Business to Business Marketing: of Triangle Creative Ltd - Case Study Example

?Business to Business Marketing Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 0 Introduction 4 2.0 Marketing Mix 5 2 Product 5 2.2 Price 6 2.3 Place 7 2.4 Promotion 7 2.5 People 8 8 2.6 Process 8 2.7 Physical Evidence 9 3. Relationship Variables and Business Networks 9 3.1 Key Relationship Variables 9 3.2 Business Networks 11 3.3 Relationship and Network Importance in TCL 12 4.0 Organising the Sales Force 14 4.1 Geography Based 14 4.2 Customer Based 15 4.3 Product Based 16 4.4 Best Approach for TCL 16 5.0 Conclusion 17 6.0 References 18 7.0 Bibliography 20 20 1.0 Introduction Triangle Creative Ltd (TCL) is a booming organisation that deals in providing services to clients through advertising, online marketing, direct marketing, website developments and public relations. Their reputation has enabled them to attract clients mostly through word-of-mouth recommendation. Most of their clients are from the small and medium sized enterprises located in and around Cambridge. However, the company has been using the services of PJW Media Production, thus, sharing a good professional relationship between them. Recent economic downturn has inflicted a loss of TCL clients that are switching to other methods of promoting their business, due to the availability of fewer budgets for marketing. It has been noted that the revenue has gone down by 25% in the past year. Therefore, it has been a concern for David Thorpe and Angela Brown the Joint Managing Directors, to retain clients and develop opportunities for gaining new business. Apart from the economic downfall, the company is facing challenges from local companies and from those that have extensive national networks. The objective of this report would be to identify the cost effective methods that can be offered to clients in the financial economic crisis. Moreover, the promotional strategy of TCL needs to be modified for attracting new clients, with regards to the economic crisis prevailing in the country. Though the company takes pride in providing excellent services to its clients, it should ensure that relationships are given priorities for retaining existing clients. Apart from these, the company is seeking to employ a sales team that will individually be responsible for fetching new clients for their company. Thus, the organisation and the implementation of sales strategy will be formulated to enhance the client base and remain competitive within the marketing and advertising sector. 2.0 Marketing Mix Successful marketing depends on how organisations focus on the four key elements, namely, product, price, promotion and place. This was the approach that most of the organisations undertook to address the key elements of effective marketing. However, the modern approach has included three more elements which are important for service industry, i.e. people, process and physical evidence. Therefore, the 7Ps will be discussed below focusing on the areas where TCL needs to develop to gain a competitive edge in this industry (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2009). 2.1 Product TCL’s services can be separated into three sections, namely, media services, advertising and marketing services. Media services include planning of the place and time of broadcasting the advertisement. To benefit in the long-run the company can buy effective spaces of individual media broadcasters which will enable them to enhance the sales thus, increasing their revenue. It should be ensured that clients get the value for their product by the priority the company would provide with regard to place and time of the advertisement. It will help the organisation to retain the existing clients and bring in new clients. Small and medium sized enterprises depend mainly on above-the-line promotional activities that comprise TV advertisements. It is a general concept that advertisement through TV commercials is one of the most expensive approaches (The Times 100 & Wilson and Wilson Publishing Ltd, 2012). Thus, TCL should discourage this service at the present financially down economy and hence, focus more on advertising in social networking sites which have increasingly developed interests among all the masses of population. This method of promoting may be cost effective to the company and the clients as well. 2.2 Price The present pricing strategy of TCL is quite costly and creates a negative impression in the mind of the clients. Price of a product or a service should be determined after the cost incurred, from production to bringing the finished product in the market. However, price of a service depends upon the quality that has been rendered. However, the commission charging strategy for pricing is not accepted by a lot of high profile clients. Thus, the company can develop packages for their different products. In addition, the company can provide free promotions to existing clients, such as promotion of the business in social networking sites. The value added service will help to retain the existing clients and generate new clients which can afford to pay a price of one promotional activity and enjoy the benefit of two promotional resources (Nagle & Holden, 2002). 2.3 Place TCL may acquire benefits by reaching small and medium sized enterprises based in the larger cities of the United Kingdom. It can set up small branch offices in the emerging UK cities where prospects of attracting clients are available. Furthermore, it can help their existing designers and account executives to access the offices more effectively, reducing the time taken to reach the company. Few clients consider delivering performance as the competent criteria for their service providers. Thus, it should be ensured that clients provided time for meeting is followed strictly which can be possible only by being available at prime locations (Gummesson, 2002). 