Evaluation of the Trident Company Success - Essay Example

?INTRODUCTION This report will incorporate relatively short on the organization I work for, in addition an analysis and evaluation of success of Trident will be included. Concepts and Theories will help to analyze Trident as a business internally and externally. MAIN FOCOUS The award winning company Trident has set its benchmark in market all around the world. Trident designs and provides packaging, and graphic management services to other companies. It partners with other companies and provides them services; so it mainly focuses on the brand representation of the company in market. Their tag line “completing the package” also tells their aim and main purpose which is to provide marketing to a company in a unique way. Tridents have captured their market in exotic way which has also helped them to expand their value and placement in market. Trident as a company has main focus on the packaging and graphic management of the consumers brand. It has kept their market very focused and simple. In other words it deals and targets all the companies and their products which need packaging. The main reason for their success is also because of the unique nature of their company, and the service which they provide. There are many other companies which might offer such packaging or graphic management but not under one roof with such high standards. Secondly the level of quality they have maintained in their work is the main reason for their success and well-known name in market. So the market of Trident Company is very vast as they target and invites all the companies for designing of their graphic management and products for their good packaging. TRIDENTS HISTORY Trident was established in 1993 by Dave Keel and Bob Caroll. They both were working in company Harlans, in directors bored. Harlans is a large successful printing house company in Hull. Harlans was a successful company which was able to offer an extensive scope of printing capacity to its customers. But when its success started to fade due to the down fall of Harlans culture, the two current owners of Trident - Dave and Bob decided to initiate and start their own new business. As they were aware of business before because of the experience and vision in Harlans Company, they kept in mind to avoid and overcome all the issues which they have faced or have seen in Harlans. The foundation of Trident consisted of just 5 staff members in 1993 and their main focus was to offer and manage consistency in design, colors and graphics for all the global brands. The business whose bricks were built on trust in just one room; their staff was able to come and leave whenever they wanted to but the only agenda they had was to complete their given work on the very day. In start they had no structure but just few staff members who worked over this motive that don’t put down any of the colleague or customer; always do something to help them and do something to impress them. And till today this is tridents slogan to swear on. After eleven months of their hard work and consistency, Trident was bought by Sonoco. Sonoco is global packaging organization with over 300 manufacturing locations in almost 30 countries. (Sonoco, 2011) Sonoco provided help to Trident to grow and develop. With increasing employee numbers of company, the structure gradually kept changing. Manager and Supervisor titles were introduced and appointed to each team which managed different customers’ brands. As Trident evolved in both structure and technology; they were able to expand and become a global company. (Trident, 2011) It now employs more than 250 people in their Hull site branch. Now Trident has opened five sites. Their second branch is in UK. And two branches in Asia and one in USA. Their customers’ portfolio incorporates some of the well-known brands like P&G, Body Shop, SC Johnson, Reckitt Benckiser and Phillips, etc. SWOT ANALYSIS All the factors in business which influence the actions and operation of the company and which are not under the control of the company are known as external factors. These factors include economic conditions, consumers, development of other competitors and other factors as well. (AdvertisingGlossary, 2006) The Tridents have given a unique feature to their company which is their main pillar to success as no other company in market has aimed for same targets. So the position of their company is a niche market which provides those features and services which other companies in the business has neglected or never thought about. Niche market means focused and targetable portion of the market and focuses on the production of those products which a mainstream market is not providing. So if we see the niche market of Tridents then we can clearly see that their unique service is very vast yet focused as it captures and target all the companies in market which are looking for their products branding and packaging. (about.com, 2011) To evaluate the success of Tridents we need to look through the market position of its company and its competitors in market. The position of the company can be analyzed by the external market it has. So to analyze the external market of Tridents we will use SWOT method of analysis. Environmental Scan           / \            Internal Analysis       External Analysis / \                  / \ Strengths   Weaknesses       Opportunities   Threats | SWOT Matrix EXTERNAL SWOT ANALYSIS If we look at the strength of the Tridents in market, their main strength is their placement; which is completely unique and exclusive. No such other company is offering the services they have offered and even if some are doing then they are not well recognized or well placed in the market. STRENGTH Strength of the company includes the facilities they are offering. Their brand name, the reputation in market related to their quality of work - all defines the strength of company. (quickmba, 2010) The agenda which has strengthened the Tridents business is that they have kept their market very focused even though their capturing market is very vast. It is not at all confusing to describe the focus and aim of Tridents as their only business is to provide packaging to any product of any company. The placement of Trident in market strengthens their position by what they offer. There are not many rivals of Tridents in the market as they themselves have set the benchmark and are well recognized and trusted by other companies for their packaging. Even if other companies offer same facilities