The service sector, due to objective and subjective factors, is very attractive for entrepreneurial activity in general, and small business activity in particular, which allows us to talk about the emergence of a new economic agent - a service entrepreneur.
Scheme 6.2.1 reflects the features of entrepreneurial activity in the service sector in terms of the functions discussed in section 6.1.
The implementation of a general economic function in the service sector is associated with the peculiarities of the entities operating in this area. Thus, for some types of services, special rules for carrying out business activities may be established. For example, in the Russian law on licensing of certain types of activities, the scope of licensing includes activities for the provision of international tourism services, auditing services, medical activities and their technical maintenance, prosthetic and orthopedic care, and various types of repairs.
Scheme 6.2.1
Features of entrepreneurship in the service sector
In the entrepreneurial space of the service sector there are also business entities whose main task is to conduct non-economic, non-commercial activities aimed at satisfying social, charitable, cultural, educational and other socially beneficial needs.
In the service sector, mixed forms of business organization are widespread, for example, non-profit management, i.e. economic activity non-profit organizations, where with the help of the state a combination of commercial and non-commercial principles is ensured (with the latter being subordinated to the former). It is in the service sector, where there is enough a large share occupies the social services sector, a non-profit sector of the economy is being formed, within which commercial activities are carried out (health care organizations, higher and secondary education).
A special group of subjects of the business space of the service sector is formed by subjects that regulate business activities - subjects that carry out administrative and legal relations.
The specificity of the implementation of the general economic function in the service sector stems from the special role of the consumer in this area. It is towards the consumer that all production of services by a service entrepreneur is oriented, since the efficiency of the functioning of service enterprises (as opposed to commodity production) is determined primarily by the criteria of external efficiency - the requirements of satisfying a specific consumer in the appropriate place, at the appropriate time and in the required volume and range of services, on proper quality level. The noticeable consumer market orientation of business activity in the service sector is due to the presence of specific features of the economic nature of the service, associated, first of all, with such properties as the individuality of consumption of the service and the participation of the consumer himself in the process of production of the service.
The nature of social relations between service entrepreneurs and consumer citizens has a number of distinctive features.
First of all, this is expressed in the fact that for the majority of entrepreneurs operating in the service sector, contracts with the participation of consumer citizens are of a public nature, that is, they are mandatory for conclusion by service providers.
The resource function of entrepreneurship in the service sector has the following specific features:
Firstly, compared to material production in general, the service sector is less dependent on raw materials and basic materials. Only some of its branches, where huge production assets are needed for their work - communications, housing and communal services; tourism and sanatorium-resort treatment, focused on broad recreational use of natural resources, etc.
Secondly, many types of services have unequal degrees of susceptibility to scientific and technological progress and, accordingly, different rates of growth in labor productivity. For example, the services of a hairdresser, waiter, massage therapist are among those services that are less susceptible to technical progress and remain unchanged.
Thirdly, the specific nature of the service, which determines personal, often direct, contact between producer and consumer, predetermines a high component of the qualitative composition of human labor resources, the actual performers of the labor process. In many industries that provide various types of services, the high educational and professional qualification level of workers is determined by the creative, intellectual content of labor.
Fourthly, consumers themselves have special resource potential in the service sector. The consumer quite often acts as a direct and immediate participant in the service production process. So, for example, when receiving medical services he must provide the necessary information, formulate the problem, and in some cases discuss it with specialists possible options decisions; finally, ensure the actual implementation and get results.
In addition, managing the resource potential of a service organization in order to influence the supply of services and adapt to changing demand to ensure quality service involves the use of consumers themselves, as an additional resource of the service enterprise, to introduce self-service.
Fifthly, distinctive feature resource function in the service sector is the high turnover rate of entrepreneurial capital.
Typically, the rate of capital turnover in the service sector due to the shorter production cycle, dynamic nature, demand for services, flexibility of the services market itself is significantly higher than in the field of traditional material production, and acts as one of the main advantages of entrepreneurial activity in the service sector.
The innovative (creative-search) function of entrepreneurship in the service sector is characterized by an increased need for a new managerial and organizational logic of entrepreneurship.
By their nature, service enterprises belong to the high-risk category. In this connection, one of the main measures of an organizational and economic nature that reduces the risk of entrepreneurs in the service sector is the marketing of services, which provides for special measures to mitigate the negative impact of the characteristics of services. Moreover, marketing expands its functions, that is, along with the functions of research, sales promotion and distribution of services, the function of interaction with the buyer appears.
Benchmarking is of particular importance in the service sector. It is the buyer, whose role in the service sector is very high, who is the main source of information about the market and competitors. By obtaining information in this way, an enterprise operating in the services market acquires an additional opportunity to increase its competitiveness. This process is called benchmarking.
The specificity of the innovative function of entrepreneurship in the service sector is, among other things, determined by the transition from the technology of providing a single service to the provision of a complex or “package” of services. The bundling of services itself is associated with tougher, compared to the sphere of industrial production, competition between various business structures within the service sector. In addition, competition between sellers of goods (who complement them with related services) and between sellers of services is also becoming important, which enhances the flexibility of the creative search function of entrepreneurship.
Social function entrepreneurship in the service sector is associated with job creation rates that are generally still higher than in traditional material production sectors. Flexible employment regimes, high worker mobility, and deep diversification increase the stability of the service sector in an economic downturn and maintain employment. Many service organizations provide employment opportunities for the most socially disadvantaged segments of the population. Part-time employment, which is most widespread in trade (especially online), catering, healthcare, culture, art, education; as well as the predominantly small size of enterprises involved in this area, in the process of carrying out business activities here, contribute to the attraction of additional labor resources that are practically not used by other groups of employers. These include citizens whose labor potential as carriers is limited by objective factors. These are pensioners, minors, disabled people, mothers of many children, etc.
