Interior Designers have grown in numbers
Filipinos love decorating and accessorizing their home, that is why Interior Designers have grown in numbers because of the opportunity in this growing industry. And the challenge of keeping up with new approach and techniques in making homes beautiful is keeping interior designers on their toes.
Because of this challenge, Interior Designers are always on the lookout for beautiful home accents that they can use to fulfill their clients’ requests and come out with a beautiful and cozy home design. Competition is indeed tough in this field, that is why the designer must always be one step ahead if he wants to stay on top of the industry.
To help them get the best items that would make perfect accents for every home that they need to work on, Rain Collection is the website for them to visit.
Rain Collection is an online store of beautiful home decors that would fit perfectly on every house. Whether they are looking for small items for accents or big decors for greater emphasis, Rain Collection have them.
Now, the Interior Designer’s job has just been made easier because they don’t have to look to anywhere just find the best accents. Whether their style is minimalism, or even if they are ‘loud and proud,’ they can find the best decorative items at the Rain Collection website.
Interior Designers have grown in numbers
Filipinos love decorating and accessorizing their home, that is why Interior Designers have grown in numbers because of the opportunity in this growing industry. And the challenge of keeping up with new approach and techniques in making homes beautiful is keeping interior designers on their toes.
Because of this challenge, Interior Designers are always on the lookout for beautiful home accents that they can use to fulfill their clients’ requests and come out with a beautiful and cozy home design. Competition is indeed tough in this field, that is why the designer must always be one step ahead if he wants to stay on top of the industry.
To help them get the best items that would make perfect accents for every home that they need to work on, Rain Collection is the website for them to visit.
Rain Collection is an online store of beautiful home decors that would fit perfectly on every house. Whether they are looking for small items for accents or big decors for greater emphasis, Rain Collection have them.
Now, the Interior Designer’s job has just been made easier because they don’t have to look to anywhere just find the best accents. Whether their style is minimalism, or even if they are ‘loud and proud,’ they can find the best decorative items at the Rain Collection website.
MANAGING FOR SOCIETY
Monday, October 15, 2007
By Maria Victoria P. Tibon
Sales and marketing: How close are they?
People, especially those who are not in business, perceive sales and marketing to be the same. Business people, on the other hand, see them as separate turfs that can be at war instead of working in tandem. A close look at these two functions can hopefully clarify this misconception and end the turf war.
Sales is the process of getting a customer to buy the product conceived, priced and promoted by marketing. This makes sales a tactical function that is focused on the short term and the immediate. Marketing’s focus, on the other hand, is largely strategic, concerned with long-term issues that require planning.
Marketing’s central concern is to provide the features and quality of a product that a customer wants to buy. Marketing covers market research, pricing, public relations, advertising and marketing communications. Through research, marketing practitioners try to know a product’s features and quality that a target market with an assumed purchasing power wants. Marketers determine the price that matches the features and at which the customer will be willing to buy. The marketing function promotes understanding of the company and the product. It likewise promotes goodwill. Marketing people create an image for the company and the product in the hope of building and establishing credibility and generating prospects and leads.
The sales job consists of converting leads into customers by going directly to the prospects and convincing them of a product’s merits. Hoping to strike deals, sales people try to raise the prospects’ interest level and to lower the resistance level.
Sales people are in the front line. Marketing supports sales. Sales would not have a transaction or closed deal if it were not for all the research, product awareness and image building done by marketing. However, no matter how creative the marketing outputs are, if they don’t reflect the needs of the salespeople, marketing is missing the mark.
Both sales and marketing are tasked with delivering results for the company. They are both concerned with creating customers for the company. When they work harmoniously, the company generates profits. However, when there is hostility, people become frustrated and unproductive. Employee turnover becomes high and the company image suffers.
The misunderstandings can take on many forms. Sales people think that their marketing counterparts are wasting their time because they are not able to generate the appropriate leads and have to ask salespeople to follow up “insignificant” customers. Marketing practitioners, on the other hand, think that sales people, when unable to meet their targets, lay the blame on high prices and substandard service. Marketers believe that leads from their campaigns are not enthusiastically attended to. Sales calls are not planned nor are sales reports given to marketing for feedback. The company suffers and desired results are not achieved.
Good things happen when sales and marketing work closely together. The company has market leadership, sound financial performance, a good image, superior products, and a loyal and satisfied clientele. Sales people provide feedback to the marketing personnel, and the latter are able to strategize effectively as a result.
Establishing the closeness needed between sales and marketing goes beyond their physical proximity. Although this is a factor, the major part lies in creating opportunities for them to coordinate and interact productively. Cross-functional teams for each product can be created, with representatives from sales and marketing as members. These teams can share their difficulties and review the product marketing and sales performance occasionally. Trust and commitment between sales and marketing should be built so that both parties cooperate and own the strategies.
When sales and marketing work closely, both parties understand the logic of the strategies and the requisites for success. The strategists are not in two ivory towers and plans and strategies are aligned with reality as encountered by those in the front line. Implementation becomes smoother.
In the last analysis, how close marketing and sales are depends on whether marketing listens when sales talks, and vice versa.
The author teaches at the De La Salle Professional Schools Ramon V. del Rosario Sr. Graduate School of Business. She welcomes comments at vixie_tibon@yahoo.com
Only 5,500 Pinoys working abroad fired, says President
Some 5,500 Filipinos working abroad have lost their jobs and returned home over the past four months, President Gloria Arroyo said on Thursday.
“Since November up to today, of our eight million Filipinos abroad, only 5,500 have had to come back because they lost their jobs,” President Arroyo told a national convention of the Vice Mayors’ League of the Philippines in Cagyan de Oro City, Misamis Oriental province, in Southern Mindanao.
The Labor department, though, announced earlier this week that 39,000 Filipinos had lost their jobs since October, a number which included overseas workers.
It said the 39,000 included more than 5,400 overseas-based Filipinos who had lost their jobs in places such as the Middle East and Taiwan, which accounted for the bulk of the returning expatriates.
Mrs. Arroyo also told the vice mayors that the 39,000 job losses were “mostly in the export sectors of electronics, auto parts, garments and mining.”
She insisted that “3,000 new jobs are being processed daily,” but did not give details.
The President said that local officials in Metro Manila, the country’s premier region and where most of the laid-off workers in local industries live, were meeting to “address the needs of displaced workers.”
According to her, the Philippines was more prepared than many other countries for the ongoing global financial crisis, having managed to make its economy grow in 2008 “when two-thirds of the world went into recession.”
The President said that “up to late last year, Filipinos had no difficulties finding and keeping their important jobs overseas or helping their families and contributing to our economy.”
But, “since that time, the global financial turmoil has continued to spread and it has jeopardized the well-beings of billions of people across the globe,” she added.
