Physicians' Perception Towards Promotional Tools Offered by Pharmaceutical Industry: A Comparative Practicing Status-wise Analysis

-- Girish Taneja and Usha Arora

This research study has been conducted to find out the promotional tools offered by pharmaceutical industry that are said to be more influencing by the physicians of different practicing status i.e., in government service, private service, and private practitioner. A well-structured schedule was developed for conducting the study. The survey was conducted and data were analyzed on the basis of responses provided by 600 respondents. Physicians in private service assigned significantly greater importance to various kinds of sponsorships, such as sponsorship for personal tours, sponsorship for stay in conferences, sponsorship for travel expenses in conferences, sponsorship for medical equipments and personal gifts, as compared to physicians in government service and private practice. Moreover, government physicians assigned significantly greater importance to medicine samples and the personality of the medical representative as compared to private practitioners. The study recommends that pharmaceutical companies should plan different kinds of promotional tools and strategies for physicians based on their different needs and practicing status.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.

Amul Kool: The Brand Known but Less Focused

-- Sharif Memon

The Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) replaced its dull-looking flavored milk brand Amul Shakti with a new brand Amul Kool in April 2004. Amul Kool has been created as an energy booster brand, targeting the youngsters who are fed up with carbonated drinks, such as the colas. This paper attempted to find out why the Amul Kool brand has failed to attract the youngsters and analyzes the bottlenecks to its growth.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.

Socio-technical Analysis of Operational Efficiency in Aviation

-- Koustab Ghosh and Sangeeta Sahney

Socio-technical System (STS) theory is a widely used concept in the area of human-technology integration. To understand the interactions and impact of externals on man and machine, an open system analysis is helpful in the chosen area of study. This paper attempts to study the operational efficiency of airlines in terms of the socio-technical approach. The indicative statistics and the previous studies conducted help the formation of a conceptual model with related theoretical constructs. The research implications substantiate the relevance and purpose of undertaking this study.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.

Performance Contrasts between Conglomerate and Individual Firms in the Machine Tools Sector in India

-- Aditya M Jadhav

Machine tools is a highly capital intensive industry involving continuous innovation. This industry received government protection through the restricted import policy and the loose patent policy of India till 1991. The situation has changed after liberalization and globalization. In the current fast-changing technology scenario and increasing competition, this sector requires regular investment, continuous improvement and innovation in processes and products. Though, the Indian manufacturing sector reported an impressive growth in the last decade compared to the previous decades, the opening up of the economy and reducing import duties have made India a lucrative market for multinational companies. The entry of these companies has made the market intensely competitive for the domestic companies. Researchers have stated that in such situation conglomerate firms are better capable to handle the competition due to the economic strength as compared to individual firms. This study aims to empirically validate the above views by comparing and contrasting conglomerate firms with individual firms in the machine tools Industry.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.

Impact of Price and Promotion on US Beer Brands

-- Shirshendu Ganguli and Harsh Arora

Beer is the oldest and well-accepted beverage in the world. In US, it holds an important market share. As it holds an important position in the US market, there is a fierce competition among domestic, national, international, and multinational brands of beer sold in various stores in the country. To gain market share, these brands are giving a greater emphasis on the price and promotional aspect of their brands. There are many attempts by several researchers to show the effect of price and promotion on the sales (revenues). In this study, the authors attempted to study the effect of the elements of price and promotion individually and both combined (interaction effect of price and promotion) on the dollar sales of different brand categories of beer for a store belonging to Dominick in Chicago, US using the regression model. The correlation between price and promotion has been analyzed to understand whether we need to model the interaction effect. Also, the level importance of the variables, price, promotion and (price-promotion), has been calculated to find out the actual effect of the three variables on dollar sales and to compare them. The data used are the scanner data available for one store of Dominick, and only the brands having a market share of more than 0.10 percent have been considered for the analysis.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.

A Review of Public Enterprises in India in the Past Decade

-- Pawan Kumar Avadhanam and R K Mishra

The present paper focuses on investment in Central Public Sector Enterprises, Equity Holding by Central Government in PEs, shares of private and public sectors in plan outlay, growth of turnover/operating income, public sector enterprises exports and Indian exports, PBDIT, PBIT, net profit of Central Public Enterprises, etc. From the study it is observed that the number of enterprises generating internal resources increased from 145 in 1990-91 to 152 in 2003-04. The amount of internal resources generated increased from Rs. 11,296.19 cr in 1990-91 to Rs. 75,621.71 cr in 2003-04, a growth of 670 percent. The paper, after observing the trends in the internal investment, turnover, profit before tax, etc., concludes that the public sector enterprises have become strong and financially viable and are in a position to compete with international companies which have started investing in India after liberalization, globalization and privatization after 1990s.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.