The service sector is distinguished by expanded opportunities for starting one’s own business, which significantly increases the opportunities for entrepreneurial activity for the general population. The social function is manifested in the formation of a new layer of people - enterprising people, gravitating toward independent economic activity, capable of overcoming environmental resistance and achieving their goals.
The organizational function of entrepreneurship in the service sector is especially clearly manifested in the possibilities for the rapid development of small businesses
Currently, there is a rapid breakthrough of services into world markets, the movement of the economically active population into the service sector, an increase in the latter’s share in the GDP of industrialized countries, an increase in the number of service organizations and the volume of international trade in services. According to World Bank estimates, the service sector currently accounts for about 70% of global GDP, which allows us to define the content of the structural transformation of the economy as a “service revolution”, which entailed changes in the composition of economic growth factors, its content and pace.
In the Omsk region alone, in January-March 2014, paid services worth 17.1 billion rubles were provided to the population, which is 1.2% more than in the same period in 2013, including housing and communal services - 5.3 billion. rubles, communication services - by 2.8 billion rubles, transport services– by 2,; billion rubles, household services - by 2.1 billion rubles. Turnover catering in January-March 2014 amounted to 2.5 billion rubles, which is 9.0% more than the same period last year.
The general trend of evolution of the modern global economy in the direction of services determines the need for multifaceted changes, the functional complication of their types, which highlights the problems of improving strategic positions along with advanced industries that form the dynamic core of a developed economy.
In recent years, there has been a tendency for companies to move from mass impersonal production to client-oriented business, aimed at understanding the needs of their clients and increasing the efficiency of working with them. This is due to the increasing level of competition, as well as the high volatility of consumer preferences. This forces companies to look for new ways to manage effectively. The transition to customer-oriented business allows the company to increase its profitability by increasing income from the existing customer base, as well as reducing operating costs for attracting new customers and optimizing the cost of purchasing and storing goods. In turn, this approach requires a reorganization of the company’s business processes and the development of new performance indicators.
The traditional practice of determining the results of economic activity of enterprises does not use methods that allow predicting the consequences of integration processes and taking them into account when developing an economic policy for the development of an enterprise. It is very difficult to study the impact of such changes on the development processes of the service sector using traditional methodology. At the same time, increasing the degree of reliability of economic results will expand the range of capabilities of the enterprise and make timely management decisions on available resources. This necessitates changes in the methodology for forming optimal dynamic development based on the inclusion of new calculations in the mechanism for managing the results of economic activity.
Researchers have proven the need to develop a system for managing the synergistic mechanism for the development of the service sector using the example of trade. T. Stepanova connects this with:
- insufficient use of synergetic tools for making relevant decisions in ensuring the optimal development of trading enterprises;
- lack of methodological support for assessing synergistic effects that increase the financial results of business entities;
- the need to assess and predict synergistic effects to increase the validity and effectiveness of the enterprise’s economic policy.
Currently, there are a number of problems that hinder the development of entrepreneurship in the service sector, which include the low level of socio-economic development of certain regions and the standard of living of the population, uncompetitiveness of products and services, unfavorable investment climate, depreciation and obsolescence of fixed assets.
The authors analyzed modern methodological approaches and concepts for ensuring the quality of products and services in the conditions of transformation of enterprises and diversification of their activities. The task of system modeling of the activities of small and medium-sized businesses has been set. It is necessary to take into account that the construction of quantitative and qualitative management models of nonequilibrium processes in economic systems encounters a number of difficulties not only of a technical, but also of a fundamental epistemological nature. Therefore, the development of methods for studying changes in socio-economic systems and the development of methods for forecasting dynamics within the framework of this approach are an urgent scientific problem.
Since today more and more attention is paid to the innovation component, one of the the most important conditions for the development of the service sector in Russia is its innovative development. It helps to strengthen positions in both the domestic and international markets, increase the competitiveness of services, improve the balance of trade in services and diversify the economy. Innovative development of the service sector makes it possible to satisfy the ever-increasing needs of the population, including the creation of new sectors of the service sector and the development of existing ones.
Key stage in innovation activity should be the development of a sample of an innovative product or service. At this stage, the interests of the author of a scientific idea, who may not be the entrepreneur himself, directly come into contact with the interests of interested business structures. How a compromise is reached between the author of a scientific idea and a business representative will largely determine the final outcome. The role of the entrepreneur is to direct the implementation of an innovative idea in accordance with the type of activity being carried out.
In the service sector and trade in particular, effective and efficient management requires the processing of extremely large amounts of information. Today, it is on the basis of sample surveys that marketing research is carried out, the quality of designed and manufactured technical systems, goods on sale, the efficiency of pricing and new forms of trade, aggregate consumer demand and the degree of satisfaction of the population for various types of goods and services are studied.
All this necessitates the widespread use of the sampling method in socio-economic surveys, which is based on the law of large numbers. However, its use requires a large sample ensemble of observations randomly selected from a homogeneous population. In reality, any society (general population) is obviously a heterogeneous set, structured according to various nominal (classification) scales.
A survey of more than one and a half thousand consumers was conducted. They were asked both open and closed questions. This form of constructing the questionnaire made it possible, on the one hand, to standardize a number of parameters being studied and to carry out statistical processing of the data. This made it possible to establish the degree of reliability of the study. On the other hand, the presence of open-ended questions made it possible to identify additional consumer preferences.
