The interview Panel (list and justify the persons on the selection interview panel)

Interview type:
Behavioural interview; to judge how well the applicant performs in some specific situations and to develop an idea of applicant’s typical behaviour patterns

Objectives of interview:
The objectives of this interview are to assess candidate’s personality and behaviour and their suitability for the job position as a finance manager. To also have a better idea of applicant ability on decision making on some of daily tasks situations that one will have to make such as providing excellent customer service. In addition, this interview will also allow us to understand on candidate’s ability on communication skill as the job requires one to be highly involved with high communications.
Members on the Interview Panel selected:
1. Senior Finance Manager
2. Vice president of Human Resource Officer
3. Customer Service Officer
Interview Panel member 1: Senior finance manager
Responsibilities:
• To assess candidates on the job suitability as a finance manager
• Mainly about past experience within the field of a finance manager or finance related industry.
• As a finance manager, candidate will directly report to you on his performance in daily tasks.
• Based on candidate’s formal qualifications, test him on his knowledge and skills for the job.
• Questions will mainly base on the suitability of the candidate to perform in his daily job and past experience in related industries.
Questions to ask candidate:
1. How many years of accounting/similar job related experience do you have previously?
2. How familiar are you with budget and resource management funds?
3. Did u ever face difficulties in meeting financial reporting obligations in relation to contracts?


Interview Panel member 2: Vice President of Human Resource Officer
Responsibilities:
• Your role in this interview is to understand more about candidate’s career plans and future developments they may have in mind.
• Also to understand how well the candidate understands about the job scope as a finance manager.
Questions to understand about candidates’ future career achievements and developments:
1. What are your long terms or short terms career goals?
2. What kinds of responsibilities do you foresee to achieve in your next job as a finance manager?

Interview Panel member 3: Customer Service Relations Officer
Responsibilities:
• Emphasize in organisational objectives to candidates so that they will know what to expect.
o Providing customer satisfactions
o Emphasis on team management
• Understand if candidate is suitable for the nature of the job in terms of communication skills.
• To assess candidate ability on decision making and various task management.
Questions to understand candidate suitability to providing service:
1. Describe some situations when you faced unsatisfied customer service. How did you deal with the issue?
2. Tell me about some of the group events you had to get cooperation from. What did you do?
3. Discuss about handling several tasks at one point of time and how you coped with stress?

 

Introduction

In today’s ever changing global environment and diversity, competitions among companies have been in constant battle to gain market recognition. Marketers try to distinct their products by inheriting brands to give a best advantage in positioning their products in consumer minds. Adidas is a parent company that inherited the brand Taylor Made Adidas (TMA); Adidas bought over Taylor Made in 1997(Herzogenaurach, 2007).TMA manufactures a variety of golf apparels and products (Herzogenaurach, 2007).

TMA marketers have understood more about their consumer behaviour in various aspects such as attitude change towards golf related products to some of the social influences it has on consumers and the decision making process when purchasing TMA golf products. However, before exploring into all these areas, it is important for marketers to analyze their target market that they want to serve better.

Target Market

In relation to targeting the right market of TMA interest, marketers have realised that golf is no longer a luxury sport in comparison to older times. Golf has evolved into a leisure and affordable; no longer a sport just for executives (Lee, 2007). With star players like Tiger Woods (Lee, 2007) and Michelle Wie (Silkunas, 2009) who started golf since a young age, golf has attracted a larger audience from the public and different ranges of age groups (Lee, 2007). With the growth of such influential golf professionals, it has attracted more women and teenagers to start playing golf too. Till today, it is still a major past-time for business groups.

To market their product to consumers, there are 2 medium / channel for communications in TMA such as personal and impersonal. Word of mouth among consumers is the example of personal medium in TMA (Lingham, 2004). From Associated Press (2010), it has been seen that advertisements have also been taken place with forms of world cup events. The retailers, distributor and wholesalers are the kinds of intermediary that used by the company to target consumer.

Demographic, personality and lifestyle are the main keys in how a message is addressed. The example of TMA marketing communication such as green grass retailers, off-course golf specialty retailers and sporting goods retail formats with golf-specific departments (Hochswender, 2010);enhancing its brand awareness and recognition in various marketing channels.

