Consumer Behaviour

Introduction

What differentiates companies in today’s hyper competitive and demand-driven markets is their ability to address their customers’ preferences and priorities. This means more than simply knowing and understanding their customers better than their competitors do.

People have their own drives, aspirations and needs as human beings.   Managers must recognise these needs in order to motivate his subordinates to the best of their abilities. To be effective, managers must understand what motivation is, how people can be motivated and how they can use motivation to direct people towards the attainment of the company’s goal.

The tasks addressed below will show a full picture of the key aspects of the theory of motivation and personality as well as their practical application with the company (Santos ltd).

Background

Santos ltd is a medium size company established since 1995 and specialised in the selling of mobile phones in Mauritius. At first, there was only one retail outlet in the island. With the increasing demand for mobile phones in the year 2000’s, Santos ltd had segmented its business geographically and now the company operates with more than 15 retail outlets all round the island.

The company sells branded mobile phones such as Nokia, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson and Motorola. Each brand have different market share, and Nokia is found to be the most preferred by mobile phone users.

With a decreasing market share and turnover due to the arrival of new competitors into the market, Santos ltd had decided to apply the theory of motivation and personality so as to have a better understanding of how consumer behaves in the market place.

      Theoretical knowledge of motivation

      Motivation refers to the processes that lead people to behave as they do (Michael R. Solomon, 2004:114).   He states that motivation occurs when a need is aroused that the consumer wishes to satisfy. Once a need has been activated, a state of tension exists... [continues]

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