Carbon Trust Company - Essay Example

Carbon Trust Marketing Strategy PESTEL This includes political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors. All of these would be discussed one by one and would get to the conclusion how the overall environment is helping in their marketing strategies. Political factors: The political factors do not as such intervene in the operations of the Carbon Trust. The company is self sufficient and can handle all of its operations all by itself. And as the company is working for the betterment of the environment, the government will not want to manipulate its operations. Economic factors: As the company finances those organizations which has the potential to grow exponentially but should reduce the carbon content in their business, in that case the Carbon Trust has to keep track of the interests rates of the market as they affect the lending and borrowing in terms of financing. Social factors: The social factors do not affect the company’s strategies. It will work the same way as it is already even if the pension funds are increasing or decreasing. It will work the same way even if the population is ageing. All of these factors are not influencing the company in any major way. Technological factors: Markets have always been developing with the help of advanced technology every day. The basic pioneer of the operations of the Carbon Trust Company is technology as CRM plays a major part. The development of mutually beneficial longer term relationships between the companies is the basic essence of CRM. And this is what Carbon Trust is flourishing on. First the customer acquisition is the main focus of the company, and once it is over with this stage, it focuses on long term achievement for the operations of its own company and ultimately other organization. Environmental factors Among all the environmental factors, the climate is of major concern as it is the one on which Carbon Trust is working on. To reduce the effects of carbon on our climate and to save it from further destruction is the main aim of this company. Legal factors: The legal factors like competition law, health and safety, employment law do not affect the company as such. The company operates as it does already. Competitor analysis: This would include how their competitors influence the overall strategies of the company. The list of Carbon Trust competitors includes all those companies which are working for this matter. There are many areas that are enlisted for which the company is working and many small companies are also dealing in the same field. The competition takes place in the fields of wind energy, industrial energy accelerator, marine energy accelerator and biomass heat accelerator. Carbon Trust is producing various technology driven inventions that are needed to fight the competition, for example, they introduced £8m competition designed to help UK firms secure a chunk of global fuel cell market that new research estimates could be worth $180 billion a year by 2050 (Guardian, 2009). The company said that the aim of the competition was to identify commercially viable fuel cell technologies that can be developed at a cost that is competitive with conventional technologies. Market analysis The condition of the market in which the company operates is very crucial for its progress, growth and profits. How the demand affects the company’s operations is very helpful in determining how the company’s strategies should be shaped. The companies in the market are nowadays inclined towards environment friendly operations of their company, an as this company is wholly and solely based on this feature, it is quite vigilant in this regard. CRM is the playing a major role for the company as the company has to build long term relations with the companies they are working. Scientists are finding greener way to produce electricity, solar energy is receiving boost from Carbon Trust, and pioneering into low-carbon shipping is revealed. There are more and more projects these days which reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. People are not the main source which can reduce the carbon amount but the projects, so that people work on them consequently. CRM is the strategic approach which the company can use to solve marketing problems and implementation through specialist techniques. Size, trends, structure: The trends have already been mentioned above that the companies nowadays are more concerned about the nature of their business which should not affect the environment because there are laws that force the companies to be environmental friendly. To avoid such regulations, the companies are following the trend to be more anxious about the betterment of the environment. The market size of carbon trust is difficult to mention as there are many big and small companies working for the betterment of environment. But the major functions are completed by Carbon Trust. There is a complex structure of the carbon trust areas of interest as there is a diverse field of concerns that affect its operations. CRM is applied to almost every field, in which it operates, for example in product manufacturing, electricity, heat, and suchlike. Customer analysis: The customers of Carbon Trust are assorted in many groups. It provides practical solutions to solve the problems of public sector and businesses. Carbon amount should be cut down to lower the quantity of carbon emitted by these industries. The customers are interested in which they can reduce the above mentioned trouble. In that way, they will be more obliged to obey the regulatory laws about carbon reduction. The customers are more relying on this company as it has been successful in all of the past projects and everyone who has asked for its help has been satisfied. Internal resource audit: Every now and then, every company has gone through internal and external audit. Carbon Trust has been going through such audits too but this particular company has done well through all the internal audits. It has maintained the image of a company whose is strictly responsible for carbon reduction and is totally focused in its direction and goals. Past activity: Carbon Trust