S

Safety stocks
stocks or inventory held to cover against uncertainty about re-supply lead-times

Sales analysis
a comparison of actual with target sales

Sales lead
information on a potential purchaser

Sales promotion
incentives to customers or the trade that are designed to stimulate purchase

Sampling
a term used in research to denote the selection of a sub-set of the total population in order to interview them

Satellite conferencing
conferences by satellite transmitting of messages from one location to many sites

Secondary research
data which has already been collected by another researcher for another purpose

Segment
a group of customers or potential customers who share certain common characteristics

Segmentation
(1) the identification of groups of individuals or organizations with characteristics in common that have significant implications for the development of marketing strategy; (2) the process of dividing the total market into homogeneous groupings or segments

Selective attention
the process by which people screen out those stimuli that are not meaningful to them nor consistent with their experiences and beliefs

Selective distortion
the distortion of information they receive by people according to their existing beliefs and attitudes

Selective retention
the process by which people only retain a selection of messages in memory

Self-liquidating offer
an offer where consumers are asked to pay to cover the promoter’s costs of the promotional merchandise plus administration and postal charges

Self-reference criteria
the use of one’s own perceptions and choice criteria to judge what is important to consumers. In international markets, the perceptions and choice criteria of domestic consumers may be used to judge what is important to foreign consumers

Sensitivity analysis
the running of alternative scenarios with changed input variables (price, cost, consumer acceptance) to see the impact on sales and profits

Service
any task carried out for the customer

Services marketing mix
product, place, price, promotion, people, process and physical evidence

Simultaneous engineering
the involvement of manufacturing and product development engineers in the same development team in an effort to reduce development time

Skimming strategy
a high-priced new product launch designed to recover research and development expenditure

Skunkworks
a new product development team separated from other employees to work on a project free from bureaucratic interference

Social distance
the extent to which both the individuals and organizations in a relationship are unfamiliar with each other’s way of working

Social responsibility
the ethical principle that a person or an organization should be accountable for how its acts might affect the physical environment and general public

Socialization
within an organization, a process whereby a new entrant experiences the culture and tasks of the organization

Speciality shops
retail outlets specialising in a narrow product line

Specifier
an individual in an organization who is responsible for determining the specification of a product which is to be bought

Sponsorship
A business relationship between a provider of funds, resources or services and an individual, event, or organization which offers in return some rights and association that may be used for commercial advantage

Stakeholders
individuals or groups having a stake in the organization’s well-being, e.g. shareholders, employees

Standardized marketing mix
an international marketing strategy for using essentially the same product, promotion, distribution, and pricing in all the company’s international markets

Stars
market leading products in high-growth markets

Storage warehouse
warehouses which store goods for moderate or long time periods

Straight re-buy
refers to a purchase by an organization from a previously approved supplier of a previously purchased item

Strategic alliance
collaboration between two or more organizations through e.g. joint ventures, licensing agreements, long-term purchasing and supply arrangement

Strategic business unit
a business or company division serving a distinct group of customers and with a distinct set of competitors, usually strategically autonomous.

Strategic degrees of freedom
how much room a company has to react

Strategic focus
the strategies which can be employed to achieve the objective

Strategic intent
a driven focus objective of winning such as encircle Caterpillar (Komatsu) or beat Xerox (Canon)

Strategic issue analysis
an examination of the suitability of marketing objectives and segmentation bases in the light of changes in the marketplace

Strategic options
ways of increasing sales volume and/or profitability

Strategic profile
a summary of the organization’s chosen strategy, including strategic objective, core strategy, market type, marketing attitudes and performance

Strategic thrust
the decision concerning which products to sell in which markets

Strategic withdrawal
Holding on to the company’s strengths while getting rid of the weaknesses

Strong theory of advertising
the notion that advertising can change people’s attitudes sufficiently to persuade people who have not previously bought a brand to buy it. Desire and conviction precede purchase

Subsidiary
a company which is owned by another

Supermarket
large self-service stores traditionally selling food, drinks and toiletries, but now increasingly selling a wider range of items, including clothing, books, pharmaceuticals

Supply chain
the means by which products are moved from the producer to the ultimate consumer

Switching costs
the costs to a buying organization of changing from one supplier to another

SWOT analysis
a structured approach to evaluating the strategic position of a business by identifying its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

Synergy
when the power of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts