Marketing risk, refers to the enterprise in the process of marketing activities, due to the emergence of unfavorable environmental factors and lead to marketing activities damaged or even failure of the state. Enterprises in the process of marketing activities, must analyze the possible risks of marketing, and efforts to prevent, set up control measures and programs, and ultimately achieve the marketing objectives of enterprises.
Marketing mainly includes four major risks:
1, product risk. Product risk is the product in the market is not marketable when the state. Product risk includes product risk, product quality risk, product quality risk, product market timing risk and product positioning risk, product brand and trademark risk. (1) Product design risk refers to the products designed by the enterprise is outdated or too far ahead, do not adapt to the needs of the market customers. (2) The product function quality risk mainly refers to the products sold by the enterprise, the function quality is not enough or the product function quality is too much, can't fully meet the user's needs. (3) The product market timing risk refers to the product into the market time of the choice of improper. (4) The product market positioning risk refers to the characteristics of the product, etc. and the market customer requirements do not match. (5) Product brand trademark risk refers to the state when the brand-name products are infringed or improperly maintained, so that the reputation of brand-name products is damaged. Its performance is an external enterprise or individual infringement, the second is the brand is not registered in a timely manner and was seized by others, the third is the formation of the famous brand after the negligence of the maintenance or maintenance of improper and make the credibility of the damage and so on.
2, pricing risk. Pricing risk refers to the enterprise for the product developed by the price is not appropriate to lead to increased competition in the market, or the user's interests are damaged, or the state of the enterprise's profit is damaged. Pricing risk includes: (1) low price risk. Low price refers to the price of the product is set low. On the surface, the low price is conducive to sales, but set a low price is not at any time, for any product works. On the contrary, the product set a low price, on the one hand, will make consumers doubt the quality of the product, on the other hand, so that the enterprise marketing activities to reduce the price of the space is narrowed, the difficulty of sales increased. Secondly, the low price of the product depends on the wide range of consumer demand and stable over a long period of time. In fact, consumer demand is changing every moment, so this price dependence of the enterprise is very fragile. (2) Overpricing risk. High price means that the enterprise will set the price of the product is high, the single product profit is large. High-price product risk is mainly manifested as follows: First, the high price to the degree of competition in the market incandescent, thus leading to the failure of the high-price target; Second, the high price of product marketing for the creation of difficulties, because low-income earners will be due to the high price of commodities and deterred; Third, the booking of high prices are also prone to make the interests of the customer is damaged, especially for the pre-consumer enthusiasm for the greater harm. (3) the risk of price changes. There are three main forms of price changes, one is from high to low price changes, that is, price cuts; the second is the price of goods from low to high price changes, that is, price increases; the third is due to changes in the market price of competing products, the price of the enterprise's products to remain unchanged. In the enterprise marketing activities, the implementation of price changes, if not properly disposed of, often also produces unfavorable situation, such as price cuts will trigger a vicious price war with competitors, price increases will make consumers switch to buy their competitors' products and thus lead to the loss of customers and so on.
3, distribution channel risk. Distribution channel risk refers to the distribution channels selected by the enterprise can not fulfill the distribution responsibility and can not meet the distribution objectives and the resulting series of adverse consequences. Distribution channel risk includes distributor risk, storage and transportation risk and payment recovery risk. (1) Distributor risk. Most enterprises choose distributors to sell their products, and it will be difficult to achieve the expected purpose if enterprises make mistakes in selecting distributors. Distributor risk is mainly manifested as follows: the strength of the distributor is not adapted to the enterprise product sales conditions, the geographical location of the distributor is not good, the distributor can not be coordinated or even each other, the distributor's other breach of contract and so on. (2) Storage and transportation risk. Storage and transportation risk mainly refers to the commodity loss due to the commodity in the storage and transportation, transportation process. It is mainly manifested in three forms: one is the loss of the quantity of goods, the second is the loss of quality, and the third is the loss of supply time. (3) Goods recovery risk. It mainly refers to the phenomena such as occupation and loss of goods that arise from the enterprise's inability to recover the payment for goods from distributors in time according to the contract. Goods recovery risk is a very difficult problem faced by most enterprises in China. Its main manifestations are: distributors maliciously default and misappropriation of payments, distributors due to operational difficulties and inability to support.