Studying the features of the manifestation of synergistic effects in the activities of enterprises allows us to analyze the factors that determine their occurrence; identify the synergistic nature of the existing results; prepare the basis for adopting the economic policy of the enterprise; develop strategic directions for optimal growth through the mobilization of all types of resources.
Small and medium-sized businesses play an important role in the development of the service sector. Currently, about a quarter of all small and medium-sized businesses are engaged in the provision of various types of services. The small and medium-sized business sector is an integral part of the economic component of development and serves as an indicator of stability and prosperity. The development of entrepreneurship provides the population with new jobs and stable incomes, significantly expands the list of goods produced and services provided, contributes to the formation of a competitive environment and the establishment of market equilibrium.
Subcontracting can serve as an effective mechanism for developing the services market. The work of subcontracting centers can give small and medium-sized businesses an impetus for development and help them enter new markets for products and services. Subcontracting gives small businesses the opportunity to produce high-quality products, provide a variety of services, create new jobs, and not spend significant funds on purchasing equipment or renting space. Such centers become a connecting link between the contractor and the customer.
Thus, the implementation of the prerequisites for sustainable growth requires the formation at the macro- and microeconomic levels of management systems that ensure the expansion of activities, the orientation of small and medium-sized businesses to improve the quality of services, and the development of social sectors that invest in human capital. The latter is especially important since the production of services, due to their intangible nature, involves the use of human capital.
The complexity of modern economic conditions in which business structures operate is associated with growing uncertainty, changing conditions and instability external environment. In this regard, the need to ensure and develop the enterprise's adaptive capabilities for a long period is recognized, which determines the importance of implementing constant strategic changes.
Literature:
1. According to the World Bank [Electronic resource]. Access mode: http://www.worldbank.org/ru/country/russia.
2. Stepanova T.V. Development of a systematic and methodological approach to assessing the synergistic effect in the service sector (using the example of trade organizations): abstract of a dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Economic Sciences. – St. Petersburg, 2013.
3. Cherepanov E.V. Mathematical modeling of heterogeneous socio-economic populations using random samples: abstract of a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Economic Sciences. – MESI: Moscow, 2013.
4. Ilyina I.E. Formation of a system for managing the competitiveness of enterprises in the sphere maintenance and provision of transport services: abstract of a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Economics. – Kazan, 2013.
Chapter 4. SERVICE ENTREPRENEURSHIP§ 1. CHARACTER AND FEATURES OF SMALL AND MEDIUM BUSINESS
Economic agents carrying out economic transactions on the market are essentially engaged in entrepreneurial activities. Entrepreneurship is the art and ability to compete in the market, create new types of goods and services, find new ways and methods to reduce costs, producing goods and services of better quality and more attractive to people.
Every entrepreneur, getting involved in economic activity, must decide for himself a number of questions: determine the goal and resources that can be used; justify the concept of economic activity. The purpose of entrepreneurship can be commercial in nature - making a profit, or non-commercial - achieving a social effect.
The substantiation of the concept of entrepreneurship is associated with the following problems:
Determining the core business policy;
Justification of forms of management or business organization corresponding to this policy.
There are two entrepreneurship policy strategies:
Focus on production and its improvement;
Focus on consumer market demand.
Focus on production and its further improvement is advisable when management is aimed at specialization or cooperation. Typically, the application of this concept is considered in connection with two situations. Firstly, if demand exceeds or equals supply, and this ratio is quite stable in time and space. In this case, the main task is to reduce costs by improving equipment, technology, and economical use of resources. Secondly, if the costs or prime cost in comparison with the price are quite high and the problem of increasing profits by reducing costs is solved.
Strategy for targeting market survey at the initial stage
is based on the fact that there is a very real and constant sales market, which can be preserved by improving the quality of a product, service, product, its consumer and operational properties. Therefore, attention is focused on improving design, packaging, and related services, and competition in this case is based on prices.
A market orientation strategy in its developed form is usually aimed at studying consumer needs and satisfying them more effectively than competitors.
In the service sector, as in the entire economy, there are various forms of organization of entrepreneurship (business). They are in a wide range - from small to large enterprises. The ratio of small and large businesses is not the same for different service sectors. In the transport and communications industries, the predominant form of entrepreneurship is large state-owned enterprises and joint-stock corporations with a large share of participation state capital. In the sphere of trade, out-of-home catering and consumer services, the dominant position is occupied by small enterprises that are individually owned. In general, the service sector, compared to the production of goods, is distinguished by the predominance of small businesses. This leaves an imprint on the conditions of marketing activities and the organization of management of factors of production of services.
Small businesses, compared to large ones, have a number of advantages that allow small businesses to be competitive with large businesses. Small businesses operate most successfully in a narrowly local service market, focusing on personal contacts between producers and consumers (for example, hairdressers, cafes, etc.). The advantages of small business include not only the entrepreneur’s personal communication with clients, but also his personal communication with workers. Small businesses, compared to large ones, are distinguished by their high ability to quickly respond to changing consumer demand. The organization of a small business involves the combination of an entrepreneur and an owner in the same person. This means that the owner-entrepreneur exercises control over all income he receives and bears full responsibility for running the business. Organizing and liquidating a small enterprise is much easier and simpler than a large enterprise. An important advantage of small business is tax advantages. All income is considered personal and the income of entrepreneurs-owners is taxed at the same rates as the income of individual citizens. In addition, small businesses, compared to large ones, receive a variety of government support.
Compared to large businesses, small enterprises have greater management independence and create better conditions for self-affirmation and self-realization of people distinguished by organizational talent and entrepreneurial abilities. A small business owner views his work as an integral part of his lifestyle.
