Business to Business Marketing: Triangle Creative Ltd - Assignment Example

?Business-To-Business Marketing Table of Contents 0 Introduction 3 2.0 Marketing Mix 4 2 Product 4 2.2 Price 5 2.3 Place 5 5 2.4 Promotion 6 2.5 People 6 2.6 Physical Evidence 7 2.7 Process 7 3.0 Relationship Variables and Business Networks 9 3.1 Key Relationship Variables 9 3.2 Business Models 11 3.3 Importance of Relationships Variables and Business Networks to TCL 12 4.0 Structuring the Sales Force 14 4.1 Product-Based Approach 14 4.2 Geographical Approach 14 4.3 Customer-Based Approach 15 4.4. Suggestion on the Choice of Method of Sales Force for TCL 16 5.0 Conclusion 17 6.0 References 18 1.0 Introduction In case of business-to-business (B2B) market, the business houses generally make their products as well as services available for other businesses that can be utilised in their daily operations or can be utilised for preparing other products and services (Neeley, 2004). The numerous sectors of B2B marketing are middleman, producers, government along with non-profit organisations (INSEAD, 2012). There are quite less number of customers in B2B market and thus they demand dependable relationships and a high degree of service. Marketing needs to be conducted through individual selling calls to the customers. In such cases, the companies makes use of the dedicated media such as trade journals, sales brochures, trade shows, websites in place of conventional mass media (The Pennsylvania State University, 2012). The case study relates to Triangle Creative Ltd (TCL) which is based in the United Kingdom and offers its customers with full range of services such as online marketing, direct marketing, public relations and advertising. It has been noted that the company faced significant issues because of the economic downturn in the economy. The company is not capable of retaining its customers and thus it also wants to focus upon gaining new customers. The main objective of the report is to recommend future changes that can be made by TCL in their marketing mix for the purpose of remaining competitive in the marketing and advertising sector. The report will also attempt to identify the key relationship variables as well as business networks which are likely to be significant for the TCL. The report will also endeavour to address the way in which David Thorpe and Angela Brown can organise the sales force and thus will offer suggestions on the approach that will be the most appropriate for TCL. The study will be supported with theories conducted by scholars in order to justify the answers provided. 2.0 Marketing Mix Marketing mix can be recognised as a business tool that the marketers use for the purpose of marketing and prompting their products. 2.1 Product Given the economic downturn, it would be important for TCL not to completely integrate with ‘PJW Media Production’ and thus produce their advertisements themselves. The company can initiate new ideas while introducing the products of its clients for the purpose of alluring the consumers. This will lead to professional touch and creativity in the entire agency. The advertising created by the company needs to be quite creative which is appealing for the customers. In light of the economic downturn, it is quite significant for the company to focus upon creative advertising which will assist in quickly drawing the attention of people towards the product and thus, would promote it. It is through creative advertisement the consumers will be made conscious of their needs. TCL needs to ensure to the customers that each advertisement purchased by them runs as per the promise and the company also needs to ensure that the advertisements generated for the customers garner the ratings that were assured during the agreement. Along with creating advertisement for radio and television, it would be prudent for the company to take into account advertisements for social media such as Facebook. Advertisements can be created for billboards as well as electric displays. The company can also offer sales promotion as well as event marketing services to the customers (Gangadharbatla, 2008). 2.2 Price Price is the other significant component of the marketing mix. During the times of economic downturn, it becomes significant for the companies such as TCL to focus upon the cost cutting measures. One of the biggest challenges during the economic downturn is to get the right price for the product. In such scenarios, it becomes significant for the companies to administer the profitability of individual customers while making dealings with greater precision and thus focus upon deeper insights into the customers changing needs as well as price sensitivities (Harvard Business School, 2002). It would be prudent for TCL to implement flexible pricing system because this pricing system is preferred by the existing as well as potential customers. Moreover, during such financial slowdown, it is very important for the company to take into consideration the needs of the customers. A flat fee needs to be charged with the customers instead of focusing upon the rigid pricing system. 