Seeing from the perspective of a consumer, there are many different types of advertisements wherever we go and attention span of each will be lesser. Therefore, it is important to allow an attitude change of other golf related branded products in the market to obtain more market share in this area. From (Sporting goods business, 2002), it describes TMA marketers launched a new global advertising campaign; this enables them to target their consumers also emphasizing on product benefits of their product in various languages.

No doubt TMA faces strong competition from other golf branded products, however TMA has a competitive advantage from other sports arenas such as football and tennis (Lee, 2007); it has brought about more credibility and effectively reminds consumers of her slogan.
Nature of consumer attitude

Attitude towards a brand is transferable; Adidas is a popular company in the arena of sports, TMA is also at advantage as attitudes are transferable to its brand extension such as TMA golf products; Hence consumers will relate significantly to Adidas.

In order to influence consumers on changing attitudes from other brands of golf products to TMA products, it is important to consider the tri-component attitude model; that consists of cognitive, affective and conative components; cognitive consists of the knowledge and perceptions and direct experience with the product, while affective is about consumers emotions and lastly conative is the intention to purchase the product (Schiffman, Bednall, O’cass, Paladino, Ward and Kanuk, 2008). All these factors are important to take note when considering the intention for marketers to cause an attitude change to their consumers.
The multi-attribute attitude model portrays consumer attitudes with regard to an attitude object as a function of consumers’ perception and assessment of beliefs in regards to TMA products (Schiffman et al., 2008). By changing some components of the multi-attribute model more effective strategies can be directed to attitude change. One of its methods is to change the relative evaluation of attributes; an example of this would be offering different variety of the same product. In such instances, TMA offered golf products that target the women market (Sicoli,2010); clubs that are designed for women in terms of some attributes such as light weight golf clubs. They also recommended products to professionals, teenagers and senior citizens; this enabled them to customise for different segments of the market. Hence TMA can had better opportunity to persuade customers to switch brands; to persuade customers who prefer one similar version of competitor’s product to switch to another version of TMA’s product line(Schiffman et al., 2008).
In addition, adding an attribute to a product will also affect a change of attitude. By adding an attribute that highlights golf product changes or technological innovation is very influential (Schiffman et al., 2008); it is seen that TMA has taken such actions to change attitude with products that emphasises on technological advancement in their designs of putters. ‘featuring a Superfast RE*AX 65 graphite shaft and moveable weight technology...built to launch ball farther ‘and ‘exceptionally lightweight shafts’ taken from (Lee,2007).TMA has benefitted by emphasising on its latest technology and product advances.
Another effective strategy of changing attitude is via changing the motivational function; such as being motivated by interest of golf and belief that products can best satisfy their needs. Firstly, the utilitarian function will be useful as Adidas has been well known as a sport branding image over the years from Lee(2007); consumers perceive the brand to be one of the best choices to solve their problem. Therefore people will favour TMA products. Another way would be changing the knowledge function; TMA has included more information about their golf products that consumers do not know about and also emphasizing its advantages over competitive brands; such as customizable putters and see-through grips (Lee, 2007).
Social Influences in consumer behaviour
Moving on, TMA marketers understood the factors of social influences that affect buyer’s behaviour as it has been seen that social influence has a great impact in their decision in purchasing items. For example, groups that favour a particular brand of golf products is visible will cause a great social influence and their lifestyle on the brands they play will have a great influence. Also TMA products are considered to be branded items and it is priced at a higher range, consumers will seek for information to understand more about the brand and its performance of its golf related products.
It is understood from Schiffman et. Al. (2008) that social influences can alter behaviour as a result of various methods of communication channels directed to consumers; such as advertisements. Strong influence of communication channels directed to consumers cause them to see information as credible; this is particularly so when it involves discretionary expenditures.
Consumer relevant groups consist of family and friends, formal social groups, consumer action groups and work groups (Peter and Olson, 1999). TMA marketers were concerned as it affects consumers’ environmental perceptions, development of self concepts and marketing strategy formulation. Reference group as described in (Bearden and Etzel, 1982) is “a group of people that significantly influence an individual’s behavior”. In the other words, reference group can be defined as any group that has constructive or negative influence on individual behavior and attitude.
Therefore, it is seen that reference groups serves as comparison points for individuals in formulating attitudes or behaviors. For TMA consumers it is most likely that the reference group is based on a comparative reference group that serves as a benchmark for attitudes and behavior (Schiffman et al., 2008).Marketers of TMA should approach some areas of reference group who plays golf using TMA products, it will give positive influence to other golfers around them about the product if the product gives them satisfaction (Dusek.D, 2009).