4, promotion risk. Mainly refers to the enterprise in the process of promotional activities, due to improper promotional behavior or interfere with the emergence of adverse factors of promotional activities, which led to the enterprise promotional activities are blocked, damaged or even failed state. Promotion risk includes advertising risk, personnel marketing risk, business promotion risk and public **** relationship risk. (1) Advertising risk. Mainly refers to the enterprise to use advertising for promotion and did not achieve the expected results. Enterprises must pay a certain amount of money to the advertising company to carry out advertising promotions. These expenses paid by the enterprise have a special nature, that is, the effect produced by the expenses is not measurable. Although a large number of examples have proved that advertisements can promote sales, this is only after the fact, whether or not the promotion and the extent to which it can promote sales cannot be estimated beforehand. (2) Personnel marketing risk. Refers to the subjective and objective factors caused by sales staff to promote the product unsuccessful state. Personnel sales risk includes sales staff knowledge, skills, responsibility and other aspects of the incomplete and present a variety of states. Although personnel sales is a traditional and effective way of promotion, such as the use of improper, will also bring losses to the enterprise. Especially in the case of the majority of enterprises on the sales staff according to the sales performance of remuneration, more likely to have problems. (3) Marketing promotion risk. Marketing promotion refers to a promotional measure taken by an enterprise to recruit customers and stimulate purchases in a short period of time. If the content, method and time of marketing promotion of the enterprise are not properly selected, it will be difficult to achieve the expected results. (4) Public **** relations risk. Enterprises carry out public **** relations, the purpose is to establish a good social image for the enterprise or its products, for marketing to open up a relaxed social environment space. Carrying out public **** relations need to pay the cost, if the cost of the expenditure does not achieve the desired effect, or even no effect or negative effect, the formation of public **** relations risk.
Two, marketing risk causes analysis
Substantively analyzed, there are two main causes of marketing risk: one is caused by the subjective factors of enterprises, the other is the objective factors of the market environment.
1, the subjective factors of marketing risk causes. From the marketing risk and the manifestation of several phenomena, the reason why the risk, first of all, the enterprise did not get rid of the impact of the traditional planned economy, still maintain the traditional marketing concept. Planned economy, commodity demand exceeds supply, the traditional marketing concepts pursued is the principle of production and marketing, the enterprise produces what kind of goods, customers will consume what kind of products. Modern marketing concepts pursued on-demand production, sales to production principle, emphasizing the organization of production and business activities according to market demand. In the modern market economy, the relative excess supply of goods, consumption is a kind of behavior belonging to consumer sovereignty. Enterprise marketing concept error, will inevitably lead to behavioral errors, the wrong behavior will produce risk. Secondly, enterprise decision makers are used to make marketing decisions based on subjective imagination. Ultimately, it will lead to product backlogs and stranded funds. Thirdly, the enterprise marketing managers and marketing personnel do not understand the market rules, norms or regulations, which is also very likely to cause marketing risks. In the market economy, in order to maintain a level playing field, the long-term formation of a series of rules and norms, laws and regulations (such as the relevant national laws and regulations, industry codes of conduct, practices, etc.), if a company's marketing activities in violation of market rules and norms, the heavier will be sanctioned by the national law, the lighter by the counterparts of the other enterprises of the boycott, blocking and joint counterattacks, and ultimately make the enterprise defeat. The operation of the market economy has inherent laws and mechanisms, such as the law of supply and demand, the law of price, the price mechanism and the competition mechanism, etc., the enterprise marketing behavior if it violates the laws of the market economy, or can not be reasonably effective use of these laws, will produce marketing risk. Fourth, the enterprise lacks the experience and knowledge to deal with marketing risk. When the enterprise produces marketing risk, due to the lack of experience and knowledge in dealing with marketing risk, the risk can not be controlled in time and turn the risk into a safe. Such as in June 1996, the three plants oral fluid Changde incident is because of the lack of experience and knowledge of the enterprise to deal with the crisis and ultimately led to the enterprise was hit - by an event triggered by the individual risk into a grand and the overall risk of the enterprise as a whole. Fifth, the enterprise on the marketing risk of insufficient knowledge of the hazards. In China's business organizations, it is difficult to find institutions dealing with the risk of crisis, enterprise marketing management about the risk of crisis management is often ignored, these are the risk of harm to the lack of vigilance performance. The "Huiji Mountain" brand of yellow wine produced in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province is a famous brand in China and is also very popular in Japan. In the long-term sales process, but did not recognize the risk of not applying for registration of trademarks, the results were registered in Japan first, which led to the enterprise's sales in Japan subject to others, and ultimately spent 100,000 U.S. dollars to buy back the original belong to their own trademarks. Some enterprises in the marketing risk signs, or when the risk occurs, hold a fluke mentality, always to the good side of the idea, and its harm is not enough to recognize, so as to delay the best time to deal with the disaster. Ltd. is engaged in the trade of raw materials in Hangzhou, Hangzhou, an enamel factory to supply a batch of raw materials, found that the plant is operating very abnormal, but the company manager that tens of thousands of dollars in payment recovery will not have a problem. As a result, an enamel factory shut down production, payment arrears do not pay, the company sent a staff again and again to urge, the factory director again and again promises, the company manager and gullible commitment to hold the money can be recovered, the final result is that the factory was declared bankrupt by the court, the company waited until the court's claims notice. Sixth, the enterprise information is not effective, is also an important reason for the risk. Enterprises do not have timely and sufficient understanding of the collection of users, intermediaries, competitors and other relevant information, no credit investigation of the object of the transaction, blindly occurring business transactions, and ultimately generate risks. A large number of instances of deception in the current market are included in this category.
