Determinants of Consumer Purchase Decisions of Health Insurance in Kerala

This research work was to study the level of awareness of consumers about health insurance concept and market, consumer perceptions about health insurance providers, schemes and various factors that influence buying decision of health insurance. There is need to bring entire age group – high risk and low risk under health insurance cover. Widening the cover of health insurance calls for indepth understanding of consumer thinking and extensive marketing efforts based on that. Hence the study of consumer perceptions and the impact of different contributing factors on consumer purchase decision assume significance to the marketer. Understanding the consumer thinking on health insurance will also be of relevance to governmental/non governmental agencies, as affordable health care to all is a policy objective of the government and new schemes are being launched in this area.

Conceptualisation Of Model For Studying Consumer Purchase Behaviour Of Passenger Cars

Automobile Industry in India is influenced by the presence of national and multi-national manufacturers. The presence of many manufacturers and brands in the state provides many choices to the customer. The current market for car manufacturers has been transformed from a monopoly of one or two manufacturers in the seventies to oligopoly of many manufacturers in the current marketing scenario. The main objective of the research paper is to explore and conceptualize various parameters and develop a model, which influence the purchase patterns of passenger cars in the State of Kerala. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to come up with a model, which shall facilitate further study on the consumer purchase behaviour patterns of passenger car owners in the State of Kerala, India. The author intends to undertake further quantitative analysis to verify and validate the model so developed. The main methods used for this paper are secondary research on available material, depth interview of car dealers, car financing agencies and car owners in the city of Cochin, in Kerala State in India. The depth interviews were conducted with the use of prepared questionnaire for car dealers, car customers and car financing agencies. The findings resulted in the identification of the parameters that influence the consumer purchase behaviour of passenger cars and the formulation of the model, which will be the basis for the further research of the author. The paper will be of tremendous value to the existing and new car manufacturers both indigenous and foreign, to formalize and strategies their policies towards an effective marketing strategy, so as to market their models in the State, which is known for its high literacy, consumerism and higher educational penetration

Dominant partial least square factors of consumer purchase behaviour of passenger cars

Globalization and liberalization, with the entry of many prominent foreign manufacturers, changed the automobile scenario in India, since early 1990’s. World Leaders in automobile manufacturing such as Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, Hyundai, Renault, Mitsubishi, Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and Nissan set up their manufacturing units in India in joint venture with their Indian counterpart companies, by making use of the Foreign Direct Investment policy of the Government of India, These manufacturers started capturing the hearts of Indian car customers with their choice of technological and innovative product features, with quality and reliability. With the multiplicity of choices available to the Indian passenger car buyers, it drastically changed the way the car purchase scenario in India and particularly in the State of Kerala. This transformed the automobile scene from a sellers’ market to buyers’ market. Car customers started developing their own personal preferences and purchasing patterns, which were hitherto unknown in the Indian automobile segment. The main purpose of this paper is to develop a model with major variables, which influence the consumer purchase behaviour of passenger car owners in the State of Kerala. Though there are innumerable studies conducted in other countries, there are very few thesis and research work conducted to study the consumer behaviour of the passenger car industry in India and specifically in the State of Kerala. The results of the research contribute to the practical knowledge base of the automobile industry, specifically to the passenger car segment. It has also a great contributory value addition to the manufacturers and dealers for customizing their marketing plans in the State

Dominant Mean Percentage Score Factors Of The Consumer Purchase Behaviour Of Passenger Cars

Globalization and liberalization, with the entry of many prominent foreign manufacturers, changed the automobile scenario in India, since early 1990’s. World Leaders in automobile manufacturing such as Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, Hyundai, Renault, Mitsubishi, Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and Nissan set up their manufacturing units in India in joint venture with their Indian counterpart companies, by making use of the Foreign Direct Investment policy of the Government of India, These manufacturers started capturing the hearts of Indian car customers with their choice of technological and innovative product features, with quality and reliability. With the multiplicity of choices available to the Indian passenger car buyers, it drastically changed the way the car purchase scenario in India and particularly in the State of Kerala. This transformed the automobile scene from a sellers’ market to buyers’ market. Car customers started developing their own personal preferences and purchasing patterns, which were hitherto unknown in the Indian automobile segment. The main purpose of this paper is to come up with the identification of possible parameters and a framework development, that influence the consumer purchase behaviour patterns of passenger car owners in the State of Kerala, so that further research could be done, based on the framework and the identified parameters.

