VK Industries is venturing into manufacturing bearings for the automobile industry in India. The Indian automobile industry, especially the two-wheeler segment, is a large and growing market that represents a good opportunity. Within two-wheelers, scooters have been growing rapidly due to their versatility and suitability for urban transportation needs. VK Industries will target the scooter segment by customizing its product offerings and concentrating its marketing. It will position itself based on safety, quality, and convenience. To establish its brand, VK Industries will use integrated marketing channels including advertising, sales promotions, online media, public relations, and personal selling.

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B2B MARKETING– ASSIGNMENT – NOV’2017
Answer 1:
Growth of any business necessarily depend on the relationship with its customers. In B2B marketing,
number of customers are small but amount of business with these customers is at large scale. There
are various tools which help an organization to build & maintain long-term relationship with its
customers which in turn results in growth of business. One such tool is CRM. It helps in;
 Consolidating critical information about customers.
 Targeting most profitable customer
 Increasing customer loyalty
 Personalizing product and services and
 Boosting its revenues.
We, at SVC fragrance limited, have variety of choices of products for air freshening. Our large share
of business is with hotel Industry and partly at the retail counters.Being marketing manager at SVC,
I wish to propose KAM (Key Account Management) strategy in order to stimulate the association
with the customers and in turn build steady growth in business with existing customers.KAM is a
radically different organizational process used by business-to-business suppliers to manage their
relationships with strategically-important customers, and it produces measurable business benefits.
According to Forbes, 71% of customers who ended a business relationship did so because of a poor
customer service experience. Let us understand what customer initiatives brings to the business.
Harvey Mackay once said “Know your customer well- possibly better than he knows himself”.
There is 80:20 rule in the business world. Which means, 80% of business comes from 20% of
customer accounts. Thus we cannot treat these 20% customers same as that of rest 80%. And it

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becomes highly important to recognize these 20% accounts, rather KEY accounts and serve them,
nurture them for mutual beneficial business.
 Now, as we understood the importance of Key account management, let us understand how
we can identify the KEY accounts?We can measure any account based on few parameters
which are shown in the figure here;
Ask questions with respect
to the headings and
categorize answer as low,
medium & high. Give marks
as 1 for low, 2 for medium
and 3 for high. For example:
What is the future potential
of the customer? If answer is
High then give 3 marks.
Answer all 7 questions and
add marks for each question.
If answer is greater than or
equal to 15 then it is a KEY ACCOUNT.
 Once the KEY ACCOUNTS are recognized, the next step is to serve them differently. It is
very important to allocate a person, Key Account Manager to deal with the specific key
accounts. The person need to be
champion and self-starter in KAM.
Moreover, KAM is an integration
of different departments within
organization and their parallel co-
ordination with respective
departments at customer’s end. Eg.
Account dept. co-ordinates with
customer’s account dept. to
resolve the issues in accounting, if
any, and so on… Though key
account manager is a person who
may be one point of contact for
convenience, it is not ONLY HIS
responsibility but the organization’s as a whole to serve the key account.
 In order to make KAM an effective tool of managing key accounts, it is very vital that it is
perceived from customer’s end that they ‘mean a lot’ to the us. At SVC we have identified
key areas of effectively managing the accounts. We believe they are;
o Trusted advisor –Customer should see us as someone who adds value to their existing
set up, a trusted advisor.

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o Vision alignment – The cross functional team engaged with key accounts need to be
aligned with our vision of this account and the customer’s vision with their
marketplace.
o Daily management – KAM is both short term and long term hence daily monitoring
and measurement is essential. At the same time, what should be done at what
intervals and by whom, has to be planned and tracked.
o Processes and systems –There are robust processes and systems which are
standardized to ensure service consistency.
Once KEY ACCOUNT Management culture is established in SVC, we can look at following
benefits;
 Customer satisfaction – With specific well managed approach to Key Accounts enable
achieve customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements.
 Improved bottom line – Revenue and profitability increases as with the help of KAM, it
enables up selling and cross selling of products for mutual benefits.
 Increased opportunities - Satisfied key accounts may spread word of mouth to other co-
player in the industry and in turn can help develop business relationship with new customers.
 Avoiding penalties/losses – With close co-ordination with key accounts, it is easier to
understand the customer requirements with ease and at faster pace and accordingly fulfill the
needs of customer. This way, penalties/losses with respect to delays or incorrect product
specification may be avoided.
 Several such successful key account management will result in growth of business as a
whole.
 New product development – KAM enables getting the data from key accounts about their
expectation of products and research team may work in a direction of product development to
satisfy customer needs.
Apart from these core benefits, we can also see allied benefits that KAM brings along. They are;
 Customer Focus – An extremely good KAM culture will improve Customer focus
dramatically.
 Team work – A successful KAM involve cross functional working hence team work gets
build up within organization.
 Process discipline – Entire cross functional teams will work with more discipline in the
processes as success of KAM depends on every department involved.
 Goal Alignment – Everyone work towards common goal.
 Account ownership – Every person in team will start owning the responsibilities towards
serving the account, it is not only sales person’s responsibility any more.
Thus, at SVC we can identify key accounts such as Taj group of hotels, Hyatt, ITC, Oberoi, Leela
etc. Along with this, serving to the RCI hotels is a wing where we can increase our foot prints to
other locations in India and internationally, gradually. I am sure that KAM is key to our growth in
this industry. At the same time its implementation is going to be critical and vital aspect of our
success story in this industry.