2, the objective causes of marketing risk. Marketing activities by a variety of environmental factors outside the enterprise's influence and interference, and thus triggering the risk of marketing. Such causes, enterprises must be studied.
(1) the objectivity of the changes in market demand, is the primary factor leading to the objective existence of marketing risk. With the establishment of China's market economy, the development and improvement of the enterprise's production and management activities are increasingly subject to market demand. Market demand is a constantly changing uncontrollable factors. China's enterprises face the market demand, has changed from quantity demand to quality demand, and is moving towards personalized demand evolution. This change in market demand, on the one hand, is the inevitable result of economic development, at the same time, and further promote the development of social economy. When the enterprise marketing activities do not adapt to the changes in market demand, it will produce marketing risk. Market demand from low-level to high-level changes, from quantitative to qualitative changes, from group ****similarity to individual uniqueness changes, is an objective trend that does not fully understand its objectivity, and efforts to adjust marketing activities, it is inevitable to produce marketing risk.
(2) the economic situation and economic policy changes produce marketing risk. In the past two decades, China's socio-economic situation can be said to have undergone a radical change: the gross domestic product in 1985 for 4517.8 billion yuan; in 2001 for 95933 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 21. 24 times. Looking at all aspects of China's economy, none of them is changing rapidly, and continues to change rapidly. From the perspective of the global economic situation, the degree of interconnection and influence between the economies of various countries is also rising further, and changes in the economic situation of a particular country in the world also lead to changes in the economic situation of other countries. In particular, the major economic events of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, such as the financial crisis in Southeast Asia, the financial turmoil in Mexico, the new economic wave in the United States, the integration of the European economy, China's successful accession to the WTO, and the recent depreciation of the Japanese yen, have further aggravated the changes in the economic situation of countries around the world. The economic situation, whether it is a gradual change or a drastic change due to unexpected events, will directly or indirectly affect and determine the enterprise's marketing activities. When a certain change presents unfavorable factors, it will produce marketing risk. Such as China's accession to the WTO, enterprises face not only domestic counterparts, international counterparts will also come to your doorstep, so the difficulty of marketing will increase, the risk will be raised. In addition, in order to adapt to changes in the economic situation and promote economic development, governments are changing their policies to guide the economy. For example, our government implemented an economic austerity policy in the early 1990s, and then changed to an economic expansionary policy in the mid to late 1990s. Changes in national economic policies have led to changes in the economic situation and market demand, which in turn will also bring risks to the marketing activities of enterprises.
(3) Scientific and technological progress is another factor leading to marketing risk. Scientific and technological change, the enterprise's marketing activities have a dual role: on the one hand, scientific and technological progress for the enterprise's marketing activities provide new opportunities, new ways and means to enrich and develop the enterprise's marketing activities; on the other hand, each new technological change, but also means that the elimination of the original technology, from this point of view, but also to the enterprise's marketing activities have brought the threat. Typical examples are the electronic computer technology Internet, as well as the network marketing generated on this basis. Network marketing on the traditional marketing impact is very fierce, at present, China's network marketing has not been popularized, however, the United States network marketing has been more mature, 2000 network shopping transactions amounted to 6.6 billion U.S. dollars. If the Internet is popularized in our country, network marketing will also become a new way of marketing and is widely used. Do not understand the network marketing, may make the enterprise in a very dangerous situation, the progress of science and technology, the enterprise's marketing organizational structure, marketing staff structure, marketing strategies and tactics, marketing methods and approaches, will have a huge impact and lead to change, change not only means new opportunities, but also means risk.
(4) Other external factors. Political factors, military factors, etc. will indirectly produce marketing risk, such as "9. 11" event triggered by the United States on the war of Afu juice, and the resulting U.S. economy from the rise to decline, indirectly affecting some of the marketing results of enterprises; the country's internal political stability or not, the country and the country's diplomatic and cooperative relations, etc., will affect and cooperation. The political stability within the country, the diplomatic and cooperative relations between the country and the country, etc., will also affect and produce domestic marketing risk and international marketing risk.
