Agricultural Marketing Infrastructural Facilities †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Agricultural Marketing Infrastructural Facilities. Answer: Introduction: Located in Central region of Indian state Gujrat, Gandhi Pulse Mills is one of the largest pulse producing factories of India. Apart from the production of the pulse, Gandhi Pulse Mills also focuses upon the production of tobacco, millet, paddy and wheat. 55, 000 square feet is the area covered by Gandhi Pulse Mills and it is the leading company in Gujrat for trading of Pulses and Food Grains (Gandhipulsemill.com, 2017). There are more than 2200 customers who are valued by the organization and there are customers who are also based outside the country. There are three warehouses that belong to the organization which are the storage and manufacturer of the pulses of the company. During the start up of the business and for few months, Gandhi Pulse Mills only focussed upon supplying the demand of the customers of Gujrat only. But later when the demand for the products of the company increased, they also started exporting the products in the countries outside India and thus the demand fo r their products increased outside India. The expansion policy was followed by the business as the business determined that there is need for the products of the company outside the region and also the local customers showed intense satisfaction after consumption of their products. The international customers are also satisfied with the help of the business and supply of their products in the international market. The expansion of the business took place, but however the expansion in terms of employees of the organization was not followed and as a reason, the company failed to meet the demand of the customers in the regional as well as in the international market due to lack of workforce (Saxena, 2008). The service providers of the organization failed horribly in order to meet the customers demand and also the mangers of the organization was unable to meet the quality of the products as a result of the expansion process of the business. So, it can be seen that the demand for the products of Gandhi Pulse Mills has decreased as the customers are reluctant to buy the products of the company and the wait time of the customers are also increasing. There are competitors in the market like Jayesh Pulse Mills, Raja Pulse Mills and Ganpati Pulse Mills which have eaten up the market share of Gandhi Pulse Mills for the reason that Gandhi Pulse Mills was unable to meet the demand of the customers. The customers have shifted their attention towards the competitors as Gandhi Pulse Mills was unable to meet the demands of the customers (Asodiya, 2014). Also the brand image of the company has been affected as they were unable to supply the customers with the products and balance between the supply and demand was not maintained. Also the customers wait time increased rapidly due to the expansion in the international market and low workforce which have contributed towards the rapidly falling market share of the company in the highly c ompetitive market in the Pulse Industry. Situational Analysis The situational analysis of Gandhi Pulse Mills will help to understand the internal and external market of the organization in the context of the political as well as economic situation of the organization. It will also help us to understand about the social, technological, legal and environmental factors that are attached to the Gandhi Pulse Mills. The mentioned factors are the external factors of the organization and now coming to the internal factors of the organization determining the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats can be done with the help of the SWOT analysis. Understanding the internal and the external situation of the business is very significant for the Gandhi Pulse Mills in order to plan the strategies of the organization accordingly in the context of the situations that the company is facing (Tiwari et al., 2011). Both internal as well as external analysis can be conducted with the help of marketing research which in turn will help Gandhi Pulse Mills to ta ke decisions regarding the strategy of the company. With the help of the internal analysis, the weaknesses of the organization as well as the strengths of the organization can be understood by the Gandhi Pulse Mills. The strengths and the weaknesses are determined by the culture that the company follows and also the structure of the organization (Jobber et al., 2012). The company brand image also falls under the internal factor of the company and also the employees, awareness of the brand, financial resource and operational efficiency also falls among the internal resources of the company. The external analysis is the study of the environment which is outside the organization and affects the internal functions of the organization (Rothaermel, 2015). The suppliers as well as the business partners falls under the external analysis of the company and also the competitors, technologies that are new in the market, economy of the country where the company operates and so on falls under the external analysis. SWOT Analysis: The SWOT Analysis is an internal analysis of the company which helps us to determine the internal strengths and weakness of the company along with the external threats and opportunities of the organization (Grant, 2016). In the context of Gandhi Pulse Mills, the SWOT analysis has been conducted below in the tabular format: Strengths of Gandhi Pulse Mills: The first and the foremost strength of the organization lies in the advancement of the technology which can help the organization to adopt new technologies that are there in the market and produce more pulse in limited time and also deliver quality products to the customers of the organization (Narula, 2014). Gandhi Pulse Mills also have huge amount of financial resource in the company which can help them to invest money in various streams