has involved in many projects since its inception, and not only the projects it has accomplished the goals of many giant companies like Pepsi and Coca Cola. CRM has been an important element of all the activities it has pursued for all those companies. It provides varied products for this purpose. The enlisted services are as follows: applied research grants (it means providing finances for UK businesses to support the development of commercially viable low carbon technologies), incubators (it means providing consultancy on different business matters), directed research (this means to aim the research towards commercial value, overcoming technological matters etc), and institutional investors (it means to help the financial investors the situation of environment and to incest accordingly). Data and research: CRM methods are useful in collecting the data on various companies who are interested to lower the amount of carbon released by their businesses. All of the research related to that company is monitored by the CRM methods and all maintained in the database of Carbon Trust. It has information about the connective energy, insource energy, and partnerships for renewables, solar press, carbon reduction label, and carbon trust standard. SWOT: The SWOT analysis of the company is mentioned in detail below: Strengths: The goal towards which it is working is the strength in itself. The aim is to reduce the amount of carbon emitted by the businesses they are operating in. that would help to save the atmosphere and the environment and make the world a better place to live. The services it is providing in different areas of concern are very miscellaneous. It has a well established website that provides all the features of its services it can help the businesses with. If a certain new organization is willing to have the services of Carbon Trust then it can first go to the website to have a look what kind of facilities it needs and then refer to the specific area for the assistance from carbon trust. Carbon Trust not only is the provider of all the services mentioned on its website but it also provides investments for small businesses that are willing to reduce the carbon amount in their businesses. It finances emerging clean technology that has the market commercialization potential. Weaknesses: Carbon Trust does not have the fully developed financial information sometimes because when the interest rates fluctuate, it has to keep track of tings so that it can finance the projects on their areal amounts and worth. Opportunities: The field in which Carbon Trust is working has many open options in which it can expand. It is every now and then introducing new technology in the market which is helpful in reducing the carbon amount in our atmosphere. Carbon Trust has many financing opportunities which it can target in many new different directions, like making cars that emit low carbon amount etc. The company can fuel its operations through the finances it has already in store. The major use of these finances can be merger or acquisitions with small companies who are working in the same area, it will not only make carbon trust larger in size but also would expand the opportunities in market as the competition will slightly eliminate. Threats: The competition in any filed has been the greatest threat in any kind of operations. Besides that, if the company is not going to explore other opportunities in the market and if it keeps on operating with the existing services that it provides then it has the threat of becoming extinct from the market completely. Key issues: The key issues are related to the carbon amount that still exists in the businesses. The organizations, at the present time, are engaged in such functionalities that are extensive and require much power and energy. If such a business is using power on large scale then it wills surely release large amounts of carbon too. Carbon trust has to take precautionary measures to avoid this kind of situation. CRM can help to reduce the effects of such problems because it is the effective tool that has worked for many years for many organizations. There are many different methods in which CRM can be use and many methods it provides, it depends on the organization itself that how it wants to make use of it. Objectives by Segment: The objectives of its segments are numerous. It has made different categories of the services it provides to its customers. The criterion on which it has differentiated its services is the basis of its segmentation. If any organization is interested in applied research grants then it can contact carbon trust in that regard, if it is interested to lower the amount of carbon released by its energy projects then Carbon trust can be of assistance for that matter. The surveys that are to be conducted should include questions which should determine that every business is concerned with lowering its amounts of carbon emission. Communication plan, its importance and what kind of plan is needed are the major concerns of this survey. How CRM is playing part in such performance. Market strategy: The market strategy includes many different aspects. They are mentioned below: The segmentation has already been discussed above. The segments are divided according to the products offered. The positioning has been done clearly keeping in mind all the demographics attributes of the population Carbon Trust is targeting to. Brand issues are not there as such because of the strong brand image by now established in the market. The brand is very strong since its inception in the market which is a very long time now. Data and research strategy, enhancement through profiling are some of the features that are handled by the management through CRM and database management techniques. The profile data of the companies need to be stored in some safe place and that function is completed by CRM here. Content, maintenance, data projection issues are some other questions of apprehension which the company must keep track of. The content of data stored must be stated clearly hand must be relevant to the problem at hand. Maintenance of data is handled by the respective departments and