Yes, “Consumer is
king in India”! The profit of any goods
producing company solely depends upon its usage by the consumers. So the company
tries its best to woo the customers, and a normal human nature is to 'impress
the boss' and thus it totally signifies the statement.
And now a days, we
have lots of brand producing same goods, so its oblige on the companies to
provide the goods in according to the needs, requirements, and the type of the
consumers it is targeting, thus it is totally visible that the planning or
developing of any goods revolve around the consumers.
Because in India,
if consumers are not satisfied with any of the product then the business firm
would like to change that particular product.
They will produce in any other way which can satisfy the consumers. And the
business can be done by the customer’s orders only. Main aspect of the business
is customer needs and satisfaction.
For instance,
For any business
organization to thrive in the market it must reach out to different layers of
the society. In a country like ours where half of the population constitutes of
middle class and those laying below poverty line it will be hard for the high
rate products to survive the market as these people would always opt for low
rate products that would just do the job as would a high rate product. Quality
is not a prime importance at the lower strata of the society as the only thing
that they want to do is make their ends meet.
For example let’s
see NOKIA even though its facing a tough competition being terribly left behind
with SAMSUNG and IPHONES in the race but still isn't it one of the most trusted
and used product, well the only reason behind it being that they made
themselves available to every layer of the society targeting the high class to
the common layman with the same quality service to all.
Thus, every organization
wants to earn profit and want that their product demand should be high.
Organisation plans their product according to the consumer's specifications.
Before planning surveys are done to know about the consumer demand, what they
want, it may be reliability of the product, it may be performance, it may be
appearance etc. Company launches their products and produce it according to the
consumer's requirement because if company does not consider consumer then who
will buy its product. Producer is also a consumer for the supplier so there is
a chain which is to be followed and everybody has to think about the consumer.
So I think consumer is above all. For example
in fertilizer and energy sector consumers are not really in a position to
influence the company decisions and therefore the prices. So I think the given
statement holds its value depending on the type of industry, the presence of
competitors and government regulations.
SOME ASSUMPTIONS
REGARDING “CUSTOMER AS A KING”:
1) Did the company
will give the product for the exact price which the customer asks for? No not
at all.
2) We must follow
the rules and regulations which king makes, but here in market the cost of product
is not fixed by a customer.
3) The quality of
product is not tested by a customer.
4) Even sometimes
customer is not satisfying with the product. How we can say customer as a king.
"It is just business logic". If customer buys the product then
company will get the profit. So as to attract customer and as to increase their
sales they must tell the words like that.
5) Finally if
company gets the profit they will invest that money to introduce new product
but not for social welfare (public purpose).
MAIN HIGHLIGHTS OF “CUSTOMER IS A KING”
1) Firstly don’t
you feel that the term "King itself carries such a representative word
that signifies something of huge importance"? Aah KING. Yes I do agree
Consumer's are the Real King. As not a single person In fact our entire Nation
is a 'CONSUMER', it will be wrong in differentiating 'PRODUCER' from 'CONSUMER'
Because guys Producer is also a consumer As he purchase his requirement from
another producers- right?
2) Secondly friends
Product makers base is a Consumer, be it a small match box Co. or the Big Car's
manufacturers. Consumers give them market and market development builds growth
significantly.
3) Taste's &
preferences, consumer choice creates the market.
4) MNC's to local
market do lots of surveys & research has been done, huge money in lump sum is
spent on it to read the market demand. People from top to bottom hierarchy in organization
are running their mind and skills to develop their product according to market
actually demand otherwise they are of no worth.
5) Fulfilling
consumers demand will give them bread and butter.
6) Yet there are
few producers who neither play cost-differentiation strategy nor cost
leadership as we have studied in economics-do they serve some specific mass of
people. Luxurious leading life section of people and hardly bothers about
medium or poor class people. For E.g. Leading car manufacturing Co.
BMW/Mercedes.
So this particular
point could not signify that they have the powers to decide WHAT TO PRODUCE
& WHAT TO NOT?
Therefore friends I
Conclude here by still saying that Yes consumer are really the real KING of our
nation.
7) Nice caption! generally used by many of the retailers, but
not all the time. Because, without satisfying the customers demand there will
not be any scope for building up a company. Theoretically it is correct but
when it comes to implementation we all know whether we are kings are not. I too
agree that we have choice to select one of the best products among so many
products which are available in the market. But through Advertising many of the
consumers are tending to buy the product though it is not that much of worth.
8) There are two
segments of market in India.
Those who are
concerned on providing the best comfort to their customers and people call them
perfect competitive markets; they produce varied goods to the consumers. And
thus allow them to be the KING IN INDIA. Services such as airline, clothing,
food, lifestyle etc. and the second segment of market deals with the monopoly
market wherein consumer are not able to take decision in the process of
selection of products in the market. They are compelled to buy one variety of
good.
9) Indian market
have very tough competition and customer always have knowledge of costly,
cheaper and reliable product so he will choose the cheaper and reliable one.
His selections of product invokes producer to produce product so that it can
serve the customer with his own profit.
The purchase made
by the customer only decides the growth or fall of a company. The company name
is known only because of customer. If there is no customer, then there will be
no business at all.
10) Acc. To my
view, customer is a means of minting money, a last piece of the puzzle to make
profits. Today in whichever field you see: Fast-Moving
Consumer Goods (FMCG) or Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), health care, real
estate, education and IT i.e. almost every sector of business, customer isn't
really a King; he is merely a puppet who is manipulated by the companies in
order to grow. Consumers are promised the best but eventually given a lower
quality product/service than what had been promised! This condition happens
quite often and hence proves that although the so called market giants put in
so much of hard work in market research and study to devise their product acc.
To the consumer's need, but still their sole purpose is biased to meet their
own target I. E. Quite simply earning money.
Hence,
'Survival of the
fittest' is the nature's law. The same applies to market too. Consumer is
really the king, because it’s the consumer who decides what must be produced
and in how much quantity. Those who don't follow this don't survive in the
market. Nowadays, companies study consumer's mindset, customer's demands, and
their requirements before launching any product. I can prove that consumer is
the king in all the sectors, with examples.
Consider-
1) Airline industry:
air fares were brought down few years ago, because most of the population of
India couldn't afford high priced air tickets.
2) Food industry:
McDonald’s and KFC who had high prices of their food products reduced their
prices to attract most of the India's population i.e. middle class people.
3) Telecom industry:
Few years back, local calls from mobile phones were charged as high as 7 rupees. Per
minute, whereas now the same call is charged with as low as 1 paisa per second
or 50 paisa per minute. This is done by telecom companies just to grab the
Indian market. This again proves that consumer is king.
4) Automobile sector:
Day by day we are facing more road traffic and parking problems, because of
which more and more people are demanding for hatchback cars. Growth of
hatchback car sector again proves that consumer is king.
5) Consumer policies:
There are many rules and acts which are created to satisfy consumer. The
consumer courts in India are active and usually show positive results in
customer's favor. There are few exceptions to this too. We can see that despite
the whole population willing for low petrol prices, its prices are increasing
drastically. So, what we can conclude is consumer is the king of market except
in few cases.
Source:
Master of Business Administration (MBA) notes
Helpful for Economics subject, Marketing subject, Human Resource subject/rounds, General topic and Group discussions or Face to Face interview selection rounds.
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