2.4 Promotion The network of clients that David Thorpe and Angela Brown have developed over the years will help them to focus on more strategic promotion of TCL apart from word-of-mouth communication. They may create an email marketing plan that will allow them to provide the necessary improvements and launch new offers to the existing clients. Apart from that, the email contacts retrieved from the internet will allow them to provide information regarding their services offered to the new clients. It will facilitate them for reaching larger number of clients in a short period of time, out of which few positive turnovers can lead to growing their business. In addition to it, the company can further develop their official website to provide information about their services and offers. It can project software in their website that will present an approximate estimation of the price that will be required for rendering their services. This will help the company to obtain potential clients who might be able to assess the estimated cost and be interested in doing business with TCL. 2.5 People The service industry mainly focuses on customers’ satisfaction. Therefore, TCL will need to appoint candidates who will form the sales team. Their task would be to visit clients and propose them to experience services from them. Impressions would matter a lot to draw new clients. Therefore, the company should ensure that the sales team possesses positive attitude and adequate training to identify the clients need and act accordingly. 2.6 Process Customer satisfaction is related to both the process of rendering the service and the behaviour of the staff who delivers it. Therefore, facilities should be available to the clients so that minimum time is taken to address their queries. An e-form available at TCL website may be a good option for providing quick solutions to the clients’ problems or queries. Apparently, at times customer may be kept on hold while they are calling for any information. But this could be frustrating to the client and thus a source of revenue generation opportunity may have been missed. Therefore, TCL can use modern methods to divert engaged phone numbers to other number which will help to address the client quickly without making him wait. 2.7 Physical Evidence Physical evidence is the appearance and the assumption a company makes to their clients. Thus, a professional environment should be prevailing in the office premises of TCL when it comes to dealing with the services provided to the clients. However, good relationship should be maintained with the clients to retain them towards the company. Furthermore, feedbacks and suggestion forms may be made available to the existing clients. This will give an option to the new clients to know the experiences of the services rendered to the existing clients and make the new clients confident to use TCL’s services. 3. Relationship Variables and Business Networks 3.1 Key Relationship Variables Relationship is an important factor for all businesses that exist in the service industry. According to IMP journal, relationship can be defined as a process where two organisations form strong and broad social, economic and technological attachments with the intention to minimise total costs and maximise the value, thus, attaining common benefit by both. The relationships can be a pattern of interactions involved by both the people of the organisations over a period of time. The interactions over a period of time create a relationship which is contributed by individual relations between the organisations. Hence, the relationships become important for both the organisations with individuals having a sharing nature which together make possible innovative, active and energetic processes (Snehota, 2011). The IMP journal has identified important variables in B2B relationships. These can be categorised as follows: Trust: Trust is an important aspect between two organisations in the B2B marketing. It is a social exchange process that is built over a period of time. It is easier to loose trust over other parties than to gain it. Thus, trust can be said to be an ongoing process which develops within a passage of time (Woodside, 2012). Commitment: Commitment is the intention required from both the organisations’ part to build and to maintain a long-term relationship in between them. It is a kind of assurance given by both the organisations to stay committed to the deliverables from either side (Woodside, 2012). Co-operation: The involved organisations’ employees share and help each other in various processes to attain a common objective. If relationships are grown and developed, interactions are bound to evolve among individual employees. Thus, the co-operative in nature attitude can help in effective communication between two organisations (Woodside, 2012). Mutual Goals: It can be considered as a mutual perceptive between the two organisations for attaining a primary goal. The mutual way of working helps them to achieve the desired goals by incurring lower cost and resources (Woodside, 2012). Adaptation: It is the process to consciously attempt to improve the relationships between the two organisations to derive additional benefits from both. It often leads to build inter-personal relationships among individual employees that are well paid off in the success of the business, in the long run by creating opportunity costs for both the organisations (Woodside, 2012). Social Bonds: Cooperation and conflicts both exists hand-in-hand in business relationships. Therefore, organisations ensure that social bonding prevail among the employees. Due to the influence of diverse workforce in modern organisations, different cultures and communities are present. Social bonding makes all individuals respect each other’s cultures and rituals, thereby enhancing personal relationships (Woodside, 2012). Performance Satisfaction: When two organisations are doing business together in a B2B network, it is important to measure the performances of the individual employees and equally attain satisfactory level from both the organisation. The individual employees’ performance will tighten their relationships and make them achieve their common objectives easily (Woodside, 2012). Shared Technology: It is obvious in modern organisations to have unique technologies installed in their processes. B2B organisations get the facilities to utilise each other’s specialist technologies which help firms to reduce the total costs. By sharing each other’s technology relationships are bound to develop over the period of time (Woodside, 2012). 