Factors Impacting the Buying Behavior of Housewives towards Hypermarkets in Karachi

The objective of this research is an effort to understand what are the factors that impact the choice of hypermarkets made by housewives and what do they think about the factors like Convenience level, Store atmosphere, Price and Variety of products, which influence the buying behavior. This research is qualitative in nature and in-depth interview technique is used for the collection of data through respondents and then thematic analyses have been constructed. The results of the study concluded that Convenience level is the most important factor that affects the choice of hypermarkets for the housewives. It is considered as a positive factor for their shopping experience. Some factors within convenience level include parking space available, a well-stated store in terms of prices and category placement so that it saves time and the most important convenience factor due to which housewives are not willing to shift permanently to other store is the location/nearness of the hypermarket to their homes. It is further concluded that the Store atmosphere must be friendly that doesn’t make the customer confuse every time they visit the store. Proper placement of the goods on the aisle, space between them, lightening and the music it is being played all affects the shopping experience of the customer. Prices do affect the way the customer shops but it is not considered a factor that makes the customer shifts their store permanently if it’s not convenient for them. Variety is the least impacting factor that would make the customer shifts their outlet. The housewives generally like hypermarkets as it serves as a one-stop shop for them for all their required items Keywords: Hyperstar, Buying behavior, Housewives, Convenience Level, Store Atmosphere, Variety of Product

Impact of Digital Media on Brand Loyalty and Brand Positioning

The objective of this research was to find out the importance of digital media and business to increase their revenues and market their products in a better way. Another objective of this research to differentiate between conventional and new media and to view the level of awareness about their concept among people. This research is exploratory and research design is qualitative in nature. We conducted interviews from different experts of digital media who are fully aware with latest trends of marketing. The findings of this research reveal that a wise marketing strategy can increase the market share of different brands in Pakistan (especially new entrants) in comparison of conventional media. It is concluded that the digital media has a key role in creating brand royalty since advertising has changed from traditional to digital so there is a much scope available in this area, consumer interest is increasing in this type of marketing platform in Pakistan, especially big companies like (Coca-Cola, Unilever, P&G, Gucci) have successfully created their brand image and brand association by engaging various activities through digital media. In today’s world digital media is important because it is cost effective, develop more awareness and also the queries put forward by the consumers are answered by the companies quickly. Through digital media companies constantly improve themselves and try to create a good image about the product. Keywords: Digital Media, Brand Loyalty, Brand positioning, exploratory, marketing strateg

Ravaged Lands: An Investigation of Factors Affecting Pakistan’s Tourism Industry

Since the war on terror initiated in 2001 after the attack on the Twin Towers, situated in New York, United States. The US led invasion of Afghanistan has spilled its consequences across its Eastern border. Since then Pakistan has been a victim of terrorism and religious extremism due to its strategic alliance with the United States of America. One industry that was completely obliterated by this situation was Pakistan’s Tourism industry. The objective of this research was to prove whether societal factors affect the tourism industry or cultural factors affect the tourist industry or the law and order situation has hampered the tourists’ activities in Northern areas of Pakistan. Developing a questionnaire and validating its reliability, statistical techniques proved that cultural factors had a more significant impact on Pakistan’s tourist mindset. Keywords: Tourism; Cultural factors; Societal factors; Victims of terrorism; War on terro

Estimation of causal relationship between world gold prices and KSE 100 index: Evidence from Johansen cointegration technique

The aspiration of this research paper is to investigate the impact of international gold prices on the equity returns of Karachi Stock Index (KSE100 index) of Pakistan Stock Exchange. The daily observations from January 1, 2000 – June 30, 2016 have been divided into three sub-periods along with the full sample period on the basis of structural breaks. Descriptive analysis used to calculate the average returns, which showed significant returns of KSE100 for the full sample, the first and the third sample periods as compared to gold returns. Standard deviation depicted the higher volatility in all the sample periods. Correlation analysis has shown an inverse relationship amid equity returns and gold returns, whereas, Philips-Perron and Augmented Dickey-Fuller tests have been employed, and time series data became stationary after taking the first difference. Johansen cointegration results have shown that the series are cointegrated in the full-sample and the first sample periods. Thus, this has demonstrated the long run association amid equity returns and gold returns in the first sub-sample and the full-sample periods. However, the second and the third sub-sample periods do not exhibit long-term association amid equity returns of KSE100 and gold returns. The outcomes of Granger causality approach identified bidirectional causation amid equity returns and gold returns in the full sample period in lag 2, and unidirectional causality has been observed from gold prices to stock prices in the full sample and the first sub-sample periods in lag 1 and lag 2 respectively

Business Process Outsourcing: A Case Study on Pakistan’s Out-Bound Call Centers

This paper attempts to explore the problems of outsourcing industry with specific focus to out bound call centers and provide a remedial solution to the problem by which this sector can play an effective role in the IT industry of Pakistan and in turn the economy as a whole. Business Process outsourcing has become a multi billion dollar Industry globally it has brought visible benefits to the economy of the country and generating tremendous employment opportunities. Over the last couple of years, the worldwide business process outsourcing market has undergone rapid transformation. Continuing pressure on cost bases at a time of growing competitiveness is driving companies to look at offshore outsourcing as a strategic alternative. Many countries are demonstrating the benefits brought by business process outsourcing. Access to global talent, economies of scale, process engineering and enhancements, increased profit margins and improvements in quality are some of the gains that companies and in turn countries have realized. Although outsourcing has bought visible benefits with employment opportunities to Pakistan also, however these benefits do not come without a cost. Key Words: Business Process Outsourcing; Bound Call Centers; Offshore Outsourcing; Strategic Alternative; Economies of Scal