data projections are done when needed. Mix issues The product is well defined. It has been displayed besides the list of problems faced by the companies these days. Not only the products, but the services are also related to the problems faced by the companies. Distribution strategy of Carbon Trust is very strong. It has connections with all the companies it is working with, it has worked with and the companies which are future prospects. People working in the organization are a precious asset and they must not be lost no matter what happens. They must be kept satisfied, especially those who have been the main source of its strength. Processes the company uses are unique. It is always on the move to introduce new ways to reduce the carbon amounts in the business’s operations. Carbon trust is making use of CRM and is unbeaten in paying its parts towards accomplishing its goal. Pricing of Carbon Trust is according to the products or services the other organization is demanding. CT products are one of their kinds in their own way and have been since they were launched. Brand/ physical evidence is depicted by the products is constantly originates in the market. The brand makes its presence visible among all the competitors so that the brand recall of the brand stays fresh in the minds of its customers. Communications strategy of acquisition and retention: Carbon Trust has always been vigilant in acquiring and retaining the customers. Its state-of-the-art technology has enabled it to keep track of the things happening in the market and the changing demand. The objectives of this strategy are to keep focused regarding the customers. According to the research, most of the companies engage ninety percent of the time to retain the customers and the remaining ten percent is to acquire new customers. Getting new customers is more time consuming and costly while keeping the existing customers is relatively easier. Target segments and product segment alignment are discussed above. Offers are very rare in their strategy and only those are mentioned which are given with their already available product and services. Media lay down is very restricted as the company only does its advertising privately to those companies which are their target market or through their website. There are no large advertising campaigns. Creative link to brand is created by the brand itself. The brand has diversified in many ways as it remains engages in many different projects. Word of mouth is the strongest creative link a brand can create and the organizations who had taken help from Carbon Trust are highly satisfied. Testing strategy and implementation: The strategies have been same as they had been since its commencement. “Accelerating the move to a low carbon economy” is the main motto of this organization which has been goal of this company since the day of its beginning. The numbers and cost of the organization’s projects can be depicted by the following case let: The Cavan Bakery reached the retirement age and it became mandatory for the company to replace its aging ovens which were produced high amounts of heat because they were massively inefficient. An interest free energy efficiency loan from carbon trust helped the business replace them with an efficient, up-to-date alternative. Annual energy savings were up to 12,000 units of gas and 6000 units of electricity. Annual CO2 savings were about 81.2 tonnes. Loan payback was completed in 36 months while size of the loan was £ 31,000. Fulfillment and response, measurement and budgets: The budgets that have been allocated for each of the projected done up to date. They were allocated after really precautionary measures. It designates budgets according to their investments which is done on following different factors: financial position of the company, management experience, market assessment, competitive advantage, identify funding, technical and innovation evidence, confirmation of intellectual property protection and all investments need to be UK based. Acquisition of new customer is mainly due to word of mouth and many new customers are willing to get its services because they have heard of other organizations of their services. Carbon Trust is occupied in many activities which are related to the events ranging from introduction of services to technical energy efficiency training. These events are free to attend. The events are organized in almost every kind of region they operate in. The budgets allocated for these events and the projects which are to be undertaken are assigned by the management department all by themselves by taking into view all the above mentioned factors of the organization. The program in which it engages becomes successful because it has certain elements which are of primary concern to the organizations. Workshops are arranged, maintenance lectures are organized, and discussion take place which are related to generating profits by reducing carbon amounts in the company’s operations. Keeping all these discussion points in view, profit generating ideas are debated. Carbon trust has the expertise which it can give to commercial and public sector to help them reduce the amount of carbon. It is involved in the process of inventing new technologies through CRM, and through project funding and highly capable management. Another duty of carbon trust to identify market barriers which can cause hindrance in the application of such projects feasibility. The people who are working for this organization are very valuable. Carbon trust would never want to lose its employees and for that matter they are providing them fair incentives to keep the company gainful. It has many environmental policies that are working as a basic strength and in the end the company is successful to maintain its brand image. References Carbon Trust. (2009). [Online] Available at: http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/default.ct [Accessed 9 December 2009]. Guardian. (2009). Carbon Trust launches £8m competition to search for a cheaper fuel cell. [Online] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/09/carbon-trust-fuel-cell-competition [Accessed 9 December 2009]. Read More