needs, common interests, similar lifestyles or even similar demographic profiles. So, market segmentation assumes that different segments require different marketing programmes, as diverse customers are usually targeted through different offers, prices, promotions, distributions or some combination of marketing variables. For example, Southwest Airlines’ single-minded focus on the short-haul, point-to-point, major-city routes, allowed them to prosper as their competitors floundered. The airline’s focus on specific segments allowed them to do a better job of deciding what their target segment really valued (for example, convenience, low price, on-time departures and arrivals, among other things).
Smith tried to define market segmentation as a condition of growth when core markets are developed on a generalised basis to the point where additional promotional expenditures are yielding diminishing returns. This means that effective matching of firm’s resources to target market segments can deliver the greatest return on marketing investment (ROMI). Day [2] perceived that market segmentation is a part of the bigger marketing plan adopted by companies to divide their markets into distinct groups on the basis of wants, needs, taste or behaviour for their different products and services. The concept has common variables for consumer markets and it works for every company. It involves with the division of a broad target market into smaller segments to make marketing simpler and easier to undertake. According to Asiedu “segmentation is a management tool that enables firms to subdivide their market based on the same behaviour of consumers into discrete consumer groups. He continued the tool can help firms to identify the unmet customer and employee needs and attend to the”. This really shows that market segmentation form an important foundation for successful activities and strategies of every organisation.
The purpose of segmentation patterns in every aspect of business is to leverage limited (scarce) resources to focus on prospects customers who are likely to patronage its product offerings. This practice has enabled many organisations including financial institutions, to understand the elements of the marketing mix, distribution, price, promotion and products. It has helped many companies to design their products and services to suit the whims and caprices of different customers in the consumer market.
Market segmentation is a crucial marketing strategy. Its aim is to identify and line at market segments or “sets of buyers” which would then become targets for the company’s marketing plans. The advantage to marketing management is that the technique divides total demand into relatively homogeneous segments which are identified by some common characteristics.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Area of Study
United wire production limited, Kaduna is Liability Company. The company was incorporated in March 1977, and started commercial production in October 1979, and has been in full products since January, 1980. Thus it is the area of the study.
Research Design
Research designs are perceived to be an overall strategy adopted by the researcher whereby different components of the study are integrated in a logical manner to effectively address a research problem. In this study, the researcher employed the descriptive survey research design. This is due to the nature of the study whereby the opinion and views of people are sampled.
Population of the study
According to Udoyen (2019), a study population is a group of elements or individuals as the case may be, who share similar characteristics. These similar features can include location, gender, age, sex or specific interest. The emphasis on study population is that it constitutes of individuals or elements that are homogeneous in description.
This research was carried out on the assessment of the impact of marketing segmentation on production planning in an organization using United wire production limited, Kaduna as case study. Thus, all the staffs of this organization form the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
DATA PRESENTATION
Table 4.1: Demographic data of respondents
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS:
Introduction
This chapter summarizes the findings into the assessment of the impact of marketing segmentation on production planning in an organization using United wire production limited, Kaduna as case study”. The chapter consists of summary of the study, conclusions, and recommendations.
Summary of the Study
In this study, our focus was on the assessment of the impact of marketing segmentation on production planning in an organization using United wire production limited, Kaduna as case study. The study specifically was aimed at determining the most effective segmentation strategies to used in an organization; identify the requirements for effective market segmentation; establish the bases of segmenting a answer market; identify what the requirements and what customers wants in each market for its uses; To determine the benefits of market segmentation to the consumers and the organization at large; solve the problems of segmenting a market.
The study adopted the survey research design and purposively enrolled participants in the study. A total of 30 responses were validated from the enrolled participants where all respondent are active staffs of United wire production limited, Kaduna.
Conclusions
from the study analysis, it was concluded that market segmentation has an impact on the overall performance of an organization. More so, the most effective market segmentation strategies include; Demographic segmentation, Psychographic segmentation, Geographic segmentation and Behavioral segmentation. Hence the requirements for effective market segmentation are Measurabilily, Accessibility, Substantiality and Actionability. Furthermore, the bases for effectively segmenting a market includes; Deviding markets into geographic units; Demographic bases (age, sex, family size, life cycle, occupation etc.); psychological bases (attitudes, motivations, personality etc.); psychographic bases (lifestyle, interests, opions,values etc.); behavioural bases (brand loyalty, usage rate, benefits sought etrc.) and it was also concluded that market segmentation has the following benefits; it helps in determining market opportunities, Adjustments in marketing appeals, Developing marketing programmes, Designing a product; Timing of marketing efforts and Better service to customers etc.
Recommendations
Based on the responses obtained, the researcher proffers the following recommendations:
- Organization need to get professional marketers that can enlighten and train their organization as a whole on marketing segmentation, and marketing strategies as a whole.
- Secondly, organizations need to determine who their target customers are, and make sure that the organizations resources are focused on the most viable and profitable of the target customers from that segment.
- Finally organizations need to understand that once these customer segments are consistently satisfied; then demand will increase, which intern means sales will increase, therefore an increase in revenue of that organization.
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