Three, the control of marketing risk
1, strengthen the marketing environment research, is a fundamental measure of marketing risk control. Enterprises start from the design of the product, to positioning, distribution and promotional activities of the whole process, must be in-depth market, research and study. Through the market research activities, to master the relevant intelligence data information, including customer demand information, competitor information, national macroeconomic and corresponding policy information, international political and economic situation and other information. The marketing activities of the enterprise must be based on the full mastery of the relevant information material in order to carry out smoothly, otherwise the enterprise marketing activities will produce risks. COFCOMET is a packaging products manufacturer that provides packaging products to many manufacturers. In recent years, marketing risks have been effectively controlled and receivables have been collected. The enterprise stipulates that when marketing personnel sell products, they travel with the goods, arrive at the goods, inspect the goods on the spot with the customers and complete the corresponding formalities. At the same time, the marketing staff must also understand the customer's corresponding information, such as product sales are normal, whether there is a call for payment, etc., through the marketing staff in-depth investigation of the customer's site to analyze and judge whether there is a risk of trading. For example, the enterprise in the business dealings with a production beverage company, found that the company appeared to call for payment of personnel, and the company's product inventory backlog rose, the timely adjustment of the company's supply mode, and then the beverage company was declared bankruptcy, many suppliers of the payment can not be recovered, while the COFCO METE has not suffered any loss.
2, the establishment of risk prevention and treatment organization. In the changing market environment, enterprises in the operation of the risk may occur at any time, so the establishment of risk prevention and treatment organization is as important as the establishment of the marketing organization. The work of the risk prevention and treatment team should include the following aspects: First, the establishment of risk prevention rules and regulations within the enterprise, and supervise the implementation of the system; Second, the investigation and study of relevant information and materials, the company's customers' information and ability to analyze and evaluate; Third, the risk management exercises in the daily management of the work, in order to improve the ability to cope with risk management, and to strengthen the awareness of the workers' risk prevention; Fourth, the risk prevention and treatment organization will unify to deal with the risk events after the risk emerges in the enterprise. A city without a fire department can not, by the same token, I am afraid that the enterprise without risk prevention and treatment organization can not.
3, the correct face of risk. When the risk arises, how to face the risk, is to decide whether the risk can be correct and the key to smooth processing. The occurrence of risk will bring damage to the enterprise, may also bring damage to the community, customers. Enterprises should first face the society and customers honestly, on the one hand, minimize the damage to the society and customers, on the other hand, quickly take measures to stop the expansion and spread of risks. If the enterprise avoids, pushes back or even defends after the risk arises, it will make the risk expand and the damage increase instead.The Coca-Cola beverage contamination incident that happened in June 1999 in Europe is a risk faced by Coca-Cola Company. The first measure taken by Coca-Cola was that the top management of the company flew to Belgium and France to deal with the beverage contamination incident and apologize to the victims. The second was to commission an authoritative organization to investigate the cause of the risk and release the results to the public. Thirdly, control and influence the source of information release. Through a series of measures taken by the company, it finally succeeded in controlling the damage level of the risk. Another example is Changde, Hunan Province in 1996 - a customer caused other diseases and died after taking Sanzhu oral liquid, which was reported by the media and triggered the risk of Sanzhu Company. In the face of the risk, Sanzhu company at first did not recognize, and then is to shirk the responsibility, and finally was pushed to court, the risk of more and more bigger, and finally brewed Sanzhu company's demise.
4, according to the law. Business risk arises, the enterprise should quickly use legal weapons to deal with risk. The state in order to regulate market behavior, protect fair competition, safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises, formulated a series of related economic laws and regulations, such as "Contract Law", "Price Law", "Anti-Unfair Competition Law", etc., the enterprise decision-makers should be aware of the corresponding laws and regulations, in marketing activities in accordance with the law. In the daily business transactions, the enterprise has a potential risk of business, first of all, according to the law to identify a good contract, identify the contract is the first threshold to prevent risk. Secondly, when the other side of the reasons for the risk caused by the enterprise, should be decisive, and actively seek legal ways to deal with the risk.
5, improve the quality of enterprise staff. Some of the risks in the enterprise marketing activities, is caused by the enterprise staff quality is not high or other subjective factors. Such as some corporate sales staff are not familiar with the sales of products marketed by the relevant knowledge and sales impediments, or accountability is not strong and lead to payment can not be recovered in a timely manner and losses, are all part of the quality of staff and the marketing risk. Therefore, to strengthen the quality of enterprise staff training and improve, is one of the important measures to control the enterprise marketing risk. Enterprise staff quality training should include the staff's political quality, cultural quality, business quality, moral quality and other aspects of the content. For the first line of marketing staff, the comprehensive quality of its enhancement or not, directly affecting the enterprise marketing, to strengthen its training becomes more urgent and important. Enterprises in the assessment of marketing personnel, focusing on sales and profit assessment is certainly important, its sense of responsibility and risk prevention assessment is equally important. At present, many enterprises to achieve sales from the accounting books look very large, but the actual sales of funds back is not ideal, some of the funds may become suspended accounts or dead accounts. Therefore, marketers should not only strive to promote the increase in sales, more attention should be paid to the prevention of risk.