However, small business has a number of disadvantages. Compared to large businesses, small businesses are limited in their ability to raise large funds through investors and rely on their own savings and reserves. Credit and financial institutions consider the activities of a small entrepreneur as a high-risk business and provide loans at a higher interest rate than for large enterprises.
Small businesses cannot use economies of scale in their activities - the most important factor that is used by large businesses. The disadvantage of small business is the lack of internal specialization. The owner-entrepreneur is forced to be a jack of all trades. He avoids hiring advertising agents, consultants and having a large number of assistants. He is deprived of the opportunity to attend trade shows and hold meetings during working hours, and must carry out such activities outside of working hours, while large enterprises have the opportunity to use specialists.
The advantage of large enterprises is limited liability and a high ability to raise funds through investors. Large businesses are subject to double taxation. In large enterprises, the founders have a controlling stake and can retain control over the activities of the corporation. But large-scale enterprise allows for a wide dispersion of property and a separation of ownership from management (management). In large enterprises, the possibilities of entrepreneurship as an art to create new goods and services, quickly respond to market conditions, and be independent compared to small businesses are greatly limited.
In the service sector, mixed forms of business organization have become widespread, when the advantages of small businesses compensate for the disadvantages of large businesses. Mixed forms of business include franchising, cooperatives and limited liability partnerships (mandatory partnerships). A special form of mixed entrepreneurship is non-profit management, that is, the economic activity of non-profit organizations. Here, with the help of the state, a combination of commercial and non-commercial principles is ensured, with the latter subordinating the former.
In recent years, in the service sector, a mixed form of business organization has also been developing particularly intensively, such as
franchising. Franchising is very diverse, but at the same time, three main types should be distinguished:
Activity within the limits of established shares (for example, in the USA retail cars);
Business using a name, equipment, technology (like McDonald's);
Using name, reputation, ways of doing business in combination with recruitment, training tax reporting etc. (for example, real estate services).
In the modern sense, franchising is an agreement under which a sole manufacturer or distributor of a product, goods, services, protected by a brand name, gives exclusive rights to distribute its products, goods or services in a given territory in exchange for receiving payments (royalties) from them and compliance with technology production operations. The essence of the latter is that a small and large enterprise signs a business cooperation agreement. After signing the agreement, both companies conduct business independently. But at the same time, a large enterprise provides a small enterprise with advertising, sells goods and raw materials necessary for running the business. The owner of a small enterprise, under certain conditions, uses the trademark, trade name and rights of a large enterprise. He not only uses consultations and entrepreneurial management experience, but also receives special training in the field of marketing research and quality control of goods and services. Large enterprises provide financial assistance to small ones, in particular by providing short-term loans and financing the start-up costs of small enterprises. Large enterprises themselves, despite some financial costs in connection with lending to small enterprises and the costs of training representatives of small enterprises, receive certain benefits from cooperation with a small enterprise. Due to payments from small enterprises, their own capital increases and the volume of their production expands, since they do not invest their capital in opening branches.
Compared to branches, small enterprises, being legally independent, have more motivation in their entrepreneurial activities, they have more property. Equally important is the establishment of social partnership business relations between small and large businesses. They exclude labor conflicts, since representatives of small enterprises are not employees of large enterprises.
A small enterprise, having concluded a franchising agreement, is forced to incur certain costs, in particular, it shares part of its profit due to the need to pay for the financial, educational
personal and other services. You have to accept some restrictions on your sovereignty as a participant in the free market and deal with conflict situations in connection with the termination of contractual relations with a large enterprise. Franchising allows small businesses to use the advantages of narrow specialization in competition in the market. They fill niches in the market that are inaccessible to large enterprises, and this ensures the survival of small businesses.
All franchising participants receive savings on advertising, since the association of entrepreneurs in a pool (i.e., equity participation in accordance with the volume of activity of each) allows large advertising campaigns to be carried out on more favorable terms. Since franchising is usually based on an already proven business concept, this contributes to better organization management, reduces market risk.
Franchising allows an entrepreneur to start his own business using the experience, knowledge and support of the person who represents the franchise. An important point becomes the acquisition by a novice entrepreneur of the right to use a well-known company name. This makes starting a business much easier.
But under franchising conditions, concentration on one type of small business activity is becoming increasingly risky and ineffective. Its dependence on big business is increasing. This led to a shift from specialization to diversification as a way to insure independent small businesses against market risk. Diversification provides a number of advantages in the form of:
Better maneuverability of resources in dynamic market conditions, since it becomes possible to transfer resources from areas in decline to areas closer to economic recovery;
The diversity of areas of activity allows us to stabilize and retain a contingent of consumers interested in comprehensive services;
The merger of enterprises within one industry or market has very strict restrictions of antimonopoly legislation, which is not prohibited when merging diversified, multi-profile enterprises.
Diversification in the service sector can occur in different ways:
Formation within firms or companies of new venture-type divisions engaged in promising but risky activities;
Adapting to a new demand structure and entering new markets through the purchase and acquisition of other companies with promising technology;
Buying up foreign companies (which is especially typical for Japan);
Creation of joint ventures and companies;
Cooperation between companies in various service sectors (for example, trading companies enter the markets for communication and information services; transport companies enter the markets information services and wholesale trade; communications companies to markets consulting services etc.).
In any form of entrepreneurship, business management must take into account the requirements of the law of supply and demand. It represents the management of both factors affecting the supply of goods and services and factors affecting the demand for goods and services.
Supply factor management deals with managing the resource potential of an enterprise. In the service sector, resource potential includes production assets that determine the capacity and throughput of the service enterprise, personnel potential and organizational capabilities of the service enterprise, i.e., the level of organization of the information system, the queuing system. The special resource potential in the service sector includes the consumers themselves.