3.2 Business Networks Relationships are implanted in business networks, where they are all connected to each other. According to IMP Journal, relationships are the road to a better development of business networks. Furthermore, networks are considered the factors that influence the organisations and at times can influence the networks by the performances of both the organisations. Thus, both the situations are possible and exist simultaneously which are equally valid at different times. Therefore, the business networks are difficult to define and limitless in nature. They can spread among vast boundaries with increase in growing relations. It can also be defined as an organisation surrounded communication channel of their ongoing business and non business relationships that enables to enhance the organisations’ performance (Snehota, 2011). 3.3 Relationship and Network Importance in TCL TCL founder David Thorpe and Angela Brown should ensure that they trust their employees which in turn will reflect on the consumer’s behavior. The employees will be motivated and their confidence level will increase which may lead them to provide excellent services to their clients. After assigning a task, the clients may feel contented that their assignments are taken well care of, thus improving the relationship with the company. Additionally, the employees of TCL should make sure that their commitments to clients are fulfilled in each and every way. Essentially, service industry focuses on quality and time. Therefore, while making a deal with clients TCL should ensure that they do not make false commitments which will be impossible for them to fulfill. Keeping up to the employees’ commitment, the relationship with existing clients will improve and new clients will be encouraged to do business with TCL. TCL’s employees should be co-operative with the other organisations’ employees so that their interaction increases. They should ensure that they share each other’s processes to attain a common goal. This will help TCL to incur less cost and provide services effectively. The clients will be benefitted by the fact that they will have to pay fewer amounts while rendering TCL’s services comparatively. Mutual understanding between the two organisations will provide a better opportunity for attaining a desired objective. Thus, the management at TCL should ensure that all their employees mutually agree with other organisation’s employees decisions. This attitude will develop their relationship and focus on the long-term objectives. TCL’s employees should be able to adapt to different situations quickly. The Directors should make sure that inter-personal relationships are grown among the employees to overall improve the relationships between the two organisations. David Thorpe and Angela Brown have urged the importance of social bonding to maintain a healthier relationship with the business partners and with the clients. Different cultural people from different communities may be present in the organisation. Thus, TCL employees should respect each other’s culture to ensure a developed relationship. Furthermore, the employees should value the clients’ culture in order to retain existing and attract new clients. The management of TCL should have a performance measuring process that will help them to assess individual employee’s performances. It will facilitate the company to ensure effective performance appraisal of employees that will help to motivate other employees. Thus, the employees will be satisfied with each other’s performance that will lead to enhance the relationship among them. The Directors of TCL should ensure that they use modern technologies that may be shared by the other business partners. Similarly, TCL’s employees will get to access the other organisation’s technologies which will reduce the need for purchasing huge range of technologies. Thus, the sharing of techniques and information will help to improve the relationship between the two organisations. Networking is a vital part of service industry. Therefore, the management should initiate the development and growth of business clients. They can focus on customer relationship management which will help them to deliver effective services to their clients. Apart from that the TCL employees should look to develop new contacts in order to enhance their business networks all over the country. The growing of business clients will ensure maximising of sales thus, leading to revenue growth. Healthy relationships should be maintained among existing clients that will help the company to promote their services among other new clients thus, increasing their business networks (Bagdoniene & Zilione, n.d.). 4.0 Organising the Sales Force The sales force of TCL can be organised based on three factors, namely geography based, customer based and product based. Thus, it is very important for the organisation to identify the profitable factor that the sales force needs to focus at in order to attain effective revenue growth. 4.1 Geography Based Geography based product or market selling can be referred to selling of products or services at different regions or areas. It can further be said that the area of selling are divided among the sales people who are responsible for their particular area sales activities. Advantages of this approach can be minimising of costs, by reducing the travelling distance and time to meet customers. Thus, each sales personnel will know their area well and be able to identify the potential customers. One of the major disadvantages faced by organisations using this approach is that diverse applications need to be implemented by the sales personnel in each of their territory or region. This can be difficult at times as multiple tasks can lead to affect the quality of the service due to lack of time (Hutt & Speh, 2009). Therefore, TCL may benefit from geographical based approach as their current account executives need to handle both the accounts section and meeting clients which require lots of travelling. A sales team can be divided among different areas which will reduce the work load of the account executives and let them focus on account related issues. 