4. 4
Answer 2:
Today’s education system is based on more interactive, participative and practical method of
teaching and learning. Educational institutes uses various techniques of teaching for better
understanding of concepts and thorough learning. Now a days with advent of technology, computer
LCD projectors helps in understanding the concept by audio visual technique. Simply, why we
understand the movie well than the teachers lecture is because of audio visual memory concept.
Moreover, it is more interesting and fun by learning this way. LCD video projectors are rapidly
becoming standard fixtures in many schools across the globe. Teamed with a computer, DVD player
or other media device, the LCD projector displays clear, high-resolution images and video to a
classroom of students. Schools use them to replace traditional film and overhead projectors as well
as to develop new applications. Falling technology costs have made LCD projectors increasingly
attractive for even the most budget-conscious schools. Thus, today we cannot deny the growing
presence of LCD projectors in educational institutions.
‘SM Innovations’ is an organization who sells and services LCD projectors to various industries. In
order to increase the market share and to utilize economy of scale, SM Innovations wants to sell their
LCD projectors to
educational
institutions. There
are about 1.29
million schools in
India of which
only 14% schools
have computers
and are mostly
located in urban
areas, more
precisely in ‘A’
grade cities like,
Delhi, Mumbai,
Bangalore,
Chennai,
Chandigarh, Pune
etc.
Thus there is lot
of scope for
digital education
in India and we see a great scope for our LCD projectors in this field. Moreover, with government
initiatives like digital India helps propagate this in the education system as well.
After understanding the scope of business it is very important to decide on the PRICING
STRATEGY in order to pitch in this new stream of market. I believe, this is one of the most
important business decisions which will either MAKE IT or BREAK IT in terms of our future of
business in this stream.Amongst available strategies, we believe that PROMOTION PRICING is
going to be best strategy. It is good to propose a price just below the mark up price which means,

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we’ll earn very thin profit on our sales. At the same time, it will boost our market share to the great
extent. Moreover, it is temporary pricing strategy.
In promotion pricing, we’ll focus on all available options of promoting our LCD projectors to
educational institutions. Some of the options are;
 Special Event Pricing: During special events like World India education fair, we wish to
offer reduction in
prices to potential
buyers who have chain
of education
institutions across
multiple locations.
This will help to get
more buy-ins and
generate more sales
and revenue, which in
turn will help leverage
economy of scale.
 Low interest financing/longer warrantees/free maintenance: We plan to tie up with few banks
like SBI, which will offer lower interest rates in case of loans to educational institutions. This
will help our penetration to B cities where educational institutions are willing to go for digital
classrooms but lack financial strength. In order to have hassle free education, we will offer 2
year warrantee instead of 1 year on our projectors. Also we’ll plan to offer free maintenance
for a period of 5 years through our dealer network. We wish make it easy and affordable to
most of educational institutions.
 Offering multiple variants: We plan to offer multiple variants of LCD projectors ranging
from Rs. 5000 till Rs. 45000 making it versatile and budget friendly to most of the user class.
 Tie up with state governments: For government schools we’ll partner with state governments,
implementing large scale public-private-
partnership projects, taking IT education and IT
enabled learning to the remotest of schools
across the nation. We’ll conduct training on
government mandated vocational skill courses in
association with departments of Urban and Rural
development.