There are three most extensively accepted influences which are normative social influence, informative social influence and value expressive influence. Normative social influence generally refers to the propensity to be conventional to other people expectations (Schiffman et al. , 2008).It is seen as a pressure to comply with perceived expectation to achieve rewards or avoid punishment. In the case of TMA products, from Dimmock and Banting (2009), consumers may play golf with their friends or business partners and perhaps the purchase of branded golf product will boost their image and status. If the business reference groups are for the TMA brand; consumers may be spared from punishment. Also from Dimmock and Banting(2009), it is also seen that consumers would comply to reference group choices if they perceive the group can present rewards where such conformity is pressured.
On the other hand, informative social influence normally refers to the propensity to obtain information from other people as reality evidence (Deutsche and Gerard, 1955).Such influences are due to information offered from relevant others about themselves and experiences of the given environment. This is important to TMA marketers as it affects how much time and effort consumers devote to information search and decision making. From Schiffman et al. (2008), it mentioned that it can occur when consumer seeks information from others about a particular issue or also reference group member gives information or observations. Especially for new consumers who do not know much about golf products and are about to purchase golf products for the first time. Nonetheless, as mentioned if consumers are purchasing such expensive golf items for the first time, there will be some affecting factors on consumers. It is also sure that consumers will face a lot of perceived risk and complexity of the products. Therefore it is crucial for TMA marketers to help reduce such perceived risks(Lee,2007); perhaps create information channels by influential golf experts and this will help encourage consumers of their choices.
Last but not least, value expressive influences play a part in social influences in consumer behavior as well. Celebrity endorsements of success or a reference group that portrays better image plays a huge role in value expressive influences. The value expressive influence is whereby a group’s position and behavior like group members can boost the ego of group members and cause others to aspire to be the like(Schiffman et al., 2008). TMA marketers have successfully used famous golf players like Rory Sabbatini to use Taylor Made golf apparels and equipments (Dusek.D, 2009).
To buy the golf product, there are many brands, so consumers need to decide which brand they want to buy. To do that, marketers should aware about these factors when consumers decide on purchase products. Here there are four types of consumer decision making such as economic model, passive model, cognitive model and emotional model. (Schiffman et al., 2008).
Decision Making Process
According to Schiffman et al. (2008), there are three major components in the consumer decision making process which are input, process and output. It is important to take note that not all the consumer go through all the process in order to make the decision.
From Birgelen (2003), sometimes decision-makers select and retain information differently with others because of their perception.The input of the consumer decision making is the external influences which provides the information about the specific product and influences the consumers’ attitudes and behaviour. There are two important inputs which are marketing inputs and sociocultural inputs(Schiffman et al., 2008). Marketing input is the communication the organizations tried to provide and make the benefits and services of their products known and to the potential consumers. The firm’s marketing strategies which include products, promotion, pricing, channels of distribution and market segmentation are direct attempt to persuade, reach and inform consumers to purchase and use its products and these inputs use the particular marketing strategies.
On the other hand, sociocultural input influences the consumer’s purchase decision that consists of communication and reference groups, family, social class, cultural and subculture, opinion leadership and diffusion of innovation and public policy and consumer protection which are the non-commercial influences. Internet recently gives the rate to some product that called eWOM (electronic word of mouth) often give the positive contribution in the process of decision making. (Bronner and Hoog, 2010)
The process of the model is concerned with how consumers make decisions. In order to understand this process, we must know the influence of the psychological process which is the internal influences that includes consumer needs and motivation, perception, learning and involvement, personality and self, as well as attitudes.
According to Schiffman et al. (2008), the act of making a consumer decision contains three stages which are need recognition, pre-purchase and evaluation of alternatives. Need recognition occurs when a consumer faces the existing option fails to perform satisfactorily or there is a desire for something new. Consumer will be motivated to take necessary actions to reduce the tension between actual state and desired state. The actual state is consumers’ perception of their present situation while a desired state is consumers’ perception of the situation they would like to be in (Schiffman et al., 2008).For example, TMA endorsed celebrities to portrays a high need for good performance golf clubs hence consumers will be motivated to purchase with a need recognition of a desire for something new. On the other hand, existing golf players realized that their golf gears are up to performance and hence recognize a need for as new set of golf gears. If the tension is above an acceptable threshold, the need for change will be recognized by the consumer.
The pre-purchase starts when a consumer perceives a need that might be satisfied by the purchase and consumption of a product (Schiffman et al., 2008). There are some factors that may increase pre-purchase search such as long time since last purchase; it is not a commodity to purchase a golf club very often hence golf consumers face product factors to consider. Another would be situational factors, where consumers can purchase golf balls as a gift to their friends (Lee, 2007) or involves first time purchase of golf products. TMA marketers have taken note on reducing perceived risk involved in purchasing their products with professional and expertise advice located at various retailers as mentioned from (Hochswender, 2010).

