Demand is defined as the number of consumers who have expressed the desire for a particular product and are willing to pay the price attached to that product which may be a good or a service. Demand can exist in different forms and derived demand is one of them. It refers to the demand of a product arising from the changes in another related product which could be in form of price, quality, design, and quantity among other attributes of the product.Lextant serves clients that are operating in a very competitive business environment and have come up with a business strategy that focuses on the consumers who are the end users of the products. The company specializes in research design for its clients that include proctor and gamble, Pepsi co, Motorola, good year, whirlpool, hard rock café and Microsoft among others. The company does not therefore deal directly in a good but provide research services that are very vital to its clients in dealing with its customers and their provision of services.

 

As the name of the company suggest, lexicon means language or vocabulary therefore every business they do is done in the interest of the customers and the end users and this is clearly in line with type of business they do which is derived demand and their work depends on what the customers desire and not necessarily what the business strategy says. They are therefore customer focused in their business. The company therefore strives to translate the name to real actions by conducting market research and consumers' surveys with a view of providing information that is relevant in enabling their clients to understand the consumer interests, their behavior, likes, dislikes, motivating factors, their economic status, the different classes of consumers, their feed back about already existing products and services among other information. Their clients on the other hand use this information to provide goods and services that matches the above stated consumer expectations. As stated earlier the current business has become quite competitive and there is a scramble for customers and therefore marketers have to find ways of retaining existing customers as well as acquiring new ones and this can only be done through meeting their demands in terms of goods and services and creating value for their expenditures. Therefore the demand for the service provided by Lextant comes from the customers that their clients serve and not directly from the clients. In the same vein the work they do have an influence on the goods and services that their clients offer as the information they provide must be factored in the production processes of these companies.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

Lextant utilizes the services of experts in areas such as interaction design,sociology,anthropology,human factors and industrial design who all bring together their input in providing the information that shapes the operations of their clients and hence the product they offer largely depend on these experts and can be said to be derived from the work of these experts.

 

What types of business markets does Lextant serve?

 

Lextant serves a whole range of market segments and their work fits in almost all the sectors of the economy especially those firms that deal with customer relationship issues will find the services of this firms very useful. From the companies listed as their clients they almost serve all sectors of economy which can be categorized into food and beverage manufacturing industries that deal with retail outlets. In this market segment the firm serves clients such as proctor and gamble, Pepsi co and hard rock café which also a food retail and entertainment company and offers all these services through its hotels, casinos and music venues.

The other sector that the firm serves is the information and communication industry which is highly competitive and fast changing industry due to influence of technology. In this market segment the company serves clients such as Motorola which is a giant in the mobile telephone manufacture with a world wide presence. Others in this category are Microsoft that specializes in the design and development of software and other IT related products.

 

The other market is domestic home appliances that include kitchen appliances, laundry products, refrigeration and cooking facilities that also depend on the retail market and direct consumers. In this market the firm serves whirlpool which is a market leader in the provision of all the assorted domestic products that requires direct customer experience as the consumers uses the products.

 

The last are of market that the firm has extensively invested in is the automotive support industry through the provision of spare parts and other accessesories needed by the users of motor vehicle. In this market the lead client is good year that has strived for many years to supply products such as tires for trucks, cars, ATVS, aviation, racing, farm, as well as OTR.This company has therefore identified itself as a specialist in the manufacture and supply of these accessories which is a very important component of the automotive industry.

 

From all the above segments the firms seems to serve industries that provide goods that serve direct customers or consumers and that is why their behavior and feed back with regard to the products offered is the main focus of the firm and the advice they offered is aimed at building the customer relationships.

Lextant therefore serves the direct retail market where the clients have to deal with the customers directly without intermediaries and therefore the products offered are mostly utilized domestically this makes customer focus as the main point of being competitive.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

When purchasing Lextant services, what type of buying method would be used: description, sampling, inspection, or negotiation?

 

Lextant is perfectly a service provider as it does not directly deal in provision of goods but only uses their experts who carry out market research on the consumers and the products and give feedback to the clients who are actually the manufacturers and marketers of the products. The firm therefore only provides a service which is quite intangible and the clients will mostly rely on the conversation with the experts who will be able to provide their research outcomes regarding a particular product and make recommendations of what the customers require and their expectations which he/she will seek to recommend to the company. All these can only be proved when the service is put into practice. It's therefore very difficult to quantify and accurately evaluate the price of the service provided.

 

I this regard a number of methods can be used to purchase the services of the firm and one of them will be negotiation where the client or the companies seeking the services of the firm will evaluate their expected outcome from the implementation of new strategies proposed and depending on their cost benefit analysis negotiate a reasonable price for the services.

 

The other common method that can be used is sampling as research will normally come up with different options and the companies will therefore select some recommendations that they will partly implement and see the outcome then a decision can be made whether to continue with them or not. This is the easiest as it will minimize chances of loss incase a strategy fails to work.

 

The companies involved can also make use of the research findings and involve some of their staff in confirming the outcomes then they can comfortably purchase the services after through inspection.

 

The last option can be the use of the staff conducting research for the firm whom they will allow to give details about their market research and what new product designs are available to keep them competitive then from the explanations given by the lextant staff they pay the price quoted and implement the strategy proposed.

Its therefore apparent that no one method can be used when making the buying decision of the firms products since they are not tangible but just promises of what a potential consumer should expect from their purchase and hence all factors involved in purchasing a service needs to be considered.