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 Technology up gradation support: In today’s world where technological development are
happening almost every day, we’ll support our institutional buyers with replacement of
existing device with upgraded ones at market price. We’ll tie up with an insurance agency for
such unforeseen contingencies.
 Discounts: Approaching other educational support institutions like Educomp, Global
education ltd, Golden crest education & services, MT educare ltd, Shanthi educational
initiatives ltd who are already established digital education partners for most of the schools
and has pan India presence and offering them our product at discounted price should fetch in
good amount of buy ins and could be a game changer in our Industry.
 Participating in Educational fairs and educating benefits of learning with LCD projectors:
Benefits like;
 Lectures and presentation through power point presentations.
 Videos – Teachers can show a documentary on youtube, a movie or self-created
videos of field trip etc.
 Webcast and webinars can be attended thus distance education is possible.
 Demonstrations: An instructor can use an LCD projector, connected to a desktop
document camera or webcam, to show a tabletop demonstration to a large audience
 Streaming videos of live operation through LCD projector displays to larger audience
of students in medical field. In earlier days, students use to crowd across the teachers
and most of them complain that they could not see anything.
 Virtual museum tour and laboratory experiments (where lab is not available) can be
shown to students.
Thus, we are sure that it will be RIGHT DIRECTION to expand our market in field of educational
institutes, some of the major advantages are;
Only 14% of total educational institutes have computer that itself totals out to be 2 lac
schools offering digital education wherein we can propose LCD projectors for better
education to larger number of students at once.
Govt. initiatives of distance learning and digital learning will help grow e-education which is
going to be huge market.
We’ll have first mover advantage in this industry.
We’ll be able to leverage economy of scale.
With economies of scale we’ll be able to offer the products at lower price compared to our
competitors thus killing the competition.
We’ll be able to increase our market share.
Next 2decades are India’s decades in terms of development and surely technology will play
major role, LCD projectors are no exception to it.

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Answer3a:
VK industries is venturing into manufacturing bearing required in automobile business. Let us first
understand the broad picture of Indian automotive industry and significance & usage of bearings for
this industry.
Indian auto industry is one of the largest in the world. It accounts for 7.1% of India’s GDP. It is one
of the most attractive sector under make in India mission. The Two Wheelers segment with 79 per
cent market share is the leader of the Indian Automobile market owing to a growing middle class
and a young population followed by passenger vehicle segment at 15% owing to upper middle class
and rich class segment. The auto industry is growing at 5.9% CAGR.
‘Bearings make the world move’. Consider any industry which has moving or rotation requirement
as a part of machine, it needs bearing. From
sewing machine to agriculture, from tiny window
slider to heavy turbines. Auto industry is no
exception and perhaps the largest consumer of the
bearings. Bearings are used in auto industry;
 To decrease the friction between two
rotating surfaces.
 To bear heavy loads and large carrying
capacities.
 To support and axial load and allow for
rotation between two parts.

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Segmentation strategy of VK bearings:The segmentation strategy for VK bearings may be
considered under Geographic and Industry type. Below chart help us to understand the segmentation
proposal for VK bearing. The reason
behind choosing India as preferred
geography is that VK industries is an
Indian company and knows the
PESTLE conditions about the
geography and market. In industrial
segmentation, Automobile industry is
the main aim of the venturing into
bearing business. Moreover, with
make in India initiatives by the govt,
it is most promising sector for the
business. In Automobile industry,
two wheeler segment is most
attractive and rapidly growing
segment with 79% share in
automobile industry. Compared to
four wheeler industry, the size of the
organizations are smaller. Moreover,
there are many players in this industry, domestic as well as multinationals which can be approached
for business enquiries.
Targeting strategy for VK industry:
 VK industry wish to target scooter segment particularly in the two wheeler industry.Two
Wheelers sales registered a growth at 6.89% during April-March 2017 over April-March
2016. Within the Two Wheelers segment, Scooters grew by 11.39 %. The reason behind
growth of scooter industries is;
 Can be used by both genders.
 Ease and convenience owing to gearless
 More storage space
 Ideal for short rides, city life
 Light weight & easy to handle
 Low maintenance cost.
 Moreover, as VK industries is at its initial stage with limited resources, wish to opt for
concentrated marketing. We can customize the product offerings, prices & marketing
program to match the needs of the consumers. There are better chances of profitability as
effectiveness of our marketing strategy will increase by targeting products and services,
channels and communication programs towards only scooter segment.
Thus owing to great growth prospects, optimal utilization of resources and profitability, VK
industries feels that scooter is the right sector to pitch in for bearing business.
Positioning strategy of VK industry:
Segmentation
Geographic
India
Industry
Automobile
Two Wheeler

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 The tag line of VK bearing is ‘We Mech the World Move’. Bearing is a mechanical part
hence the word ‘Mech’ which resonates with ‘make’. VK bearing believes in understanding
the customer need and developing the product to fulfill those needs. Core ideology of VK
bearing is ‘Safety and Quality’. At VK bearings, we will not produce any product which does
not meet international quality and safety standards. Infact, we say Safety and quality in
everything we do at VK bearings. Thus, we position our bearing as “Safety, Quality and
Convenience”. Though, we offer range of the products in bearing of various type and size, it
is important that the customer finds ‘their required’ bearing. We’ve customized the bearing
finding tool on our website where customer can enter details and design their own bearing
and place the orders, online too. Here below is the screenshot of same.
Thus, Venturing into automobile industry for Bearing business is and optimistic and promising
proposition. VK industry is confident that, with Commitment, Passion, Speed as our values, we’ll
achieve our goals and objectives in bearing business.
Answer3b:
As a new entrant in the
bearing industry, VK
industries need to
establish its brand image
in the automobile market
for bearing business. VK
industries may consider
integrated marketing
channels to spread its
company, brand and
product awareness.
Primarily these marketing
channel includes;
1. Advertising
2. Sales promotion
3. Online media
4. Public relations

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5. Personal selling.
There are various sub-categories which funnel downs to above mentioned 5 primary categories of
marketing channels. This can be represented in as shown in the figure.
There is no RIGHT method of marketing to create the awareness. There no such thing which FITS
FOR ALL products or businesses. Each method has its pros and cons over other methods. Business
has learned that not even the best products sells themselves.Benefits, problem solutions & cost
efficiencies need to be sold through effective communications to everyone from users to influencers
to decision makers. This is due to product complexities, small number of buyers, negotiations,
lengthy decision making process.
VK industries can use these integrated marketing communication in order to create its Product
awareness in the Automobile industry. Let’s consider these in brief detail here below;
1. Advertising:
a) It creates Product awareness
b) Creates Good Brand image
c) Enhance sales effectiveness and increase sales efficiencies
d) Creates preferences for company, products etc,
e) Facilitate interactive marketing communications.
2. Sales Promotion:
a) Participation in Trade shows – This way, VK industries will be able to target
marketing communication to the large but targeted audience. It will create product
awareness as well as it can fetch sales leads where specific sales people can be
deployed to pursue it.
b) Organizing Events – Events like Royal Enfield club trip sponsorship. Such events
fetch free publicity. Carefully crafted events enhances brand image. VK industries
will benefit in creating product awareness from such events.
c) Catalogues – Catalogues distribution at the sales points will create a presence for
relatively long term with potential buyers thus, creating product awareness.
3. Online Media: VK industries website will be central hub of a strong multi-channel
marketing strategy. Prospective clients and existing clients can go to VK industries
website to find out information about products and services.
a) Strong brand messaging
b) Lead generation capabilities
c) Educational resources
d) Contact information
e) Trust elements
f) Links to social media pages
Apart from above, LinkedIn, Facebook, SEO, Blogs, Discussion forums etc are other
ways to create product awareness for VK industries.
4. Public Relationship: It identifies unique value within an organisation and creates a plan for
reaching key decision makers. It is also important to emphasise business value and benefits
over price & reach out to existing and potential clients to enhance and generation of sales.
With PR comes product, brand and company awareness all together.
5. Personal Selling: The primary communication vehicle for any B2B product is salesperson.
This is the MOST EFFECTIVE STRATEGY for creating the awareness as well as Sales.One

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to one interaction holds importance to resolve customer queries about products and the
salesman can act as catalyst and consultant to the customer by providing information and
benefits of the product. Personal selling makes it a natural method for getting customers to
experience the product for first time. Below are the reasons how personal selling will help in
greater success in product awareness and sales for VK industries.
a) It helps understanding customer needs and preferences thereby helping modification in
product and or the service requirement.
b) Personal selling followed by personal service helps build long term customer
relationship.
c) It provides prospective customers with better understanding of the product and an
interactive opportunity to liaise with the sales personnel.
d) It promotes long term business relations through personal intimacy.
Thus, with the help of above discussed integrated marketing tools, VK industries can create Product
awareness in more effective, efficient and cost effective way.
References:
https://www.christ-ag.com/cms/service/key-account-management/?L=8
https://hbr.org/2012/07/how-to-succeed-at-key-account
NMIMS text books
http://catlintucker.com/2013/02/lcd-projectors-create-relevance-capture-attention-connect-to-
resources/
http://www.schoolreportcards.in/Media/m102.html
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/school-uses-lcd-projector-44508.html
https://www.ibef.org/industry/india-automobiles.aspx
http://www.nbcbearings.com/product.php
http://www.siamindia.com/statistics.aspx?mpgid=8&pgidtrail=9
https://www.b2bmarketing.net/en/resources/blog/optimising-your-marketing-mix-success
https://www.marketscan.co.uk/insight/how-to-achieve-an-effective-b2b-marketing-mix
https://www.ventureharbour.com/b2b-lead-generation-strategies/
http://slideplayer.com/slide/7245462/