which in turn can help to develop the company and also keep the customers of the company satisfied with the help of supplying them with satisfaction due to the quality of the product. The suppliers also have very low bargaining power as there are many suppliers in the market and if they bargain, the company can change the suppliers with a very low switching cost (Avinash and Chavan, 2014). Weaknesses of Gandhi Pulse Mills: It is very difficult to maintain the balance between the demand from the side of the customers and the supply of the products as the workforce of Gandhi Pulse Mills is insufficient to meet the customers demand in the market. The workforce that is present in the company is not at all sufficient to produce the amount of products that is required by the customers of the organization and thus the customers demand are not met by the company (Dwivedi et al., 2015). It is also not possible to hold on to the product quality when the business is expanding and have a very limited workforce. So, the dropping quality of the products of Gandhi Pulse mills can also be considered as another weakness of the organization. Gandhi Pulse Mills also exports their products in the foreign market and for that reason during the currency fluctuation, when the rate of the Indian currency goes down, Gandhi Pulse Mills suffers a huge amount of loss which can also be considered as another weakness on the part of the company. Opportunities of Gandhi Pulse Mills: Promoting the products of the company in the foreign markets with the help of the financial resource that the company have on part of them can be helpful for the business to increase their sales in the markets outside India which can in turn raise the sales of the company (Mishra, 2015). With the help of the maintenance of the balance between the supply of the products in the market and the demand of the customers, Gandhi Pulse Mills can also recover the image of the brand which they lost due to improper maintenance of the balance between the demand and supply of the products. Threats of Gandhi Pulse Mills: The major threats of the organization comes from the competitors in the market and due to fierce competition in the market, the organization is not able to cope with the strategies as well as the policies that are used by the competitors in the market. Gandhi Pulse Mills also tends to satisfy the stakeholders that are present outside the country and tends to ignore the stakeholders of the country and thus if the stakeholders form outside India stop using the company products, the company can be in real danger which can be viewed as an extremely risky situation for the company (Kumar, 2014). Now coming to the external analysis of the company, in the external analysis, Pestle analysis can be done along with the Porters Five Forces: Pestle Analysis of Gandhi Pulse Mills: The Pestle analysis can be conducted in order to understand the external market situation that exists in the market in relation to Gandhi Pulse Mills and the factors that can be analyzed here are political, economic, social, technological, Legal and environmental. Under the political factor, it can be said that the Government of India is trying a lot to promote the agricultural sector of the country with the help of development throughout the sector. The pricing policy of the agricultural sector is determined by the central government of India as well as the Central Government provides loan to the farmers for producing the crops and buying seeds. Also Gandhi Pulse Mills is an initiative of the government and thus they receive grants from the government in order to develop the quality of their products and also provide the customers the products at a very low price (Chand et al., 2015). Also, there is tax applied by the government on Gandhi Pulse Mills which results in to decrease the profit of the company and also trade tariffs imposed on the mills which also decrease the profit of the company as well. Duty imposition can also change the level of profit of Gandhi Pulse Mills which is a major drawback for the company. The economic factors also play a significant role in the company and directly impact the business of Gandhi Pulse Mills as well. Firstly, the inflation and the deflation rate of the country can influence the behaviour of buying of the customers as well as the consumption power of the customers depends on the rate of inflation and deflation. The rate of employment and unemployment in India can also affect the Gandhi Pulse Mills and more the rate of employment, more the sales of the product of the company in the market and the less the rate of employment, the less is the demand for the products in the market. The social factors of Gandhi Pulse Mills states that people nowadays are becoming more health conscious and that is one positive factor for the company as pulses are healthy and doesnt contains fat (Birthal et al., 2013). Also, the expectancy of life is rising in the world with the help of the healthy diet that people are consuming and for that reason, Gandhi Pulse can gain benefits from these factors. There are a lot of technologies that the market is overflowed with in the 21st century with the help of the globalization of the businesses and for that reason, the technology is used in the production of pulses extensively in India. Gandhi Pulse Mills should adapt to the technologies that are there in the market in order to produce the products at a quick rate so that the balance between the demands of the customers and the supply can be maintained and also the customers can be provided with the products which are of high quality. Among the environmental factors that have effect on the company is that, the cleanliness of the pulses should be maintained throughout and the removal of the pulses that are rotten is very significant (Iriti and Varoni, 2017). Also, hygiene should be maintained throughout in order to provide the customers with best quality product. The grades of the pulses