Studies on Inventory with Positive Service Time Under Local Purchase Driven by N/T- Policy

In this thesis, certain continuous time inventory problems with positive service time under local purchase guided by N/T-policy are analysed. In most of the cases analysed, we arrive at stochastic decomposition of system states, that is, the joint distribution of the system states is obtained as the product of marginal distributions of the components. The thesis is divided into ve chapters

Economic Impacts Of Air Pollution on Human Health and Property Values

The objectives of the present study are to provide a systematic descriptive documentation of the nature of air pollution of the Cochin industrial agglomeration, estimate the willingness to pay for morbidity reduction due to air pollution in observed and hypothetical markets and to estimate the value of welfare loss in the purchase of property due to reduced air quality. This study is an attempt to examine economic impacts of air pollution on the human health and property values in the industrial capital of Kerala. The process of industrialization in Kerala and the increase in air pollution created damages to human, natural and economic resources in the state. The study documents the extent of air pollution and applied econometric approaches to estimate economic impacts of air pollution on human health and property values. The Important sources of air pollution identified in Cochin are emissions from industries and automobiles.

Social Stratification and Consumer Behaviour in Kerala-A Study with Special Reference to Consumer Durables

Department of Applied Economics, Cochin University of Science and Technology

Customer perceptions of Banking Products and Services in Kerala with reference to Specific Customer Segments in the Urban Area

As of 1999. the state of Kerala has 3210 offices of scheduled commercial banks (SCBS). In all, there are 48 commercial banks operating in Kerala, which includes PSBs, OPBs, NPBS. FBs, and Gramin Banks. The urban areas give a complete picture of the competition in the present day banking scenario with the presence of all bank groups. Semi-urban areas of Kerala have 2196 and urban areas have 593 as on March 1995.“ The study focuses on the selected segments ofthe urban customers in Kerala which is capable of giving the finer aspects of variation in customer behaviour in the purchase of banking products and services. Considering the exhaustive nature of such an exercise, all the districts in the state have not been brought under the purview of the study. Instead. three districts with largest volume of business in terms of deposits, advances, and number of offices have been short listed as representative regions for a focused study. The study focuses on the retail customer segment and their perceptions on the various products or services offered to them. Non Resident Indians (NRIs), and Traders and Small—ScaIe Industries segments have also been included in the study with a view to obtain a comparative picture with respect to perception on customer satisfaction and service quality dimensions and bank choice behaviour. The research is hence confined to customer behaviour and the implications for possible strategies for segmentation within the retail segment customers

A Comparative Study Of The Organisation And Management Of Notihed Markets In Bangladesh With The Organisation And Management Of Regulated Markets In West Bengal India

For improving agricultural marketing, which has been discussed in the previous chapter, the Government has intervened in different ways. The direct regulatory role through the regulation of markets and market practices is one of the ways in which governmental intervention can improve agricultural marketing. This study is an enquiry of the direct regulatory role of the government through regulation of markets and market practices. By restructuring the operational methods and redesigning the existing physical markets, this system gives direct benefit to the cultivating class and protects them from the market manipulations of organised and powerful private traders. If traders do not continue their trade for the time being they will not be affected financially, because they are resourceful or financially solvent. On the other hand, Cultivators must sell their produce immediately after harvesting for the lack of additional facilities or to satisfy other needs for which finance is required. Another important reason is that Cultivators/farmers are not organised and because of lack of their organisation, they sell their produces individually. In this situation, a farmer is helpless when astute traders indulge in manipulations at the time of purchase of the produces. So it is the government's obligation to protect the interest of the farmers. Protection of the farmer/cultivator is necessary not only from the point of social justice but also from that of economic growth. If the farmers are assured of a remunerative or incentive price for their produce, they will get the inspiration to produce more and through more production, economy will be developed and the nation as a whole will be benefitted. This study will examine the management system of the markets through the direct regulatory role played by the governments to control markets and market practices in West Bengal and Bangladesh.

Studies on the production management in the seafood processing industry in Kerala

Kerala was the pioneer in modern seafood processing and exporting. But now the industry is Iacingalot of problems due to low productivity and deterioration in the quality of the products. only about 17% of the installed freezing capacity in sea food processing industry was reported to be utilised during 1979-80. The price of the export commodities its decided by the buyers based on international supply and demand pattern and based on the strength and weakness of dollar/yen. The only way to increase the profitability of the processors is to reduce the cost of production to the possible extent. The individual processors find it difficult to continue in this field due to low productivity and quality problems. The main objectives of the research are to find out how the production is being managed in the seafood processing(freezing) 17industry in Kerala and the reasons for low productivity and poor quality of the products. The study includes a detailed analysis of Location of the factories. Layout Purchase, production and storage patterns. Production planning and scheduling. Work Measurement of the processing of important products. Quality Control and Inspection. Management Information System

"A Study Of The Performance Of The "Jeevan Saathi" And "Jeevan Mitra” Policies Offered By The L.I.C."