2.3 Place Place plays a significant role in the marketing mix of the product of a company. At present, the company, TCL is located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is presently able to serve clients of small and medium enterprise (SMEs) within and nearby areas of Cambridge as well as in London as well. However, in order to compete effectively in the market place in such economic turmoil, it is vital for the company to expand its operations in various other cities of the United Kingdom to explore the potential prospects in those areas. Along with SMEs, TCL can also offer its services to big and multinational corporations. It can produce advertisements for both national as well as regional clients by catering to their needs in a cost effective way. 2.4 Promotion In order to create awareness among the consumers regarding the services that the company offers, it would be vital to create logo, taglines as well as other components related to advertisements so that it can obtain brand value. Advertisements related to the offerings on the social media websites generally prove to be quite beneficial for the companies. Therefore, TCL can create a Facebook page and thus can invite numerous people and companies to join the page. It is considered to be one of the cheapest ways of advertising the products in the recent times. Advertising through social media can enable them to reach out to a large number of customers as in recent times it has been observed that customers generally tend to survey and attempt to resolve their queries in social media sites. Thus, in this process awareness about the offers and services of TCL can be conveyed to the customers quite cost effectively. 2.5 People People can be considered to be one of the most significant components of the marketing mix framework. When the condition of the economy is poor, there are major alterations in the behaviour of the customers towards a particular product and/or service. The desire of the customer to spend tends to diminish. During such situations, it becomes significant for TCL to focus upon the retention of the existing customers by locating the needs and the wants of them. The companies must identify what can be offered to the customers effectively. It is significant for TCL to comprehend that there are three main aspects that it needs to proffer for a company such as communication, value and services. It is vital for the company to keep in touch with the customers by means of emails or telephone. Loyal customers may be offered with certain incentives as well. TCL can make use of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) with the efficient use of their human resources in order to communicate and to maintain good relations with the customers. If the customers are happy with the services offered by the company, it will drive new customers as well (Shaw, 2009). 2.6 Physical Evidence TCL is required to make its websites more interactive with provisions for customers’ feedbacks regarding the services offered by the company. It can work as one of the crucial physical evidences for the company. Facebook can be used in order to generate customer feedback regarding the services. The website must offer comprehensive knowledge regarding the services offered by the company. 2.7 Process A feedback form can be incorporated in the website of the company where the customers would be required to fill up the forms specifying their experience with the company’s services, their suggestions regarding the improvements and if they would prefer recommending the services of the company to their peers. 3.0 Relationship Variables and Business Networks 3.1 Key Relationship Variables In many business-to-business exchanges, search for creating and sustaining long-term association serves as one of the main targets for the successful business activities. It is often noted that the companies tend to focus upon the creation of good relations with the business partners for their mutual benefits. Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group evolved and gave serious consideration towards the systematic research attempts in industrial markets or in B2B markets. According to the IMP journal, the key decision variables in B2B marketing are trust, co-operation, mutual goals, adaptation, commitment, social bonds, performance satisfaction and shared technology. In the process of creating cooperative marketing associations, both commitment and trust are key variables (Simon & et. al., 2011). Both commitment and trust are considered to be the chief factors since they endorse the marketers to work at protecting relationship investments by collaborating with trade partners. In brief, it can be stated that both commitment as well as trust result in cooperative behaviours which are favourable to relationship marketing success (Lancastre & Lages, 2005). Mutual goal can be considered as the other prime relationship variable in B2B marketing. It is considered as the extent to which the partners exchange goals which can be attained by means of joint action and the maintenance of the association. Any association can be categorised as working association where the partners work in conjunction to attain mutual goals (Bagdoniene & Zilione, 2009). It can be stated that one of the most significant strategies towards the customer preservation is customer contentment. There are many theoretical as well as empirical evidences which depict that connection between contentment as well as customer preservation exits. Satisfaction is often perceived to impact the probability of repurchasing or reusing the services of the providers. Overall satisfaction is favourably