should also be done accordingly and Grade A pulses should not be mixed with Grade B pulses in order to provide the customers with the type of pulses they want to consume. There are various laws that are there in the legal factors of the company and Gandhi Pulse Mills should follow those laws in order to avoid any legal difficulty. While there are laws from the side of the Government, there are also various rules and regulations that are followed by the company. There are also rules of employment and basic salary that the company should follow so that they are able to avoid the difficulties in terms of legal notices from the Government of India. Evaluation and Application of Appropriate Theories From the instant case scenario it can be discerned that the present organization is facing issues to strike balance between demand and supply. They had been successful in bringing satisfaction to the regional customers by supplying good quality products at decent prices. However ever since they have started taking their business to an international level, the regional customer base has been suffering (Rios et al., 2013). The quality of the products has been going down making the local customers losing faith over the brand image of the company. Thus with the application of certain economic theories, the current imbalance in the demand and supply situation of the company could be resolved. The first significant theory which is to be discussed with respect to the current case scenario is the theory of supply. When referring to supply it is always with respect to scarce resources. In this case the product in consideration must be pulses as the company involved is a pulse mill. It refers to the amount of the commodity which the seller is able and wants to provide for sale at various prices for a period or unit of time. Now it is important to understand the law of supply. From the law of supply, it can be inferred that there exists a direct relationship between quantity of the amount of the product which is offered for sale for particular period of time and the price of the product (Charles et al., 2010). As the price of the product increases and other factors remaining constant, the quantity of the product which is offered for sale increases and vice versa. This means if the price of the product falls and other factors remain constant, the amount of the product that is of fered for sale comes down. Hence this relationship can be determined as the law of supply (Ehrenberg and Smith, 2016). The law of supply can be shown with the help of a diagram. The diagram shows that the quantity supplied is shown in the x axis and the price at which the product is sold is shown in the y axis (Canto et al., 2014). It is clearly seen that as the price of the product increases the supply of the product i.e. the quantity sold also increases. When the price of the product is Re 1 the amount supplied is just 20 units. When the price increases by Re 1 to Rs 2, the amount of the product supplied increases by 20 units to 40 units. Similarly when the price of the product becomes Rs 5 the amount of the product sold becomes 100 units. Hence the law of supply is dependant on the movement amount of goods which are available to satisfy the needs of the consumers. Thus increased or decreased supply of the products has an impact on the price. When there is shortage or dearth of a certain product, the cost of the product increases. Supply can be used for determining demand. Excess supply results in the decrease of demand of the customers. Hence supply theory can be used to develop business strategies and ways to deal with the present nature of organizational challenges. The present business situation suggests that the local customers are being neglected by the present organization by supply insufficient amount of products to them (Varian and Repcheck, 2010). Moreover there had been serious compromise with the quality of the product being supplied. This has created a demand and supply imbalance within the company. If the supply reduces as a result of lower demand, the company will lose valuable brand loyalty and customer base. The nature of the business also suggests that the company belongs to a perfectly competitive market where there are various rival businesses selling the same product. If they increase the rice by lowering the supply, the customers will opt to buy from other rival competitors who sell the same unit of the product for lower price (Baumol and Blinder, 2015). This will eventually hamper the sales of the company and will eventually impact the entire revenue of the product. Thus the business experts of the company should develop certain business strategies to ensure that the bridge between the demand and supply is reduced. They should increase their sales staff. They should develop a sales plan where they analyze the potential customer base and how much stocks and reserves should be kept to fulfil the demand of that customer base (Foster and Rosenzweig, 2010). They should ensure that home delivery services are provided to the customers so that they do not have to make efforts to derive the product. An important economic theory which can also be considered for bringing solution for the current organizational challenge is theory of production. Production can be termed as a process by which value is created or increases for the product. The product in such cases gets its utility. It refers to the method or process by which factors of production or inputs like labour, land, capital and technology gets converted into outputs like finished products and services. Another aspect of the production theory is the production function (Moulin, 2014). It refers to the functional connection or relationship between the inputs and the outputs during the process of production. Hence it is technical relation between the factors of production which are utilized in the process of production and the degrees or levels of output. Thus it is important to determine