The Bucket Theory of Marketing

The Bucket Theory of Marketing is an illustration used to explain the importance of the defecting customers. Growth in revenue, or profits over a specific period acts very much like a bucket being filled with water. Adding new customers and increasing the revenue form existing customers fill the “bucket”. Sales, advertising and promotion programs help in pouting business to the top of the bucket. But the bucket also has several “leaks” from customers who stop purchasing or decrease purchases from a prior period. The theory gives a fair idea about the ineffectiveness of our marketing efforts as long as there is a hole in the bottom, which gives way for some customers to leave our organizations for reasons known only to them. The bucket theory also explains why a relationship strategy that focuses on plugging the holes in the bucket makes so much sense.

 

It is more often easy and practical to identify the new customer revenue and the existing customer growth from the accounting database. The information at the individual customer level will give a fairly good idea about the customer migration. 

 

Customer Migration 

The measurement of customer migration is identifying what happens to individual customers during a specific period of time. The individual customer may either totally defect at a high value point in their life cycle. For example, a company can spend Rs. 10,00,000 on a campaign to acquire new customers who may really be valuable only during 2005 or spend Rs. 5,00,000 to retain customers who are profitable now.

APPLICATIONS SOFTWARE

Systems software available on micro-computers includes compilers interpreters for popular programming languages like BASIC, COBOL and FORTRAN. However, because of their large numbers and personal use, powerful applications software which does not require significant programming knowledge has been developed to run on personal computers. The most important categories of this software, which enables a user to autonomously utilize a personal computer are:

 

1. Data Base Management Software
2. Spreadsheet Software
3. Word Processing Software
4. Graphic Software
5. Data Communication Software

Data Base Management

Software packages called Data Base Management System (DBMS) has been developed long before micro-computers to handle the problems of maintaining and integrating large volumes of data on large machines. The most important distinguishing feature of a DBMS package on personal computers is that it provides a very high level language interface which can be learned by a user who is not a computer programmer. In a few hours, it is possible to acquire enough skill to use the basic features of DBMS packages like dBASE III which is the best selling software currently in this class.

HARDWARE-1

With the proliferation of micro-computers, the concept of distributed computing has emerged. In distributed computing, a number of computers are dispersed in different parts of an organization and inter-connected using special cables, telephone lines or other telecommunication media. This allows data and programmers to be shared and also provides for some new types of application such as electronic mail. Electronic Mail moves messages through inter-linked computers/terminals.

 

To support such networking special electronic devices such as modems an network inter-face cards are often fitted into micro-computers. For example, a blinds company who are selling vertical blinds and roman shades online, they are having inter-linked computers by which they are sending their marketing emails. Another example is a company who are providing term life insurance rates online, they are using lead management tools by which their online leads are transfer to their insurance software and from that insurance software they are distributing their leads.

 

As with large computers, micro-computers have operating systems to enable the user to easily interact with the machine. These operating systems are similar to those on large machines except that they are much simpler. This is because the majority of micro-computers are not multi-terminal machines – only one user has access to the machine at any time. In this situation the machine is the personal computer of the user. Personal computers are used for a variety of tasks. The most common applications are:

 

1. Word Processing
2. Financial Analysis
3. Data Base Access
4. Graphics
5. Accounting

Classification of Computers-1

A large computer provides a main memory capacity of up to 32 mega bytes, a processing power of 10 MIPS and supports a large number of disks and tapes. Disk capacities range from 100 MB to 1000 MB. It also allows simultaneous access to multiple users and supports a large number of input and output devices.

 

A super computer is the largest computer system available in the market. It provides a main memory capacity of up to 64 mega bytes and a processing speed of 20 MIPS. It also supports a large number of disks and tapes of enormous capacity for providing random access and serial access secondary memory. A super computer also allows multiple users to interact with the CPU simultaneously through multiple types of input devices. It also provides outputs in a variety of forms and supports a large number of output devices. Customer Relation Management System owner says that for their clients who are selling blinds, roller shades and woven wood shades online; they need to use high configuration computers.

Personal computers are used by managers for their own computing needs. Availability of a large number of user-friendly software packages on PCs have made them effective tools to support managerial decision-making. PCs have also encouraged distributed data processing. A super micro is used for commercial data processing and managerial applications. A large computer is necessary for very large data processing and data management applications. A large computer is necessary for very large data processing and data management applications. A super computer is primarily used for highly scientific and research purposes.

Classification Of Computers

 

In the 1970s computers were classified into three categories, namely, super-computers, large computers and mini computers. But the invention of the micro-processor which gave birth to micro-computers in the late 70s has drastically changed the computing scene. A wide range of computers are available today in the market ranging from a personal computer to a super computer.

 

A personal computer (PC) is a micro-computer which has its entire central processing unit on a single micro-processor chip. A PC provides a main memory capacity upto 640 kilo bytes and a processing power of 0.5 MIPS. It supports one or 2 diskette drives of 360 KB each for random access secondary memory. A PC usually comes with a standard key board, a visual display unit and a dot matrix printer. A PC is usually operated by a single user.

 

A super mico-computer has its entire central processing unit on a very powerful micro-processor, provides a main memory capacity of upto 16 mega bytes, has a processing power of 2 to 3 MIPS, supports Winchester disks of capacity 20 to 80 mega bytes and allows simultaneously access to multiple users. Today’s super micro is actually replacing yesterday’s mini computers which provide almost the same computing power it nit less, but based on a different technology.