4.2 Customer Based Customer focused selling is an effective approach for an organisation. In this approach, the products and the services are developed by identifying the customers’ preferences. Furthermore, the sales team can study the customer’s behavior and approach accordingly. It helps to reduce unnecessary productions which may not be liked by the consumers. Thus, customer based approach enhances the chances of the organisation to make limited variety of products and focus on increasing volume of production to the particular product that is preferred by the customers (Hutt & Speh, 2009). TCL can implement this kind of approach as clients will feel that their individual preferences are taken care of while rendering their services. It will help them to retain existing clients and attract new clients. 4.3 Product Based Product based approach is followed mainly by organisations whose product line is large and diverse. In these types of organisations, the sales force can specialise in small sections of the total product line. Apart from that, various products have different buying behavior. Thus, the sales person can focus on the specific customer needs for a precise product and know exactly what is being required from the customers’ perspective. Furthermore, the sales personnel can develop a high level of knowledge about a particular product thus, enhancing the value of the organisations total offerings (Hutt & Speh, 2009). TCL may benefit using this approach as their services include various activities. Thus, the company can focus on providing specific knowledge to different employees about a particular service rendered. It will benefit the organisation to provide specialised sales force for specific services. 4.4 Best Approach for TCL From the above mentioned approaches, it can be suggested that customer based approach for organising the sales force may be appropriate for TCL. Though TCL deals with different clients, needs and preferences can differ. Thus, this approach will help the sales force to focus on a particular client’s requirements while providing services. Furthermore, it will allow them to make the clients happier as they will be aware that their preferences are being considered. Additionally, the accounts’ executives will not be de-motivated as their roles are being altered. They will have the impression that they are being asked to deliver those roles which they are specialised in. 5.0 Conclusion The recent economic downturn has restricted many organisations from increasing the revenue from the sale of products or services. TCL was focused more on the traditional marketing strategy, i.e. Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Thus, from certain references it has been noticed that the service industry essentially follows the modern marketing approach which adds up the other 3P’s to the existing P’s. As the economic climate is changing, it may be fruitful for the company to implement the suggested changes in order to gain competitive advantage in the market. Additionally, TCL has to maintain healthy relationship with their business partners and clients. Thus, the key variables of relationships have been identified and suggestions to implement those in TCL have been made. Relationship will vastly matter to the existing clients so that the company can retain them. Furthermore, it is equally important to grow business networks that will enhance them to attract new clients. Thus, a sales force of 6-8 people can focus on the customer based approach to increase the revenue of the company. It will help the sales personnel to remain centric to a particular client while providing him/her efficient services. 6.0 References Bagdoniene, L. & Zilione, R., No Date. Success Variables in Business-To-Business Relationships. Abstract. [Online] Available at: http://rasa.zilionis.net/files/Bagdoniene_Zilione_International_Seminar.pdf [Accessed May 05, 2012]. Gummesson, E., 2002. Toward A Theory of Professional Service Marketing. Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 7, Issue 2, pp 89-95. Hutt, M. D. & Speh, T. W., 2009. Business Marketing Management: B2B. Cengage Learning. Nagle, T. T. & Holden, R. K., 2002. The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Profitable Decision Making. Lavoisier Librairie. Snehota, I., 2011. New Business Formation in Business Networks. The IMP Journal, Vol. 5, Issue 1, pp 1-66. The Times 100 & Wilson and Wilson Publishing Ltd, 2012. Above-The-Line Promotion. Promoting The Brand. [Online] Available at: http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/portakabin/promoting-the-brand/above-the-line-promotion.html [Accessed May 05, 2012]. The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2009. Marketing and the 7 P’s. A Brief Summary of Marketing and How It Works. [Online] Available at: http://www.cim.co.uk/filestore/resources/10minguides/7ps.pdf [Accessed May 05, 2012]. Woodside, A., 2012. Evaluating Marketing Actions and Outcomes. Advances In Business Marketing & Purchasing. [Online] Available at: http://www.impgroup.org/book_view.php?isbn=0-7623-1046-4 [Accessed May 05, 2012]. 7.0 Bibliography Day, G. S., No Date. Aligning the Organization With the Market. The Wharton School. [Online] Available at: http://knowledge-stage.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1315.pdf [Accessed May 05, 2012]. Johnston, M. W. & Marshall, G. W., 2009. Sales Force Management (Sie) 9E. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Rich, S. S., 2003. Management Of A Sales Force 11. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Read More