what the factors of production are (Iossa and Martimort, 2015). The first factor to be considered is land. Land includes natural resources l ike mineral, surface, rivers, seas, air etc. Land is always fixed in nature and cannot move. It is a free factor of production and does not involve any cost. When speaking of labour as a factor of production it refers to the effort given by an individual. This can be both physical as well as mental. When capital is considered as a factor of production, it is the investment made by the entrepreneur with respect to the process of production. It includes factors which can be moved from one place to another (Rader, 2014). Inputs can be either fixed or variable in nature. Examples of fixed input include factors of production like land and building. They remain fixed at a certain place and cannot be moved. The fixed inputs remain constant during a short period of time. During any level or degree of output, the amount of the fixed input remains constant. The expenses borne on these inputs are known as fixed costs (Hall and Lieberman, 2012). However in during a longer period of time the fixed inputs get converted into variable inputs. In case of variable inputs, during the long run the factors of production start changing as per the levels or volumes of production or output. Examples of variable inputs include aspects like labour and raw materials. It is pertinent to discuss about the law regarding the production functions. One of the laws is the law of variable proportion. It speaks of the production function in the short run. Here at least one factor of production is variable in nature. The quantities o f the other factors of production are considered as fixed. This law demonstrates the relation between input and output wherein one of the factors of production is variable (Boland, 2014). Herein if one of variable input is used more the total production increases at a high rate initially. However the total production increases at a lower rate. Finally the total production goes down. The other law is regarding return scales. Herein the production function in the long run has all the factors of production to be variable. From the analysis of the theory of production it can be said the particular theory should be taken into consideration for the development of strategies and solutions with regards to the instant problem faced by Gandhi pulse mills. According to the instant theory the personnel involved in production should take into consideration the price of the inputs or the factors of production (Reichl et al., 2013). It is also an important consideration other than just the price of the products. From the theory of production it can be inferred that price of a certain product is greatly dependent on the fixed costs and variable costs of the product. Thus the production managers have to take into consideration the factor of productions like the cost of labour, capital, land etc. In the instant scenario they have to take into consideration the cost of the raw materials involved (Altman, 2012. They should not compromise on the price of the products if the cost of the raw materials is high. They have to ensure that the raw materials are of the best quality which will ultimately enhance the quality of the finished product. This will help them to maintain their reputation by increasing customer satisfaction. Recommendations In the recommendations it can be said that Supply Theory should be used by the organization in the context of providing the customers with the supply of pulses at time. Reducing the waiting time of the customers is the main aim of the organization and for that reason; the supply needs to be synced with the demand from the part of the customers of the organization. The maintenance of the balance between demand and supply of the products of the company in the market can help the company to provide the company with competitive advantage over the competitors of the same industry and can also help them to build a reputation among the customers of the organization (Asiedu, 2015). It should also be kept in mind that high prices of the products from the part of the company can affect the demand of the products negatively and for that reason, the price of the products should also be reasonable in order to sale it to the customers of the organization. The waiting time of the customers can be reduced with the help of the use of the innovative and effective technologies in the pulse mills and for that reason the company should buy new technologies to reduce the customer wait time which is a significant factor which contributes towards the satisfaction of the customers. The managers of the organization should be able to focus upon the production of the company and the price of the commodity in the market. Innovative technology should be used in such a way that the production is more in the mills at a very less price which can also increase the sales in the part of the company and for that reason, the profit of the company will also rise in the market. The quality of the product of the Gandhi Pulse Mills depends highly on the products that are supplied by the suppliers of the organization and for that reason; it should be ensured that the suppliers are supplying high quality products which will enable to satisfy the customers with hig h quality product from the part of the company. The customers can also be charged with high prices if the quality of the product is the best in the market and better than the competitors products of the same industry (Rachmat et al., 2016). References: Altman, M. (2012). Human agency and material welfare: Revisions in microeconomics and their implications for public policy. Springer Science Business Media. Asiedu, E., (2015). Developing Market as a Source of Competitive Advantage: The Role of Management Tools. Elixir International Journal of Management Arts. ISSN, pp.36319-20. Asodiya, P.S., (2014). 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