Homework: Marketing Operations Fundamentals
Marketing engages customers and manages profitable customer relationships through the creation and exchange of superior customer "value." This paper provides an opportunity for your team to apply the fundamentals of Marketing Management in a real-world business scenario.
Overview
You are the Marketing team at your selected company. A new CEO has just been hired to lead your company. He is an accomplished business executive and gifted visionary who has successfully led the evolution, growth and success of several Fortune 100 brands and embraces the value of customer-centric marketing and creating exceptional customer experience.
As part of the CEO's on-boarding, your team has been tasked to provide the new CEO with a written report (up to 10 pages of text with an appendix that includes relevant charts and support material) of the current marketing situation facing the company and your product in 2021.
The CEO has directed your team to synthesize the Marketing Management Framework (5Cs, S-T-P and 4Ps) and deliver your team's marketing recommendation for your product that reflects the current challenges and opportunities facing your company. The CEO needs an insider perspective of your product - the factors behind its success and how your company can continue to create even more value for your customers in the years ahead, especially in the current economic situation. This is your opportunity to impress the new chief executive with your team's approach to marketing.
Compile the appropriate marketing data and research, gather relevant insights about the macro- and micro-environments, summarize the key facts and craft a well-conceived recommendation how your product can continue to create and deliver value and profitability, especially in the current climate of uncertainty. Each component of your paper is essential to the overall success of your team's paper.
Task
Consider the reader of your paper - the new CEO is a business savvy chief executive - as you write. Your knowledge and command of your product are essential to the CEO's understanding of the current state of your company and your product. Write your paper with your new CEO in mind. (Hint: after you graduate, you will be writing reports and POV's for senior management in your future professional setting; now is a good time to sharpen your analytical and writing skills.)
Craft your paper in a clear, concise business language with the goal to inform, educate, engage and potentially, influence the CEO in a positive manner (for your grade), especially with the uncertainty in the current market.
Develop your report with coherent explanation and rational, complete sentences and compelling facts (based on available, cited data) of your product. This is a professional business report. Remember to use in-text citations and references. Limit the use of bullet points to emphasize a point. Use the appendix for expansive details and added value information.
Use the format of this document to structure your paper.
A. Part A: Situation Analysis - Industry, Customer, Company, Context, Collaborator and Competition
B. Part B: Marketing Mix - Product, Price, Place (Distribution) and Promotion
C. Part C: Recommendation - your recommendation and reasoning for your product
Part A: Situation Analysis
This section focuses on the importance of assessing and analyzing the macro-environment and micro-environment of your company and your product. Consider this an analysis of the 5Cs (Customer, Company, Context, Collaborator and Competitor) to help your new CEO understand the factors that currently and/or will affect your product's performance in the market. (Tap the online data tools that are available in the Bentley library.)
• Industry Snapshot
Provide a brief summary (aka "snapshot") of the industry in which your product competes. Cite key industry facts - growth, trends, competitors. Frame this as a succinct "elevator pitch" narrative (short paragraph) of what's currently going on in your industry.
• Customer Analysis
Describe and define the target market for your product. What segment of the market are you targeting? Is the market growing, declining or flat? What's the size of the market? Are there trends worth noting? How about geographic skews of your target market?
Who is your primary (core) and secondary target customer (end user) for your product? What are her/his/their needs and wants? Create a "persona profile" representation of your core customer to bring the main user to life. Use MRI-Simmons to determine the core customer of your product and briefly describe the key demographic (gender, age, income, education, family status, profession, etc.), geographic, psychographic and behavioral (e.g. media preferences, lifestyle activities, etc.) characteristics of your core customer.
Are there demographic changes (e.g. Aging of America, Hispanic growth, Asian growth, etc.) - providing an opportunity or challenge for your product that your company should consider? If so, what are these changes and what might your company do in terms of a marketing response?
How does your company create value for the end-user and enhance the customer relationship/customer experience? Provide metrics on satisfaction and loyalty from databases and rating cites for your target customer; include the same metrics for your key competitors. Illustrate how your company nurtures customer relationships.
• Company Analysis
Where is the industry heading? Is your company well positioned to compete and grow? Explain how. Provide a SWOT analysis. What are your company/product's biggest strengths and key weaknesses? What key opportunities and threats to the company/ product does your analysis reveal? Provide a summary of the SWOT in the text of your paper. Insert the complete SWOT analysis chart in the appendix.
In your view of internal factors, explain the role your company's employees play in creating value for the target customer; how integral is their relationship with the customer to the overall product and brand value? Does the company compete for high demand talent that could affect its ability to deliver its product?