then they still can’t reach at the position of Tridents as the well-recognized and multinational companies are customers of Tridents. WEAKNESSES One of the visible weakness or barrier for Trident is that it is not known to layman people like the other companies for which it actually do packaging or provides their other products. If we evaluate the popularity of companies in people then the companies like Unilever, Bodyshop etc would be known by most of the people but Trident would not be very much known by all the people but only by specific gentry. OPPORTUNITIES As Tridents offer unique services so the market value of them is very strong and vast. They have made their name and have set their place in market which attracted the leading companies as their customers. Their target market is simply any company which is looking for packaging or graphic management for their company. The company is open with vast opportunities for their business. This is because of their nature of business and the opportunities they offer in market. THREATS There are many other companies which are somewhat offering the same program, like Gilchrist. Though they are not able to compete Tridents in market but still the presence of such companies for a long term is a surly a threat, however such companies need a lot of time and renowned customers to make their position strong. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MAIN CUSTOMERS AND TRIDENTS Main customers of Trident include well-known companies like Body Shop, Reckitt Benckiser and Phillips. These multinational companies are associated with tridents and are seeking help of trident for packaging etc. The number of customers Trident has evaluates the market value of Trident. Trident is doing packaging for such famous names which is prestige for both the customers and company to work together. Trident is known for its famous and well maintained standard of packaging in the market for which even new companies approach them for their products. The association of multinational companies with Trident is not only a matter of business but it defines the level of business they are dealing with. To work with collaboration for each other helps both parties to keep their name and products maintained in the market. The relation which Trident is helping them to maintain their business in market without inviting direct competitors. Trident and other multinational companies are associated with each other but they are not rivals of each other as they work together. PEST ANALYSIS PEST analysis is used for the evaluation of external environment of company. PEST stands for political, economic, social and technological evolution. It is commonly used for the evaluation of micro environmental factors of any company or institute. ( QuickMBA , 2010) Political factors In PEST, political factors often known as a step to examine the political structure of the organization which includes legal issues related with government and rules like tax policies, employment laws and political stability in market. The government keeps a monitor over the economic activities of companies. The law of government affects the market values which eventually affects the market position of the companies. In UK the government controls the economic activities which include taxes, employment laws, law policies, inflation etc. So every company has to deal with these political structures of government. Now when the world is recovering from recession, the economy of countries is also regaining its value. Trident has also faced and is facing such factors like increasing rate in taxes and interest. The chain reaction of inflation does not only affect one factor but it makes a chain and affect next factors as well. With the increasing rate of taxes and interest the price of payments of Tridents has also increased. The government lowered the Vat to 15% in Christmas season but now it has again raised it to 17.5% which will eventually affect the rate price taken from consumers. This may also affect the business of Trident as they may spend fewer amounts over their new packaging because of recession and inflection. Economic Factors The economy of market also defines the market value of the company for both short term and long term evaluation. The market value is needed to be considered especially for the planning of the company. It looks at the following factors which are interest rates, level of inflation, and value of GDP. The economic factor describes the purchasing power and potential of customers towards company. These factors are evaluated by keeping in view the factors of economic changes, inflation, interest rates and exchange rates. (Marketing Teacher, 2011) So the company in market is affected by many factors. The one important factor which affects the market value of the company is Economic factor. Trident is also affected by the fast growing economy. GDP which calculates the total number of value of goods produced within the country. After doing a close study of GDP, in previous year it is noticable that gradually the GDP has increased. And the growth in the GDP is the sign of recovery of economy from recession. From 2009 the GDP of UK has increased, which shows the continuous recovery of economy from recession. This growth shows that economy of UK is growing and more companies are producing which means there is increase in the production of UK economy. The total output of services was decreased by fourth quarter of 2010 by 0.5. This fourth quarter decrease was due to two factors of components aggregated which are services and constructions. (Office For National Statistics, 2011) The companies like Trident are heavily dependent on the flow of consumers towards them. Their business is dependent on the amount of orders they get. So when the government has kept lower interest rates then it means that more consumers will give their orders and companies will earn more. When there is a fall in Interest rates that shows an increase expansion in economic values. So the business of Trident gets affected by economic values directly. And to maintain the market position they need to keep their strategies planed. If we see the economic growth of the company Trident then it seem like the company was well awarded of the recession and inflation and tried to keep their company away from all the side effects of recession and downfall of the company. The recession around the world did make some negative effect on Trident. All these factors affect the businesses it deals with and their consumers. When