Marketing Performance Report - CUERO Ltd - Essay Example

?Marketing Performance Report - CUERO Ltd CUERO Ltd. has been enjoying patronage since the time it was run by Frank Wood. He built the company from scratch and stationed it on a high pedestal before announcing retirement. He had been successful in creating a brand identity for different product lines such as Leathercraft, Ritz and Savoy, also changing name of the shops to ‘Shoeshop’ after purchasing them from the Dent Group. Earlier, Wood had a market niche for only two types of foot wears, the hand-crafted men’s shoes and boots of quality construction for commercial usage but when he saw an opportunity to diversify and cater to other market areas, he grabbed the chance of acquiring 60 independent shops of the Dent Group to cover wider areas for the sale of his company shoes. All the shops sold by the Dent Group were located at premium sites in 60 different towns and cities. This was a huge marketing strategy initiative on the part of Frank Wood to expand business (Case Study). It is very interesting to acknowledge that the company did not run any advertisement initiatives for marketing of the foot wears manufactured at the in-house facility in the mid-twenties. It achieved customer recognition on tradition, location and branding. The company made use of only selective marketing tools; it did not indulge in direct marketing as a promotional strategy. Generally, companies follow an integrated marketing strategy (IMS) for improving customer focus. IMS promotes the sale of goods and services through internal marketing, print media and other levels of integration such as Horizontal, Vertical, Internal, External and Data integration (MMC 2009). CUERO Ltd. in stead relied on one major acquisition of all stores of a popular brand, leveraging from the bargain financially and changing the brand name of the acquired shops to ‘Shoeshop’. CUERO Ltd. relied on its own sales stores in stead of developing a public relations strategy. Sales stores located on premium shopping locations by its brand name through a network of its own sales and marketing teams in 60 small and big towns did the marketing and promotion function (Case Study). CUERO diversified its manufacturing of shoes into children’s segment of customers long time back, thus, capturing a huge potential of the children’s shoes market. It helped greatly in earning huge profit margins as it opened another manufacturing plant to cater to the newly acquired niche area of children’s shoes. Till 1990, the company performed very well even amidst non-conducive market environment prevailed upon from the opening of super markets, contraction in the UK shoe manufacturing industry, sourcing of foot wears from outside and changing trends in foot wear industry. Competitive rivalry was also ignored because of the sound financial position of the company (Case Study). Marketing functions were controlled centrally from the Head Office, managed with the help of limited staff including one marketing manager, three merchandisers, four product managers, three sales people, one resource to deal with advertising and two support staff. For any other competitive firm, this strength of marketing team could have been insufficient but CUERO managed on the previously earned reputation, as the bosses wanted the staff to strictly tow the traditional line (Case Study) Pricing policy was rigid as merchandisers added the fixed and pre-settled ratio of profit on the actual cost of foot wear irrespective of the market dynamics. Innovation was rarely allowed to the merchandisers; all innovation was limited and tailored to back up the product design inside the factory premises only. The promotional tool, thus, was not fully exploited by the company. Good thing was that market analysis was done statistically on product style, colour and price to get first-hand information of the market trends but it was unfortunate that the gathered data was not used intelligently on the name of following traditions of the company. No leverage could be achieved from the gathered information as a marketing information system should collect and transfer crucial marketing information between other departments (Case Study). There was lack of communication between different departments, marketing being one of them, marketing executives were not sharing gained knowledge with retail staff, causing short supply of trendy foot wears. Thus, internal integration, a significant tool of IMC was being ignored at CUERO Ltd. External integration, meant to work together with PR and advertisement agencies was also not given due attention as only one resource was deputed to deliver the message of the company to consumers (MMC 2009). Distribution channel was performing below expectations. The central warehouse was located quite far from the connecting main road, delivering stock at unfriendly hours and without proper maintenance of the Lorries. The company was planning to opt for contractor services and was yet to take a decision. CUERO needed to make a cost analysis of self-distributing the goods to retailers’ ends or engaging the services of a private contractor, depending on the diverse retail shops (Patsula Media 2001). The children shoe segment was managed by four product managers doing all marketing functions including design, advertising, promotion and sales, which was not sufficient from customer focus. CUERO Ltd. needs to change its traditional marketing practices to move with the changing times. At a time when competition is high in other foot wear products such as sports foot wear, the company still wants to follow the traditional line. Knowing the market trends is one thing, implementation is another. In the name of promotional strategy, the company still wants to stick to its own rules of the game. It is not spending sufficient funds on promotions of its diverse shoes’ range. In the matter of designs, it is relying on limited resources. Its pricing tactic is very rigid. There is need to practice integrated marketing communication at the policy level so that senior management provides freedom to introduce innovation in all functionalities whether it is design, sales, marketing or any other department (Case Study). Senior management needs to overhaul the structures of different departments for gaining positive contribution from them as a long term strategy to lead the foot wear market on the earned recognition of the twenties. It should build upon the successful range of ‘Nikki’and ‘springbok’ further to add in this category and enter the sports shoe market in big way. Changes in the shoe business should be given due attention to formulate an innovative marketing strategy. References Case Study – CUERO Ltd. MMC Learning. (2009). Marketing communications. Available from: http://www.multimediamarketing.com/mkc/marketingcommunications/[Accessed 10 January 2011]. Patsula Media. (2001). The entrepreneur’s guidebook series. Available from: http://www.smbtn.com/books/gb71.pdf [Accessed 10 January 2011]. Read More