related with the behavioural loyalty as well as attitudinal loyalty (Rauyruen & et. al., n.d.). Adaptation is also considered to be one of the key decision variables in B2B marketing. It is a policy concerned with the transformation in the marketing program such as company’s products, distribution, price and place for the global target market. Adaptation generally improves the performance of the business (Gil-Saura & et. al., 2009). When dealing with adaptation of advertising in the international as well as domestic market, B2B market tends to be smaller in comparison to the consumer markets and associations with the customers are of greater significance. Adaptation is utilised to reach the buyers in distinct marketplace by integrating the message of a particular company (Nordstrand & Ohman, 2005). It has been apparent that the relationship partners who are committed use extra efforts and work in order to administer and strengthen relational ties that have a favourable impact upon cooperation. It is through cooperation the willingness of the customers to remain flexible, to adapt to the sellers request for changes, to share and disclose information to the seller and to respond to the sellers attempt over the life of exchange tends to escalate. It is also found that cooperation largely endorses creation of the value beyond what each firm could attain separately, but since one party obtains its portion of the value initially, it becomes significant for the other party to have sufficient trust in the association to wait for any kind of future reciprocation (Palmatier, 2008). 3.2 Business Models The key model that has been created for the purpose of evaluating business networks is the Actor/Resource/Activity (ARA) model. The framework has been created based upon three layers of substance in an association and in networks such as activities, actors as well as resources. Actors in this context are the firms or individuals or units (Academy of Marketing, 2009). They might as well be governmental bodies as well as other stakeholders. Actors perform activities of numerous forms in order to carry out functions such as creation of value. In order to create value they are supposed to possess adequate quantity of the resources such as knowledge, production equipment as well as energy. The ongoing work might result in the generation of associations between activities among numerous actors that give rise to the emergence of the networks. It has been observed that networks are undergoing alterations rapidly, however with a specific structure as their face of exodus. Ongoing operations lead to the mobilisation of the resources thus resulting in related resource networks to emerge (Oxford University Press, 2012). The ARA framework deals with the network that are expanding continuously where there are no clear borders defining who is inside and who is outside. It plays greater emphasis upon the connectedness as well as emerging features (Axelsson, 2010). 3.3 Importance of Relationships Variables and Business Networks to TCL Through implementation of B2B marketing efforts, TCL will be capable of automating mutual business processes with the customers as well as suppliers, create internal effectiveness and reach the target market at minimal cost. In light of the economic downturn, it is quite significant for TCL to cut costs as far as possible in order to sustain such turmoil. TCL can begin to create their development efforts around market-back product development, brand and reputation management and pricing management. In case of market-back product development the customer’s views are coordinated all through the entire method from the exploratory and concept phase to product development and testing. In case of brand and reputation management, a distinct value proposition is created and thus it is tracked and aligned with the complete marketing mix and an all-inclusive approach to administer the image of the company (Richard, 2008). Price management is considered to be the technique where the marketers such as TCL are capable of quantifying the economic as well as business value which is derived from their offerings and thus integrate this customer value into product as well as service prices. Along with the comprehension of which marketing capabilities offer major advantages to B2B companies such as TCL, it is also significant for it to note that creating them on an organisational scale is simple to say then to act upon (Tomak & Xia, 2002). One of the significant benefits that TCL will reap from the proper implementation of the B2B marketing is that they will gain augmented market share. They will further be capable of delivering higher returns to their stakeholders and create more strategic roles for themselves. TCL will also be capable of standing among the leading advertising agencies in the near future by the effective comprehension of the key decision variables and business network of B2B marketing. If TCL is capable of comprehending the key decision variables properly in its organisation then it will be able to uphold good relation with the trade partners and this will enable the firm to preserve competitive advantage (Johansson & Brehmer, 2001). 