in recession the unemployment rate is increased the people have less money to spend as the rates of things get higher and the value of money get decreased which eventually mean increase in the price of things. When inflation occurs not only the prices are increased but also the demand of money. So even on larger scale with companies, they also have fewer budgets to spend on advertisements and packaging etc. So due to such factors the economic stability of Trident was also affected by recession. For example the multinational company like Unilever cut down their amount of projects which they were supposed to offer Trident for marketing. Social Analysis Social analysis of the company in PEST analysis includes all the social influences on the business. The business and the market of business is defined and accelerated by the people who are targeted. The more general and public orientated the focus of the company would be the more business and profit the company will make. As the public is defined by the cultural and social aspects, so in the social analysis the evaluation of social and cultural factor is very important. The business of company is not only evaluated by the society and culture of the company but also to which gentry it focuses and what gentry it deals with. (NetMBA, 2011) Trident itself doesn’t have any direct market with the public but with other companies. The social and cultural factor doesn’t affect Trident directly. The growth of Trident‘s market is constantly changing and growing. If we see the general market they rate of consumers in buying is decreasing and due to inflation the lifestyle of people have changed and the trend of buying luxuries products are now only limited to specific gentry. The market place of Trident is also affected by this change and now the products which Tridents get orders for and more general and public oriented as the other companies are spending more amounts on packaging and marketing over those products which have wider market range and value. But due to the unique nature of Trident Company they are still gaining new customers. The products they offer for other companies is the ever need to other companies as they always need packaging and with growing technology the need of graphic branding. TRIDENT ACHIEVEMENTS Trident has won many awards and has got many achievements. Following is the list of awards: 1. Trident was voted as business of the year award in 2005. The competitors in the award show against tridents were famous companies of UK like RBS, NatWest, and Reckitt Benckiser etc. Trident has received this award three times, which shows its prolonged strong position in market. (Trident, 2011) 2. In Times magazine Trident was nominated as one of the best company to work with. It was considered one of the most prestige company to work for in 2008 and was nominated as “one to watch”. (trident, 2011) 3. In 2007 Trident was awarded Yhellen Employer award for best place to work with. (Trident, 2011) 4. In 2006 by Financial Times Trident was placed in top 15 best places to work in UK. And it was also placed in the top 100 list of best places to work in Europe. It was placed after the positive comments of staff of trident on online survey. (Trident, 2011) PRODUCTS AND SERVICES OF TRIDENT Tridents offer ten main products by their company. Which are design consultancy, integrated Pre-press, Zen, Sm.art, quality systems, print and color management, printer control; digital packaging, photography and Sm.Art pack 3D. INTERNAL ANALYSIS Budget planning In 2009 the budget of Trident Company was relatively low because of the lack of planning. If we study the table then we can see the difference in the sales of the company in all three years, in which the lowest sale is in 2009. Nevertheless the sales and budget which went low on graph in year 2009 was again regained in year 2010. So the low sale of Trident in year 2009 can be a result of recession as well. In different studies it is noticed that Trident grows 20 percent each year. And if look at the financial background of Trident then we know that Trident is owned by Sonoco, which means Trident has complete back support in all financial assistance. So as long as trident is making money, Sonoco is not bothering Tridents in their matters. 2008 2009 2010 Time 71 (RFT 95%) 71 (RFT 96.3%) 79 (RFT 96.3%) Sales 479,380 703,261 732,051 Budget 519,326 400,000 570,000 Profitability 37% 55% 49% SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT Trident has kept its environment small and free. It is welcoming and is always helping towards both the fellow co-workers and clients as well. They are hospitable with their clients offer tea, coffee and snacks to all. The employees are not given harsh working timing; there is half working day on Friday. Tridents basically have two main principals to follow, first don’t let any colleague down and second don’t let any customer down. Every person in the company has to be welcoming towards both client and coworkers. According to Dave Keel, he said that all the company want is to keep the business in happy environment and culture. WORKING ENVIRONMENT Apart from the friendly environment they have built in their offices, Trident also aims to keep the earth safe and environmental friendly as in their office they use recycling objects so that other companies and world can know the importance of earth friendly things. They use recycled papers and plastic and other stuff. COMPANY STRUCTURE Trident has very simple company structure. The main feature of Trident is Bob who deals with chartered accountant and Dave deals with commercial and marketing side of company. And other directors of the company have their own respective areas of focus. TRIDENT’S HR Another unique quality of Trident is that they have only one key human resource contact. It is surprising because of the scale of the business Trident has and number of employee they deal with and still the management is easily available and accessible to anyone who wants to talk. Works Cited QuickMBA . (2010). PEST Analysis [online] available from about.com. (2011). Niche Market [online] available from AdvertisingGlossary. (2006). External_Environment. [online] available from Marketing Teacher. (2011). PEST Analysis[online] available from Marketing Teacher. (2011). PEST Analysis. [online] available from NetMBA. (2011). PEST Analysis. [online] available from Office For National Statistics. (2011). GDP Growth. Retrieved [online] available from quickmba. (2010). 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