However, some consumers whom already have experience the product of the brand TMA, they may not have to go through extensive research on the attributes of the product. One example would use endorsed celebrities of golf professionals as they can portray the need for boosting self image due to the high level of publicity. TMA marketers had strengthened the tie between the TMA products, the celebrity and the consumers.
In the stage of evaluation of alternatives, consumers will rely on two types of information. One of which is evoked set; which is a small number of brands from which they will consider and make the selection (Schiffman et al., 2008).the other would be the criteria they use to evaluate each brand usually based on important product attributes. TMA marketers have participated in major golf events such as to displaying billboards and advertisements sponsoring the event this will help consumer to remember the brand and it would be on top of consumers’ head. However, TMA marketers try to distinct their target market such as to target in golf related magazines and golf expert websites(Lingham,2004).

In the last stage of decision making process is the output that consists of post-decision activity: purchase behavior and post-purchase evaluation which are the output of the consumer decision making process (Schiffman et al., 2008). Both objectives is to increase customers satisfaction with his purchase. TMA marketers have definitely include extensive phrases in advertisements to reinforce their purchase on its product performance (Stogel, 2008).

Finally, relationship marketing is an important tool as a function to consumer decision making process especially in post purchase evaluation. Relationship marketing in today’s society of consumers has more choice of brands to evaluate and hence they are less brand loyal (Schiffman et al., 2008). TMA marketers should be concern with the abundance of product choices, availability of information over the internet, entitlement of services and commoditisation of golf products.

TMA marketers could include a loyalty program for their loyal customers such as offering warranties and services for their golf gears over a period of time (Stogel, 2008). Furthermore, TMA marketers can also set up on-going communication to their customers such as setting up an email base where they could send out promotions and loyalty programs about their company to their consumers (lee, 2008); using viral marketing or online base would benefit the company. It is easier for the firm to make an additional sale to existing consumers that seek a new consumer.

Conclusion

In a nutshell,TMA has supported its brand by various consumer behaviour theories as we have discussed in this essay. From the insights on TMA’s targeted market, we are able to understand various efforts of changing attitudes of consumer to rethink about the golf product brands they may be playing if it is not TMA. By altering components of the multi-attribute model and using of cognitive dissonance theory to influence consumers, TMA marketers will help to create better recognition in the golf products industry.

Furthermore, the three social influences that affect consumers plays a major part of consumers’ behaviour. Informative, normative and value expressive are areas that TMA marketers have taken advantage of and invested wisely and effectively in their communication channels and marketing efforts to position their brand and enhance brand equity.

Lastly, by analysing the various decision processes of consumers and manipulating these processes, TMA has successfully delivered their brand image and helps it to stay in the consumers’ hearts and minds. It is indefinitely true that some consumers do not have to go through all process of decision marketing due to their previous experience. However, for other customers, TMA marketers have taken necessary actions to provide beneficial information for those who may need to evaluate their purchase. Through relationship marketing TMA marketers have reduced perceived risks, and helping customers trust the brand more.

Therefore, TMA has the ability to sustain and deliver performance through their branding efforts and bridging better relationships with their consumers.

Exams!!!

No doubt its the exam period, im still fooling around with my guitar! haha! probably get into deep shit next week! haha!

2:23 PM ·