4.0 Structuring the Sales Force The main motto of the company must be to organise the sales force in such a way so that it assists in attaining the sales objectives. One of the significant resources possessed by the organisation is sales team and thus the sales team needs to be organised in a way that their maximum potential can be utilised and the brand objectives are attained at lowest possible cost. The three main approaches of organising the sales force can be geography based, customer-based and product-based. 4.1 Product-Based Approach The sales team can be organised on the basis of individual product. The benefit gained through such sales team organisations is to determine the profit contribution for each product. However, the main drawback of such organisation is that distinct sales person who tends to sell numerous products may deal with same customer which implies more cost of serving the same customer. For instance, when a particular customer is discontented with one product then in such circumstances he/she may demonstrate it to other salesperson from the company. This salesperson might not be well aware of the issue and thus show his/her anger. Therefore, such issues are resolved by means of sales reporting system (Babakus & et. al., 1996). 4.2 Geographical Approach A sales territory demonstrates a set of clients and prospect accounts surrounded by the geographical limits. The most popular forms of territory design are straight line, clover leaf and circular. It also tends to demonstrate the regular plan of the sales person. It is quite significant for each territory to be big enough which is capable of motivating the sales person and thus offers them with the opportunity to generate sufficient revenue according to their set target. One of the major drawbacks of this system of organising the sales force is that the salesperson might fail to devote adequate time to all the products. They might also fail to spend time on all customer account (Babakus & et. al., 1996). 4.3 Customer-Based Approach One of the forms that sales-oriented organisation intensely follows is the customer or segment based approach. In such case, a salesperson is allocated a market segment or customer in any particular industrial group. This form of sales force organisation might assist the firms to pay due attention on market segment as well as on their specific needs. It also permits the marketers to administer a lean sales organisation and thus keep the cost down. However, one of the main limitations of this particular method of organising the sales force is that if a particular segment or customer has not been paid due attention or has not been served properly by the sales team then in such circumstances, it might adversely influence the future of the organisation (Babakus & et. al., 1996). . 4.4. Suggestion on the Choice of Method of Sales Force for TCL It can be stated that since the company has been largely impacted by the economic slowdown, it is quite crucial for TCL to organise the sales team in such a way that it does not increase the overall cost of operations and the sales of the company is not hampered to a greater extent. In lieu of this fact, it can be stated that TCL can organise its sales force based on customers. By organising the sales force by this method, TCL will be capable of attaining the sales objective. It would also facilitate in modernising the reporting relationships, assisting in attaining effective coordination and controlling and thus creating an efficient sales force structure to ensure competent selling strategy. The customer based sales organisation will assist TCL at attaining overall success and thus maintain competitive advantage both in short and long run (IBS Center for Management Research, 2012). 5.0 Conclusion Business-to-business marketing demonstrates trade transactions with the business houses such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler. B2B marketing is increasingly utilised for the purpose of communication as well as collaboration. Most of the businesses are making use of the social media sites in order to connect with the consumers. Key relationship variables such as cooperation, trust, mutual goals, commitment, social bonds, adaptation, performance satisfaction and shared technology are quite significant to be considered by TCL in order to maintain good relation with the customers and other business partners. Paying due attention towards the business networks will assist TCL at creating effective association with the various actors in the businesses. In light of the economic slowdown, it is quite significant for TCL to revise its marketing mix and thus attain competitive advantage. Furthermore, it would be better for TCL to organise its sales force according to customer based approach so that the sales of the company can be increased. 6.0 References Academy of Marketing, 2009. B2B Books. New B2B Books. [Online] Available at: http://www.academyofmarketing.org/b2b-sig/b2b-books.html [Accessed April 27, 2012]. Axelsson, B., 2010. “Business Relationships And Networks: Reflections On The IMP Tradition”, The IMP Journal. Vol: 4, Iss: 1, pp: 1-243. Babakus, E. & et. al., 1996. “Investigating The Relationships Among Sales, Management Control, Sales Territory Design, Salesperson Performance, And Sales Organization Effectiveness”, International Journal of Research in Marketing. Vol: 13, Iss: 4, pp: 345-363. Bagdoniene, L. & Zilione, R., 2009. “Business to Business relationships: The Variables in the Context of Success”, Social Sciences. 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