• Collaborator Analysis
Explain the Upstream and Downstream partners in the channels of distribution and their role in the supply chain. Describe in terms of Supply and Demand. Identify the distribution strategy your company uses: exclusive, intensive, or selective. (You will also need to explain this in the "Place" section of the paper.)
o Supply Side
Describe and identify the Key Suppliers for your product and the role each plays. For example, consider the following in your assessment:
a. Does your company have one (or a few) suppliers that represent a significant amount of their total supply chain?
b. Does your company own any businesses that supply parts or components to your product's business?
c. How does the current global situation impact your supply chain?
o Demand Side
Describe the Distribution Partners (key intermediaries) that provide key services and expertise between your company and your customer and the role(s) they play. For example, consider the following in your assessment:
a. How does your company sell your product? - direct sales force, sales agents/brokers, independent sales representatives, etc. Identify and explain their value to the company.
b. Does your company use distributors and/or wholesalers as part of the distribution strategy?
c. Does your company sell to customers through large retailers?
d. How does the current global situation impact your key intermediaries?
• Competitor Analysis
Describe the competitive landscape for your product. Construct a table in an Excel spreadsheet in the appendix. List your product and the competitors' product(s) in the columns in the spreadsheet. Use the rows to include the following information for your product and the competitive products:
a. Sales in $ and/or market share of each
b. The "value proposition" each product offers to the customer
i. The price of their product vs. your product
ii. Each product's biggest strength (think: 4Ps and customer)
iii. Each product's biggest weakness (think: 4Ps and customer)
iv. Unique marketing tactic that each competitor is using
From your analysis, provide a synopsis of your findings as the narrative portion in this section. Use the appendix for the Competitive Table.
Part B: Marketing Mix
This section is focused on the Marketing Mix and their strategic alignment with your product.
• Product Strategy
Describe how your company creates value with your product. For example, consider the following in your assessment in this section:
a. Core Product: Describe the main features of the product. What customer needs and wants are being fulfilled?
b. Value-add Product: Describe the secondary or supplemental features of the product (ancillary services, warranties, benefits, packages, etc.) that are designed to help fill the customer needs and wants and explain why these are important.
c. Brand Personality: Describe the brand personality of the product/company. How does this brand personality connect with the target market? What are the brand attributes that are most relevant and valuable to the consumer?
o Positioning Strategy
Your new CEO is still learning about your product, its competitive advantages and what makes it appealing and unique to the target market.
a. Briefly describe the Positioning Strategy for your product. What's distinctive about your product that is not readily available elsewhere? What does your product possess that can't be duplicated by your competitors? What is the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) for your product? Your USP is the singular attribute that your product "owns" in the market and chooses to promote and advertise as your core differentiator.
b. Create a "perceptual map" (see Chapter 6 in the eBook) in the appendix to illustrate how your product is positioned in the marketplace compared to the competition. Perception maps show how a product and its competition are perceived in the minds of consumers. In a perceptual map, two dimensions (e.g., price and orientation) are used along with market share size as a function of relative market share of the product and competition to indicate relative placement.
c. Synthesize your discussion about positioning into a summary explanation in this section of the paper. Use the appendix for the Perceptual Map.
• Price Strategy
Describe your company's pricing strategy for your product. Include the following in your assessment in this section:
a. Describe the pricing strategy that your company is using. Are price promotions part of the strategy? Are there variations in pricing?
b. Describe the list price and any additional costs of the product.
c. Create a pricing table showing your price and the pricing of the competition. Insert in the appendix.
d. Consider the current pandemic and economic situation - how does this/will this impact your company's pricing strategy?
• Place (Distribution)
Identify the process that marketing channel members use to partner in order to add value with efficient and effective delivery of your product to the target customer when and where desired.
a. Where is your product purchased? Does it vary across different target markets?
b. List the types of marketing channel members that are partners in delivering the product to the end user along with their associated value they bring to the value chain.
c. Describe the channel of distribution used for the product (direct/indirect, # of levels).
d. Identify and explain the distribution strategy your company employs: exclusive, intensive, or selective.
e. Evaluate the value delivery network's effectiveness and efficiency in reaching their target and note any key issues/opportunities.
• Promotion
Use this section to assess your product's promotional strategy and comment on its efficacy in nurturing customer relationships and alignment with your brand's Product Life Cycle (PLC.) What PLC stage is your product?
Identify the media is being used to promote your product and comment on why you think it's being used. What is the timing of your media and promotional campaigns - is it seasonal, constant, other? If your product uses advertising, comment on the form of ads being used - are they informational, image, comparative, testimonial, etc.
Provide details of the promotional mix used by your company - how does your company ensure consistency of the message across different media? Select a noteworthy current advertisement or promotion for your product, explain the core message of the ad or promotion and comment on its success (or not) in engaging your target audience (end user).
In the appendix, show 3 compelling examples of your product's current advertisements (or major promotions) via screen shots and a brief explanation of the TV ads or promotions. You can supplement the visuals with a link to the TV commercials.
Part C: Your Recommendation
This section of the paper is critically important - your recommendation to the CEO. In the current economic downturn, what do you recommend and why? Support your recommendation with cited evidence.
To help your recommendation, research how successful companies have dealt with marketing during a downturn in the economy in the past. What did they do in the short term during the recession and how did they prepare for business post-downturn? Apply that learning to the current situation facing your company and your product.
Format your homework according to the give formatting requirements:
a. The answer must be double spaced, typed, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
b. The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the homework, the course title, the student's name, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
c. Also include a reference page. The references and Citations should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.