Demand factor management is the management of marketing activities and service quality. This type of management is often called marketing management.
Managing the resource potential of a service organization in order to influence the supply of services and adapt to changing demand to ensure quality service involves the widespread use of workers employed seasonally, for a whole year, for example, in the field of tourism and sanitary-resort services, or the widespread involvement of full-time workers. working day based on peak consumer demand during the day or week (for example, in the field of transport services, communications, trade and out-of-home catering in cafes and restaurants, etc.). It provides for regulation of the working hours of service personnel in service organizations and extensive maneuvering of resources within a service enterprise. In some cases, it is necessary to rely on the use of consumers themselves as an additional resource of the service company, introducing self-service. At the same time, a simplified procedure for using information and technical self-service systems and simple recommendations for their management are provided so that the introduced innovations do not negatively affect consumer demand. In a number case- It can be used to rent the resources of other enterprises for efficient and timely service to consumers.
Managing demand factors in service enterprises includes the widespread use of marketing methods - in particular, the use of
using differentiated prices taking into account peak and off-peak levels of demand. An example of this is feed-in tariffs and low prices for services, etc. during periods of minimal demand, high tariffs and prices during peak periods of demand. Special emphasis is placed on marketing methods such as advertising and promotion of services, especially to develop demand during off-peak periods.
Factors of managerial influence on demand include the practice of using a reservation system for fixed non-productive assets and a system of pre-orders. During periods of demand, it is widely practiced to provide additional services in order to absorb the negative aspects of waiting time when customers queue. At the same time, special attention is paid to various methods of regulating queues, including reasonable scheduling and determining the directions of consumer routes. In the service sector, consumer orientation, i.e. market orientation, is much stronger than in the ordinary goods market.
The effectiveness of the functioning of service enterprises is determined primarily by the criteria of external efficiency - the requirements of satisfying a specific consumer in the appropriate place, at the appropriate time and in the required volume and range of services, at the proper quality level. The internal criterion for the effectiveness of a service enterprise - the economical use of the enterprise's existing resources, including through the enlargement of production scales - is not an end in itself. The internal criterion is completely subordinated to the external criterion of effectiveness. The strong consumer market orientation of service enterprises determines a universal approach to marketing, i.e., marketing thinking and marketing skills were intended to be an integral part of the activities of all employees of service enterprises.
§ 2. SPECIFICITY OF MARKETING IN THE SERVICE SECTOR
The formation of a services market is associated with a number of problems, the central of which is tracking (monitoring) its conditions. This is what marketing activities should be aimed at.
In its most general understanding, marketing is an activity focused on satisfying needs through exchange.
Marketing in the service sector is an activity aimed at matching the demand and supply of services. The essence of the concept of marketing in the service sector may be as follows: the consumer is satisfied with the level of service of this company and intends to continue using it.
continue to use these services in the future. The key to achieving this goal is to identify the needs and requirements of target markets and implement the assigned tasks in more effective ways than competitors.
In developed countries, where the use of marketing is very active, a well-developed methodology has developed. The marketing management process includes:
1) analysis of market opportunities;
2) selection of target markets;
3) development of a marketing mix;
4) implementation of marketing activities.
Analysis of market opportunities (stage 1) begins with an assessment of the state of the services market. To do this, the marketing environment of the region where the company is planned to operate is studied. Factors of a socio-economic, political, demographic, cultural-historical nature, etc. are taken into account. The study of the market for night opportunities should be associated with solving a number of problems:
Deeper penetration into markets through price regulation (with increased demand), increased advertising (with low demand), improved quality of service, modification of services;
Expanding the boundaries of the market, for which the incentives and interests of new consumers of services are sought (for example, consulting on the organization of summer cottages, leisure activities, educational services: rapid reading, language learning, etc.);
Development of new types of services;
Diversification of services.
The assessment of market opportunities depends on the target orientation of the company and its availability of resources. Therefore, marketing research should be aimed at identifying the opportunities for your company to occupy competitive positions in a specific market by adapting the services supplied by the company to the demand and requirements of the consumer. It is necessary to determine the conditions under which optimal relationships between supply and demand are achieved in the market. It is also important to establish what the competitive positions of specific types of services of the company and the company itself are in the market under study and to focus on those types of services that will ensure the greatest sales and corresponding profits.
Structure marketing research may include, firstly, studying a specific market; secondly, analysis of the firm's potential to enter and consolidate its position in the market. Strategic approaches to achieving alignment between supply and demand in the market must also be taken into account. Thus, stimulating demand is possible by establishing differentiated prices taking into account seasonal characteristics, the degree of development
market development; during periods of decline in demand, it is advisable to introduce pre-orders; during times of peak demand should be offered additional services as an alternative. The supply of services can be increased by hiring additional staff during times of peak demand, by regulating work hours, by encouraging customers to perform ancillary tasks (for example, paperwork), and by developing shared service programs.
The second stage of marketing is the selection of target markets. It should be based on a forecast of demand for services in the region served (or local market). A company can engage in its activities in one, several segments or in the market as a whole, depending on its capabilities. Therefore, selection is carried out based on an analysis of potential consumers and their likely demand for services. It is advisable to carry out consumer analysis differentiated in relation to individuals and legal entities. It is also necessary to take into account the activities of competitors.
Demand analysis individuals(individual consumers) is preferably carried out using several leading criteria: income level, age, education, social affiliation. The results of the analysis should allow us to determine the number of potential consumers who may be interested in these services. The approaches to analyzing the demand of legal entities are similar. The proposed contingent of consumers allows us to determine market coverage (or market share).
