Strategic tools for the practising manager

Most people purchase art jewellery 1.4 times in a span of six months. The peak sales period is between October and February "" the traditional festival and wedding season.

The average spend per purchase occasion is Rs 2,000, whereas the average market price is Rs 1,400.

In non-metros, 86 per cent of purchases by SEC A1 customers is for occasions such as weddings and religious functions.

Comparatively in metros, 56 per cent of women from SEC A2 buy art jewellery for get-togethers and casual functions.

On average, women residing in non-metros own more pieces of art jewellery in polki, semi-precious antique and pearl settings compared to women residing in metros.

The average spend by unmarried women on thappa and polki art jewellery is higher compared to married women, whereas working women spend about 30 per cent more on art jewellery than housewives.

Art jewellery stores are more likely to be located in high streets and malls, than other types of markets. More than half the buyers, in metros and non-metros, buy art jewellery from unbranded stores; 49 per cent prefer to buy branded art jewellery.

(Report by Technopak Advisors)

Selections from management journals
NUGGETS

To drive home the subject of his speech at the recent third annual Wharton marketing conference, Michael Polk, president of FMCG major Unilever, US, flashed up a definition straight from the dictionary: Innovation: a new idea or method; a change in something established.

"It's not invention, it's innovation that is at the heart of successful marketing campaigns," Polk said. It's all about coming up with dislocating ideas that disrupt the norm in a category.

He used the example of Unilever's "real beauty" campaign for Dove, which debunks the traditional notion of physical beauty and replaces it with a message of self esteem and confidence.

Good marketing initiatives, like the Dove campaign, succeed because they "change the status quo" in a category, he suggested. Polk shared his philosophy of marketing in a keynote address at the conference whose theme was "Leading Change through Innovation."

Unilever's Michael Polk: It's all about dislocating ideas
Knowledge@Wharton,
November 2006

Read this article at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

Perhaps the best way to understand manufacturing in many companies is to compare it to the engine room of a cruise ship. So says Michel Lurquin, the manufacturing chief at the Belgium-based biopharmaceutical firm UCB Group.

"If everything goes well, few staff or passengers will be interested in it," says Lurquin. "But if the engine fails, it can totally ruin the cruise." It's an apt analogy because it highlights the habit that many companies have of taking their manufacturing leadership for granted.

But beyond that, the analogy suggests that the head of manufacturing could make a much greater strategic contribution, especially in determining a company's short- and long-term potential.

On a cruise ship, for instance, a thorough understanding of the engine room's capabilities might prompt the captain to choose a different route to reach the ultimate destination. The captain and the engine room chief, working together, might even conclude that they could take the ship farther than originally planned.

Who manages manufacturing?
By Peter von Hochberg, Marcello Rodrigues and Georgina Grenon
strategy+business,
Autumn 2006

Read the complete article at http://www.strategy-business.com