The main benefit of Jeevan Saathi policy is that, it is a joint life policy which covers the life of both husband and wife under a single policy. And they also get double benefit if any one of them dies during the term of the policy. The Jeevan Mitra policy is a single life policy, the main advantage of which is that the dependents get double benefit in case of normal death and triple benefit in case of accidental death during the term of policy. so both the policies have their own attractions but when compared with the annual sales of other policies, the additional increase in the sales of these policies are decreasing. It is a fact finding study concerned with market performance of these two policies by conducting a survey among the Jeevan Saathi and Jeevan Mitra policy holders, and a thorough analysis of the various information or data collected from them. This study is an attempt to present an integrated picture of the main features of the policy holders who have bought these policies, the major factors responsible for making them purchase these policies, the various difficulties faced by them at present and further modification needed in the plans of these policies according to the opinion of policy holders. For increasing accuracy of the conclusions, information is also collected from Agents and Development Officers by using interview schedule. The main purpose of this study is to draw attention of LIC to introduce new plans of policies taking into consideration the drawbacks or defects of the existing policies and present needs of policy holders. It will also help to make new plans in order to suit the needs of more people who want to buy life insurance policies

Collection and Assets Management: One University Library’s Journey to the Future

Academic libraries worldwide have witnessed a number of trends and paradigm shifts over the last decade. It is vital for university libraries to develop a collection of high standards to satisfy academics and researchers for supporting the vision and mission of a university. The area of collection development and management is the most important part of any library. This paper reports on the problems and prospects of collection and asset management of the University Library of Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT). The insight for the paper comes from the authors’ first-hand experience supported by literature review. Detailed information regarding the purchase of books, serials, policies regarding the acquisition, and changing trends and problems were collected from the official records with the help of a structured data sheet. The study discovers the current trends in collection and asset management in CUSAT and point out the changes likely to be adopted in future.

Model Development and Validation for Studying Consumer Preferences of Car Owners

Globalization and liberalization, with the entry of many prominent foreign manufacturers, changed the automobile scenario in India, since early 1990‟s. Manufacturers such as Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, Hyundai, Renault, Mitsubishi, Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and Nissan set up their manufacturing units in India in joint venture with their Indian counterpart companies, by making use of the Foreign Direct Investment policy of the Government of India, These manufacturers started capturing the hearts of Indian car customers with their choice of technological and innovative product features, with quality and reliability. With the multiplicity of choices available to the Indian passenger car buyers, it drastically changed the way the car purchase scenario in India and particularly in the State of Kerala. This transformed the automobile scene from a sellers‟ market to buyers‟ market. Car customers started developing their own personal preferences and purchasing patterns, which were hitherto unknown in the Indian automobile segment. The main purpose of this paper is to come up with the identification of possible parameters and a framework development, that influence the consumer purchase behaviour patterns of passenger car owners in the State of Kerala, so that further research could be done, based on the framework and the identified parameters

Short-Term Load Forecast Of A Low Loadfactor Power System For Optimization Of Merit Order Dispatch Using Adaptive Learning Algorithm

Short term load forecasting is one of the key inputs to optimize the management of power system. Almost 60-65% of revenue expenditure of a distribution company is against power purchase. Cost of power depends on source of power. Hence any optimization strategy involves optimization in scheduling power from various sources. As the scheduling involves many technical and commercial considerations and constraints, the efficiency in scheduling depends on the accuracy of load forecast. Load forecasting is a topic much visited in research world and a number of papers using different techniques are already presented. The accuracy of forecast for the purpose of merit order dispatch decisions depends on the extent of the permissible variation in generation limits. For a system with low load factor, the peak and the off peak trough are prominent and the forecast should be able to identify these points to more accuracy rather than minimizing the error in the energy content. In this paper an attempt is made to apply Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with supervised learning based approach to make short term load forecasting for a power system with comparatively low load factor. Such power systems are usual in tropical areas with concentrated rainy season for a considerable period of the year

Developing a Theoretical Framework for a Study on the Impact of Advertising Credibility of Consumer Healthcare Products

The tough competition in the global and national markets and new trends in consumerism resulted in an increase in the volume of advertisements. Sometimes advertisers are successful in achieving their intended objectives with a particular advertisement and sometimes they are not .These factors contributed a lot towards the decision making problems of advertising agencies with regard to the selection of appropriate advertising strategies and tactics. The tough competition and large volume of advertising make the consumers confused and this even created doubts in the minds of consumers about the genuineness and reliability of manufacturers and products. These factors caused a query regarding the active role of credibility element in advertising. The proposed study examines the effects of advertising credibility in consumer health care non durable product advertising on communication effect, purchase behavior and ad skepticism. This paper examines the need for the study of advertising credibility and reviews the advertising- consumer behaviour- credibility – healthcare theories which form a basis for the study. It identifies the different components and dimensions of advertising credibility and the importance of communication effect, purchase behavior and ad skepticism. It also studies the relevance of credibility in the consumer healthcare products advertising and suggests a Theoretical Framework for the proposed study