Month: September 2012

Veda’s Blog on “What’s the idea Sirjee?” has reminded me of  how important market positioning is for a business. Avis is a car rental company that has been competing with Hertz for over half a century. Hertz has already established itself as the No.1 in car rental industry in consumer’s mind, therefore it is hard for Avis to also establish itself as the No.1 in the industry. Avis has taken a different approach and positioned itself as the No.2 with the slogan “We try harder”. This innovative way of market positioning has finally helped Avis to establish its image in the consumer’s mind.

For market positioning, the most important thing for a business to do is to create an image of the company that stays in consumer’s mind. By doing so, the consumers can therefore remember who the company is and what they do. Avis is a really great successful example of market positioning. Although it positioned itself as the second in the industry, it didn’t matter because it established itself in the consumer’s mind which in turn led to an increase in the business’ revenue and profit. In 2012, Avis has rebranded with new slogan “It’s your space”.

Companies searching for cheap labor is very common in businesses. Consumers want to maximize their benefits, therefore to satisfy the consumers’ wants, businesses have to cut the cost of production.  And the simplest way is to use cheap labor. Many companies have been using child labor and paying below minimum wages. Recently, there is even a story about prisoners doing work for a private telemarketing company and “being paid the equivalent of about 60 cents an hour- just a small fraction of the legal minimum wage.”  As the prisoners take on the job, consequently jobs are being taken away from the working force.

Businesses have gone wild in exploiting the cheap labor field. They are moving to the extreme and now even using convicts for cheap labor. It could be argued that using prison labor and getting paid extremely low is unethical but then if the convicts are willing to accept the job, it is just another form of cheap labor. Businesses should pay everyone (including convicts if they hire them) at least minimum wage as set by the government. Therefore it could eliminate discrimination and also sets up a better image for businesses as they care about business ethics.

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/article/95731

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