The third stage - development of a marketing mix includes positioning of the service, pricing, and development of methods for activating sales.
Each company, having chosen the market segment in which it will operate, must justify its position. If this segment has basically already taken shape, then the competitors operating there have their own positions, which the new company should take into account. The new company has two possible paths. The first is related to the positioning of the service in parallel with existing competitors and the corresponding struggle for market share. This path is possible if the market (or its segment) has the ability to expand, or the company has better resources than its competitors, or the service provided by the company is of higher quality. The second way to penetrate the market is to develop a qualitatively new service and search for consumers interested in it. At the same time, the contingent of consumers must ensure not only a sufficient volume of sales of the service, but also the expected profit.
Positioning a service on the market involves:
1) comparison of the main parameters of the services provided, their specific choice;
2) comparison of consumer preferences;
3) assessment of the company’s ability to deliver this service in various conditions, for example, traveling to a small town;
4) with the help of a set price, attract consumers and provide the supplier with a normal return on invested capital.
Services, like goods, have their own life cycle. They go through the stages of design, development, testing, entering the market, growing in maturity, saturation, and decline. Stages life cycle measurable in time. The duration of the cycle and its individual stages should be taken into account when positioning the service, since some of them become obsolete quite quickly and need to be replaced. It is also necessary to take into account the contribution of a particular service to the company's income, the rate of its growth (or decline), development and marketing costs.
The specificity of marketing services is predetermined by their immateriality, inseparability from production processes, the impossibility of storage and the complexity of standardization. Thus, overcoming the intangibility of their services, consulting firms strive to give the final product of their work greater tangibility by creating standard (standard) solutions or projects for the most common problems (standardized planning, control and optimization systems business transactions etc.). But here it is important not to cross the line beyond which priority is given to individuality, the specificity of the client and his problems, and their need for an individual approach.
It is also advisable to take into account that the client in many ways acts not only as a consumer, but also as a direct and immediate participant in the service production process. So, for example, in counseling he must: provide the necessary information; formulate a problem, advice or solution that interests him; in some cases, discuss possible solutions together with a consultant; ensure implementation and get results.
Table 4.
Specific characteristics of services
Recommendations for marketing services
Insubstantiality
try to “reify” the service, to connect it in the consumer’s mind with some kind of material sign. A classic example of the reification of a service is a credit card.
Inseparability from the production process
try to create more branches, make sure that the consumer is confident that, no matter which branch of the company he turns to, he will be served at a high level everywhere
Impossibility of standardization
1
Despite the “piecemeal” nature of production, high quality can be ensured through careful selection of personnel and their training. It is also recommended to provide a feedback system with the consumer - keep a book of complaints and suggestions, constantly study the experience of competitors, etc.
Impossibility of storage
A more uniform distribution of demand over time can be achieved using appropriate pricing policies. It's also helpful to send reminders to clients so they don't forget they have an appointment.
Marketing must also take into account the fact that the sale of services usually coincides with their production in time and space, therefore the service company itself is a sales channel, although it may have branches.
Based on the results of market opportunities, selection of target marketsways of implementing marketing activities are determinedinto life. For this purpose it is being developed action program for the standing period (one or five years). The program containspersonal and qualitative indicators of the company’s activities. WednesdayDi quantitative indicators of the program are the most important - expectedMay share of market coverage and business volume. Qualitative indicators should reflect the creation of the company’s image, increasing its competitivenessprofitability, improvement of service.
The specificity of marketing in the service sector is determined by those features of services that are comparable to new goods that are not yet known to the consumer. The demand for them is very small, poorly formed and develops as market relations become established, which awaken those needs, the emergence of which leads to the emergence of a certain market or its segment. For example, the demand for business services is associated with scientific and technological progress, causing changes in the market, the emergence of more complex knowledge-intensive needs that show interest in obtaining specific business services. This leaves a peculiar imprint on sales policy, the purpose of which is not only to establish the magnitude and qualitative parameters of demand for business services, but also to anticipate its changes as economic relations, scientific and technological progress, and the competitiveness of the company develop.
Currently, a situation has developed in the Russian market where some of the types of services most mastered by entrepreneurs
1.7 billion people on Earth work in the service sector
Irina Milovanova
Cynological center "Elite"
Despite all the advantages, business in the service sector is far from the easiest.
Of course, working in services is somewhat simpler than in manufacturing: no technological requirements, minimum approvals from regulatory authorities. But if you thought that entry into the service sector is available to everyone, we have to disappoint you: this is far from the case. In order to provide quality service, you need to put in no less effort than in any other field.
The main difficulty in this matter is that in the service sector the influence of the human factor is very strong. Let's face it: if you are a mediocre specialist, or do not know how to politely communicate with clients while providing services yourself, your business will not last long. It will be no less difficult if you hire third-party specialists. It is often quite difficult to select them, and it is not easy to monitor how they perform their duties.
Another disadvantage of working in services is a lot of competition. Where there is good demand and starting a business is relatively easy, you run the risk of encountering a lot of equally resourceful aspiring entrepreneurs. Therefore, in services, more than anywhere else, it is important to find your niche and create a unique selling proposition. Don't be afraid to experiment and do what no one else is doing yet. But do not forget about a sense of proportion: services should remain in demand, and not scare off consumers with their madness.
And of course, in connection with great competition It can be quite difficult to “get promoted” in the service sector. This means it can take many years to build a name for yourself and command a price above the market average. But you have to start small: in the most competitive service industries, newcomers are often forced to work for little pay, hoping for good recommendations and the work of word of mouth.
Services in Russia: what should the market expect?