Operating Systems

An operating system is the most important system software and is required to operate a computer system. An operating system manages a computer’s resources very effectively, takes care of scheduling multiple jobs for execution and manages the flow of data and instructions between the input/output units and the main memory.

 

Operating systems became a part of computer software with the second generation computers. Since then operating systems have undergone several revisions and modifications in order to achieve a better utilization of computer resources. Advances in the field of computer hardware have also helped the development of more efficient operating systems.

 

The first operating system called batch processing (serial) operating system was developed for the second generation computers; This operating system executes jobs serially one after another from a batch of jobs submitted for execution. The central processing unit is kept busy only during the processing cycle of a job and it idles during the input and output operations.

 

The above drawback of idling the CPU was overcome with the introduction of overlapped processing. For example why not take up input operation of job 2 and the output operation of job 1 simultaneously? This and similar considerations gave rise to the concept of multi-programming. A multi-programming operating system handles multiple jobs simultaneously by overlapping the input, output and processing cycles of various jobs.

COMPUTER SOFTWARE

Today we are going to discuss on Computer Software part. This is a most important topic for Computers. Computer software consists pf sets of programmed instructions which enable the hardware units to perform. Programming a computer to perform has always been a very difficult task. The first electronic computer was programmed using wired panels. Today’s computers are programmed using software.

 

Computer software can be broadly classified into two categories – System Software and Application Software. System software is a set of instructions to the machine hardware to interpret and execute application software. Application software is a set of programming instructions for specific applications like payroll accounting, inventory control, etc. System software consists of language translators [called compilers (compiles program-wise), interpreters (compiles like-wise) and assemblers (converts semi-machine-language, macro-instructions, to machine language)], operating systems, utilities and special purpose software.

 

Computer software or just software is a general term used to describe a collection of computer programs, procedures and documentation that perform some tasks on a computer system. “Software” is sometimes used in a broader context to mean anything which is not hardware but which is used with hardware, such as film, tapes and records. 

We will discuss on languages translator in next post.

blinds, roller shades, woven wood shades

Input and Output Devices-4

Still today we have discussed for different types of the computer hardware devices. Form last few days we are talking on input and output devices which is most important part of the computer hardware. The input or output units of a computer system establish the communication between the system and its users. A large number of input and output units are available in the market. A few of them are discussed in this note.

Most recent trend for data input is towards source data automation. The equipments used for source data automation capture data as a by-product of a business activity thereby completely eliminating manual input of data. Some examples are:

1. Magnetic ink character recognition devices are used by the banking industry to read the account numbers on cheques directly and do the necessary processing.
2. Optical mark recognition devices can sense marks on computer readable papers.

This king of device is used by academic and testing institutions to grade aptitude tests where candidates mark the correct alternatives on a special sheet of paper. These answer sheets are then directly read by the optical mark recognition devices and the information sent to a computer for processing.

Input and Output Devices-3

We talked about input or output units of a computer system. Input and output establish the communication between the system and its users. A large number of input and output units are available in the market. A few of them we are discussing here. We talked about hard disk in our previous post. Today we are going to talk about printer.

 

A printer is a peripheral which produces a hard copy of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media. Printers are purely output devices. Printers are classified into line printers and dot matrix printers. A line printer prints one line of information simultaneously, whereas a dot matrix printer prints one character at a time. A dot matrix printer uses a 5 X 7 or 7 X 9 dot matrix formation to represent each character. Dot matrix printers therefore provide a broken appearance to the characters, whereas a line printer provides a better quality output. A line printer has a speed of about 2000 lines per minute whereas a dot matrix printer has a lower speed of approximately 100 characters per second. If we talke about credit card printer than they need to have a merchant accounts with which credit card processing done. In big shopping mall credit card machine are available there.  With credit card software  and credit card terminal they use credit card printer  to for day to day functions.

Daisy wheel printers and letter quality printers are also character printers. But they produce excellent quality output. However, they are more expensive and slower than dot matrix printers. All the printers discussed so far are called impact printers as they make physical contact with paper while printing. A no impact printer on the other hand transfers information to paper without any physical contact. Example of no impact printers is laser printers, xerographic printers, electrostatic printers, etc.

 

Many printers are primarily used as local peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable or, in most new printers, a USB cable to a computer which serves as a document source. Some printers, commonly known as network printers, have built-in network interfaces (typically wireless or Ethernet), and can serve as a hardcopy device for any user on the network. Individual printers are often designed to support both local and network connected users at the same time.

Input and Output Devices-2

Terminals have become very popular interactive input and output units. A terminal, when connected to a CPU, sends data and instructions directly into the computer. Terminals can be classified into two types, namely, hard copy terminals and soft copy terminals. A hard copy terminal provides a print out on paper whereas a soft copy terminal provides a visual display on a screen. A soft copy terminal is also known as a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) terminal.

 

Key-to-tape, key-to-disk and key-to-diskette are stand alone data entry stations. There units usually have a small processor attached to a key board and a visual display unit. The processor checks for the accuracy of data at the time of entry. The screen displays what is being entered. There facilities are highly desirable for a data processing centre. Hence most of the data processing centres are switching over from punched card input to data entry stations.

 

A graphic display terminal displays information in both character and graphic forms. These are extensively used for CAD/CAM (computer aided design/computer aided manufacture) applications.

A potter is used to obtain printed copies of graphic outputs. It is used by architects and designers to produce blueprints of their design on paper.