An Empirical Study for Achieving Economies of Scale by Utilization of (HHO) Hydrogen Hydroxy Gas as Additional Fuel

The scarcity of fossil fuel and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) has made every 2nd fuel user to think on some alternative resources, or at least devise some sort of technique to overcome the shortage of fuel during CNG holidays. Thus this study covers an overview of HHO gas production, principles behind the reactions and statistical examples, observations of many engineers and observers who determined to make a use of HHO as additional fuel source. Up to now studies reveals that it is possible to produce burnable vapors of HHO gas in result of hydrolysis of distilled water with combination of some electrolyte sodium or potassium hydro oxides. That Mixture is   generally called Hydrogen-Hydro oxide mixture (H-OH) can give 25%-28% efficiency to fuel combustion if used with fossil fuel. With thermodynamics advantages, by hydrolysis of steam and using different materials as electrode, using 1.3volt to 1.7volt at 0.4 A/cm² the total efficiency can be increased to 40-50% to enhance its utilization for industry use. But need to refine the misconceptions HHO gas is a standalone replacement of fossil fuel for a practical use in cars, scoters and other means of transport. This study suggest policy makers and entrepreneurs to take some supportive actions to promote HHO gas generators/ kits production because this is a low cost solution to cover the shortage of fossil fuel. Keywords: HHO, Hydrogen, Hydroxy, Brown gas, Fuel efficiency.

Relationship between Demographic and Internet Usage

The reason to conduct this research was to evaluate if there is any relationship between the Internet usage and demographic factors (age, income, education, gender, and income level) of the Internet users. Hypotheses regarding the association of Internet usage and different demographic factors were developed. Survey was carried out for the collection of data through questionnaire, which included some questions about the demographics of the respondents, and their usage of Internet. Non-probabilistic sampling was used. Sample size used in this research was 299. Outcomes of this research were anticipated to be helpful for the advertisers to understand the viewership of internet/web pages for the online advertisement. Hence, from the results of this research it was determined that no relationship exists between demographics (age, income, education, gender, and income level) and Internet usage. Keywords: Relationship, Demographics, Internet Usage, Non-probabilistic

Key Factors to Promote Knowledge Sharing in Karachi Pharmaceutical Industry

The basic cause of this study is to investigate the key factors to promote knowledge sharing in Karachi Pharmaceutical Industry. Organizational employees are the main part for the effective performance of overall business and need to communicate proper information and knowledge from management as well as between employees to perform batter task and to maintain a level of satisfaction and it is possible through effective knowledge sharing system. Several published studies are available in this matter to highlight the importance of knowledge sharing with observing the different industries. To get done the goal of this study, a close ended type questionnaire by the approach of Likert scaling were prepared for the collection of data with sample size of about 110-130 from different national and multinational pharmaceutical companies of Karachi and contacted to the employees of lower to top management of head office staff, sales and production people having the qualification up to masters. The results are showing that main factors are Organizational Culture and Organizational Structure which are important to maintain the level of knowledge sharing thus helping organization to make improvement in this regard. This study is limited only to the Karachi pharmaceutical industry due to time and cost and recommended for further research in other cities of Pakistan with special reference to pharmaceutical industry for knowledge sharing. Key Words:  Knowledge Sharing, Karachi Pharmaceutical Industry

Impact of Word of Mouth on Consumer Buying Decision

An objective of this research is to determine the word of mouth effects on consumers buying decision negative or positive. The collected data is primary and it is collected from different areas of Karachi city of Pakistan from students of colleges, universities and households. Sample size is one hundred. The collected information/and data is evaluated with the help Frequency Distribution and ranking (Statics Technique). In conclusion it is revealed that for purchasing mostly consumer trust on word of mouth. The respondents seem like to have an impact on consumers’ decision and close family, close friend, and other associates. More result shows two things can be the reason to create difficulties for the company such as a bitter experience of any product/service and any comments (word of mouth especially negative) because negative word of mouth or any negative comments about anything influence strongly than positive. Viral Marketing is getting very common in e-business especially for consumers and buyers. Keywords: Consumer buying decision, products/services, Pakistan, Viral Marketin

Economic and Social Progress under Civilian & Military Set-ups in Pakistan

This paper is an attempt to analyze the social indicators of two government eras i.e. the military regime of General Pervaiz Musharraf (FY00-FY05) and the democratic governments of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Muslim League (FY89-FY99). Since the social indicators are the benchmark & performance factors for having an ease and well being of a common person for any country. The objectives of the study are two fold. First of all, it is to develop a statistical framework of analysis to compare the performance in social sectors of Pakistan during two different types of governments; namely, the democratic era (FY89-FY99) and Military regime (FY00-FY05). Descriptive & Inferential statistics were used over a period of time 1989-2005 to analyze the difference in Group Means of the time period as opposed to comparing them from one year to another, which is the conventional method. The findings indicate that amongst the key social indicators and variables there is no significant statistical difference in the group means for most of the variables studied. Therefore, the main conclusion of this study is that the military regime (FY00-FY05) has not performed significantly better than the previous regimes in the democratic era (FY89-FY99) as indicated by key social indicators. The overall quality of life in terms of the development of the social sectors i.e., education, health, and poverty has not changed at all during the military rule (FY00-FY05) as compared to the previous democratic era (FY89-FY99). In fact it has been observed that most of the Social indicators of the military era (FY00-FY05) remained stagnant or even more worsened as compared to the democratic governments (FY89-FY99). Keywords: Social indicators, Military regime, Democratic regime, Statistical framework, Descriptive & inferential statistics, Social sectors, Social performance