But still, entrepreneurs did not face a decrease in demand for all types of services. For example, pawnshops and microloans have benefited from the crisis.
Things have also improved for most services that ultimately help you save money. For example, companies operating in the personnel outsourcing market are doing great: it is cheaper for a business to hire a third party to perform irregular work, rather than keeping someone on staff and constantly paying him a salary.
The business of helping credit debtors is also experiencing real growth.
All these changes are in one way or another connected with the deteriorating economic situation. At the same time, Russian residents do not expect the economic situation to change soon and are committed to saving. According to the Romir research holding, 11% of Russians intend to save on various expensive services, including those related to treatment or education.
Although education market participants themselves do not notice a significant decrease in demand. For example, a network of schools foreign language London Express noted that the number of students studying has decreased only slightly, and in the future demand will not drop much: there are more people who intend to get a job abroad or improve their competencies in order to look better on the labor market.
But data presented by the National Agency for Financial Research shows: 48% of Russians save on vacations and vacations, 18% on transport.
From these figures we can conclude that in the near future the demand for services in the field of tourism, car servicing, as well as for expensive and unnecessary services will not grow. Therefore, you need to open a business one way or another related to this type of activity after first weighing all possible risks. Or perhaps it’s worth abandoning this idea altogether and looking around in search of new, more in-demand areas in the service sector.
Dmitry Zasukhin
Legal Marketing Laboratory
With all its features, business in the service sector is now very popular. By opening it, we begin to actively make money on our professional knowledge and skills. All this brings, in addition to income, true joy from work.
In my opinion, narrow specializations will be in demand in the near future. For example, lawyers defending fathers' rights, or food photographers. The narrower your specialization becomes, the easier it is for you to attract clients and find your niche.
Irina Milovanova
Cynological center "Elite"
I believe that small businesses definitely need to work in at least three areas that are close to each other. Then market monitoring will allow you to develop what is in demand at the moment and maintain a stable income.
It is also worth turning your attention to everyday services, which either have not suffered much from the crisis, or, on the contrary, have experienced an increase. At the same time, it is best to work in the economy segment.
In many countries of the world service business often served as a kind of engine for economic development and increasing the efficiency of public welfare. However, in our country, such mechanisms began to emerge only at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, proceeding unevenly in different regions and acquiring considerable originality everywhere. During this period, various types of service production began to spread from historically established economic centers to medium and small cities, to poorly developed territories. For centuries, traditions in the field of trade, consumer services, and transportation died out, and new principles and organizational forms of service emerged.
Under these conditions, entrepreneurial activity in the service sector could become, over time, a noticeable factor in the development of a modern domestic economy. Subjects of service activity were sensitive to public demands, the need for new types of services, and the possibility of making a profit in a particular region of the country. A huge role here was played by the initiative and perseverance of these people, their ability to take into account various difficulties, overcome them, calculating all the pros and cons of their steps, and if necessary, risk their capital.
However, this process of development of domestic business was interrupted. During the Soviet period, private initiative in social production was reduced to zero, and the entire infrastructure of services was associated with a single national economic complex of the state type, within which serving the population was considered a secondary task compared to the creation of industry and military production. In the post-Soviet period, this underestimation of the service sector and business has given rise to many difficulties that seriously complicate the process of reviving service entrepreneurship in our country.
The current period of revival of Russian entrepreneurship, when it begins to recreate its development potential almost from scratch, is characterized by serious imbalances, economic costs and social deformations, which, however, contain many objective patterns characteristic of the early stage of development of services in other regions of the world. The above circumstances in which it is restored Russian business, do not allow service entrepreneurship to act as the locomotive of the economy that could accelerate market transformations and stimulate overcoming the general economic crisis. As will be shown below, certain areas of service entrepreneurship are actively preparing the ground for such overcoming, without yet changing the general situation. All this indicates that the current stage of domestic entrepreneurship in the service sector is seriously different from the stage characteristic of developed countries of the world, where this type of business acts as a noticeable stimulus for general economic and social development.
The transformations of the post-Soviet period made it possible to see the unequal readiness of the population of different Russian regions and types of settlements to entrepreneurial activity in the service sector. This is largely due to the territorial living conditions, the density and structure of human settlement. Below we will consider how these economic factors affect the revival of entrepreneurial activity in the service sector in our time. To this end, let us first turn to statistical data indicating the spread of small enterprises (SEs) across the country, the main part of which is related to entrepreneurship in the service sector.
At the first stages of Soviet reforms, residents of super-large and large cities (from 1 to 3 million inhabitants or more) turned out to be more ready to master entrepreneurial activity. At the stage of the birth of the cooperative movement, such cities as the largest links in the territorial organization of society demonstrated a large-scale concentration of capital, the presence of qualified personnel, a high degree of social initiative and adaptive capabilities of people. Later, at the stage of Russian reforms, in major cities It became possible to develop a wide range of service entrepreneurship, ranging from personal to industrial services, which was impossible to achieve in medium and small cities, as well as in rural areas.
The subsequent stages of Russian reforms, expanding market relations, showed that many other factors and conditions, in addition to urban ones, began to actively operate in the development of service entrepreneurship in the country. The unequal level of adaptation of the population to changing working conditions and life activities in general was determined not by any one or two reasons, but by a whole series of circumstances. Thus, much depended on whether a particular city was diversified or single-industry, where it is located, what production is leading in the city economy, to what extent transport functions are performed (the presence of river and sea ports, highways, railway junctions, airports), etc. p.
To this series should also be added a list of important socio-economic factors that significantly influence the development of entrepreneurial potential in the transition period:
the presence or absence of export and raw materials in urban production;
the degree of industry diversification (the share of the largest facilities in the volume of urban production, in the city’s budget revenues and in providing employment to the population);
quality of urban labor resources;
the degree and nature of social stratification of the population;
the amount of income received by the population in the city based on the final results of activities (including, for example, as a result of trade in goods purchased by “shuttle traders”);
the ratio of income and expenditure of the population;
tax potential of the city per capita and per employee;
a measure of economic self-sufficiency of the population (the share of the population whose income is more than 50% higher than the subsistence level), etc.
In these processes, which can stimulate or hinder the development of entrepreneurship in the field of services, the role of authorities at the regional and municipal levels, as well as the legal and tax mechanisms operating in the country and region, should be especially emphasized. The complex combination of objective and subjective reasons in each city indicated that in urban settlements with the same number of inhabitants and under relatively similar living conditions, the adaptive potential of people to new conditions could be different. The scale and quality of private services, as well as the nature and vectors of activity of the entrepreneurs themselves, were also unequal.
Based on the typology of Russian cities with different adaptation potential and unequal socio-economic dynamics proposed by V. Leksin and A. Shvetsov, we will consider different possibilities urban environment for the development of service entrepreneurship in modern Russian cities. These authors identify the following types of cities:
cities in which, in the last years of the Soviet period, the prerequisites for effectively exploiting the opportunities and advantages provided by the reforms existed and were immediately used. In this case, entrepreneurship in the field of service showed a high degree of activity, constantly expanding the scope of its application and becoming an important factor in stimulating the urban economy and improving the living standards of citizens (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod etc.);
cities that stood out positively during the reform period due to new geographical, resource and other factors of investment attractiveness or the emergence of market demand, including the external market. In this case, the redistribution of income received from basic production or from intensive international exchange allows for the active development of some especially in demand or prestigious, often expensive, types of services. This, in turn, leads to a disproportionate expansion of certain types of entrepreneurship, to an unbalanced ratio of its different areas and forms of service. This series includes, for example, Vladivostok, the cities of the Tyumen region, some northern medium and small cities (Norilsk, Kogalym, Noyabrsk, Nadym), as well as satellite cities of some megacities, medium and small single-industry cities with products that are in high demand in domestic markets. or foreign markets, etc.;
cities characterized by sluggish positive changes or slowly stagnating. In this case, local entrepreneurship in the service sector is characterized by sluggish development. It may be characterized by individual breakthroughs, sometimes stimulated from the outside, if the city is associated with promising commercial projects - a significant part of the country’s large and medium-sized cities belong to this type;
cities and towns with clear signs of general depression. Entrepreneurship in the service sector is episodic in nature here, since there are no objective socio-economic prerequisites for the development of active services. Residents use either those types of services that remained from the Soviet period, or are engaged in self-service - they cultivate personal plots, maintain personal subsidiary plots, take small lots of grown agricultural products to the market, etc. - this type consists of some medium-sized, small towns and the vast majority urban-type settlements.
The types of urban conditions discussed above for the development of services in our society allow us to get an idea of the presence of general trends. Along with them, there are smaller trends; many local characteristics and ways of developing service entrepreneurship are also revealed. Thus, it should be said about the stimulating role of some regional “capitals” in the development of socio-cultural services. We are talking about large regional centers, which during the reform period retained high level economic, scientific, educational, financial, social and structural potential, which provided them with the opportunity to become leaders in the development of modern regional services. These include cities such as Veliky Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Krasnoyarsk, Omsk, Novosibirsk, etc.
Such centers stimulated the development of regional entrepreneurship in the field of intellectual and highly qualified services - scientific, educational, recreational, information and computer (in particular, the provision of Internet services), etc. Service enterprises began to appear here, capable of maintaining partnerships and competing on equal terms with foreign ones firms or with businessmen from Moscow and St. Petersburg. This is especially true for entrepreneurs working in the field of communications and computer services, advertising, education, and tourism services. In the post-Soviet period, large cities that formed industrial hubs gradually formed their own patterns of overcoming the crisis. The production capacities of these cities, gradually being drawn into market relations, stimulated the arrival of new workers from medium-sized and small towns and from the countryside to the city. In turn, stabilization production capacity and favorable economic conditions increased the demand for various types of services. The preserved transport communications and social facilities made it easier for business to develop, which, without repeating the costs of the service sector of the Soviet period, created a modern type of service production. In the conditions of Russian reforms, the development of rural service entrepreneurship acquires its own characteristics. In the countryside, to a much greater extent than in the city, factors hindering the development of modern service entrepreneurship make themselves felt. Without pointing out all such factors in this case, we note that the transformations being carried out in the country as a whole are perceived by village residents more distantly and pessimistically. Thus, many sociological surveys indicate that the majority of the rural population does not consider it advisable to transfer land for private use. However, in such a reaction it is wrong to see the conservatism of the consciousness of the villagers, their opposition to market changes. Here the fixed in Russian society a traditional approach to the land that helps residents of the Russian hinterland survive in any conditions.
The transition to new living and service conditions occurred relatively easily in those rural areas of the country where large structures for the production of agricultural raw materials and their processing remained. It is relatively easy to form an infrastructure of production and social services around such agro-industrial complexes.
However, in the overwhelming majority of rural areas of the country, the former collective forms of agricultural production were collapsing, which confronted a significant part of the population with the problem of independent survival.
New forms of service to agricultural producers and rural populations are coming from large cities. It is urban entrepreneurs who offer rural residents to participate in local innovations, most often related to the sale of agricultural products or their processing, the construction of summer cottages, and the recreation of city residents. The Russian hinterland retains many opportunities for such types of business.