Research Symposium-2012

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Browsing Research Symposium-2012 by Subject "Business studies"

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    Consumer Evaluation of Brand Extension with Reference on CIC Brand
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2012) Wanigasekara, P.G.G.; Mahindarathne, M.G.P.P.; Weyhenage, S. P.
    The ever changing market characteristics give huge impact on corporate decisions. Hence the companies constantly develop new marketing strategies to stay ahead in the market and reap more benefits for their stakeholders. In fact introduction of new product is necessary for any companies to stay ahead with competition. As a solu1ion companies adopt brand extension strategy for increasing sales of the new product lines. Brand extension is a strategy adopt by companies having strong and establish brand names, as a means to enter in new product categories or classes (Aaker and Keller, I 992).Brand extension is one of the attractive growth strategies and it is low cost, low risk way to penetrate different target segments by utilizing establishes brands. Brand extension is widely used because of the fact that strongly positioned brand could build and communicate brand value successfully. Then the customers are motivated to do trail purchasing and averse the risk of new product. Brand extension strategy needs a careful analysis of the market before adopting, because it has both positive and negative consequences. Brand extension strategies tasted success in the past, still brand extension success is uncertain. Literature, showed a wider variety of determinants for consumer evaluation of brand extension. But there is no any empirical evidence under Sri Lankan context. Therefore this study was conducted to analyze how consumers evaluate brand extension in the Sri Lankan context. The specific objectives of this study are identifying the factors influence in consumer evaluation of brand extension and find out the association between above Factors with overall brand extension respectively. General objective is identifying the possible brand extensions for future success by incorporating CIC brand name.
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    Determinants of Customer Attraction in Miscellaneous Insurance Policies inSri Lanka
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2012) Surangi, W.G.N.; Sutha, R.J.
    In this competitive era life has consisted with full of challenges while opportunities are everywhere. When people are going to take this challenge, security is a one of major concerns. Security is directly link with the insurance. Any person who is willing to have a risk, definitely that person should have a relationship with insurance to secure. Not as earlier, now there is a high demand for insurance policies in present scenario. With that situation insurance industry is highly competitive & innovative while trying to introduce various new insurance plans cost effectively in order to maximize the market share. That's why so many miscellaneous insurance policies are available in the market except traditional general insurance policies, though it has reported lesser customer attraction. Communication, transportation and insurance are business support services. Hence, insurance is also one of the major business support services that provide social benefits. When considering Insurance as an industry, it has become a major player in business world. According to the central bank report 2010, Banking, Insurance and real estate contribute 7.5% to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As per the experience, researcher had collected some information related especially to fire and miscellaneous policies in insurance companies and recognized that the portion of miscellaneous insurance policies are comparably low when considering the other insurances. Therefore, through this study, the researcher tried to identify the determinants of customer attraction in miscellaneous insurance policies in Sri Lanka.
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    Impact of Brand Element Changes on Brand Equity: Special Reference to Dialog Telecom in the Telecommunication Industry in Sri Lanka
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2012) Nirmani, I.C.; Ranasinghe, J.P.R.C.
    The concept of branding is very important in current complex business world. Building brand equity, or strong brands, is considered to be one of the key drivers of business's success. More and more firm and organization have come to the realization that one of their most valuable assets is the brand names associated with their product or services. (Keller, 2003). Brand elements play an important role for building brand equity in brand management. If an organization changes their brand elements, nobody can say whether both users and non-users accept or disclaim it. Therefore, there is a risk about consumers' perception regarding changing brand elements. On the other hand, changing brand or brand elements is a highly expensive task. If an organization changes their brand, it must be communicated well through advertising to their customers (Chiranjeev Kohli & Lance Leuthesser, 2006). Then only marketers can achieve main purpose of changing brand elements and can build significant brand equity and loyalty (Aurandet al, 2005; Fournier 1998). The test of the building brand ability of elements it what consumers would think or feel about the product if they only knew about its brand name, associated logo and other characteristics. Accordingly, the way of building Brand Equity as parallel to Brand Element changes can be identified. In current Sri Lankan context, most of the local and international companies are changing their brand and its elements. It directly affects their brand equity. High brand equity is considered to be a competitive advantage since: it implies that firms can charge a premium; there is an increase in customer demand; extending a brand becomes easier; communication campaigns are more effective; there is better trade leverage; margins can be greater; and the company becomes less vulnerable to competition (Campbell, 2002; Keller, 2003). Therefore, the brand equity is very much important for the success of the organization. Accordingly, this study focused on identifying the effect of the changing brand elements for building strong brand equity at the exiting market; evaluate the successfulness of changing brand elements and consumers' perception of the new brand, and studying whether marketers can attract new customers via changing brand elements.
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    A Study on Impact of Investment Income and Inflation to Profitability of Insurance Industry inSri LankanComposite Insurance Companies
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2012) Subasinghe, R.D.T.R.; Gunaratne, Y.M.C.
    Insurance Industry has become one of the booming industries in Sri Lanka since 2003 when the Insurance Board of Sri Lanka was established. Profitability of Insurance Companies basically contain two components namely underwriting profit and Investment Income. Generally, Insurance Companies manage their profits with Investment Income. According to World Insurance Report 2011, insurance companies around the globe are re-focusing on their core operations. Some lost investment income during the crisis; others face changing customer preferences; most must tackle a newly stringent regulatory environment. Hence, the above question is significant when the inflation materially affects the country's economic activities. Further, there is a negative relationship between Investment Income and Inflation (D'Arcy, 1981). Accordingly, inflation can be a significant factor to the Insurance companies' profitability. Methodology According to the objectives of the research it requires secondary data from Composite Insurance companies in Sri Lanka. To extract Composite Insurance companies, researcher used Stratified Sampling Technique and Company Annual Reports for Secondary Data Collection. Data was analyzed according to the research objectives and Net Combined Ratio was used to identify the Insurance Companies which face problem of making profits without Investment Income. Net Combined Ratio (Formula) = Net Claims Incurred + Other Expenses Net Earned Premium To identify the relationships of each Inflation and Investment Income and Investment and Profitability, a simple regression was used and the correlation was measured by using MINITAB Statistical software.