The Viability of the Teejay's Expansion towards a New International Market - Assignment Example

?Marketing Report for Teejays Introduction This report is a business proposal for Teejays for entering into a new international market. Teejays have been very successful in providing customer care training and other related services in the home market, UK. As a result of the company’s objective of growing and increasing the market share, Teejays is looking forward to expand internationally. Being a global firm is the best available option to get greater visibility. It will also help to enhance the brand value of the company. The best international market for the company to expand is explained in the later parts of this report. The report makes a brief analysis of the characteristics of the proposed market in order to check the viability of the company’s expansion towards the proposed market. Proposed Market Teejays is a growing organization with a strong presence in the UK market. Therefore, the company requires a market that is equally growing and promising in the future. As such, the best market for Teejays would be China. Presently, China is one of the fastest growing market for customer care and other related outsourcing services. Also the country is set to be a new economic super power within few years. What makes China the potential market for Teejays is the country’s shift in the market focus. “Till today, the domestic market is still the principal part of China’s call center market, accounting for about 80 per cent, while Japan and South Korea have been China’s major offshoring markets, where China is in absolute dominance.” (Chunyan, 2010) But now the country has realized the importance of expanding the market to the western countries. This necessitates vigorous training of the potential employees as unlike the competitors India or Philippines, China has low proficiency in English language. The Chinese government has begun huge investment in English which throws out huge market opportunities for companies like Teejays. (Graddol, 2008) “Chinese people are bad at expressing themselves orally in a foreign language, however, they are good at reading and writing in it.” (Hongbing, 2010) The huge focus by the Chinese government on call centres as an economic power plant makes the Chinese market one of the most promising among the world. The Chinese government has even coined the term ‘Call Economy’ in order to represent the massive size of call centres to the Chinese Economy. (CCC, 2010) The Chinese economy was so far being dominated by manufacturing sector. But now the service sector is experiencing massive growth to emerge as the backbone of the economy. The annual growth rate in the Chinese call centre jobs is 15%. In 2009 itself more than 5 billion Euros were invested in the call centre market. Way back in 2006, Chinese government has launched a project which designated 10 Chinese cities mainly for developing call centres and related service companies. Apart from that the country’s investment in the education sector is massive in order to equip the employable people to take up offshore business. As Teejays is primarily a call centre training consultant, it has huge potential market in China. Prospective call centre employees require improvement in their language proficiency. Government is also providing various supportive measures in order to foster the development of such training institutes. China has witnessed well known call centre companies entering the market in the recent years. “Growth in the number of Call Centers and number of agent positions seats in China is steadily increasing, and the revenue growth for technology vendors selling enterprise Call Center solutions has been in the double digits.” (APRG, 2011) With the boom in the call centre industry, there is a huge growth in the revenue of technology vendors. Call centre training institutes have similar opportunity for increasing the market share and revenue. The increased presence of multinational companies in China has necessitated the need for better customer relationship management. Companies have realized that better customer relationship is the way out of competition. Teejays is an expert in customer care training. International companies are no more setting up their own customer service training facilities due to higher cost. Instead, they are outsourcing it to specialized companies like Teejays. This is where the opportunity lies for Teejays. Specialized companies like Teejays can provide better training to the employees. One of the major reasons for larger companies establishing in China is its cost advantage. Such companies will therefore depend definitely on specialized companies for providing customer care training to their employees. “For example, for inbound customer services, you can provide courses for them to take for telephone interactions, such as how one can build rapport with customers, and how to handle problems and stress effectively, etc.” (Live2care, 2010) Market Analysis This part of the report will analyse the competitive situation in the Chinese market in terms of customer care training consultancy. Achieve Global is one of the biggest competitors for Teejays in China. Achieve Global is USA based consultancy and has good client base in the Chinese market too. Achieve Global provides services under three main categories namely, Leadership development, Sales effectiveness and Customer Service. (Achieveglobal, 2011) Having an expertise in three core areas, Achieveglobal would be a true competitor for Teejays. International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) is another major competitor for Teejays in the Chinese market. “The International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) is the leading global provider of comprehensive resources for customer management professionals.” (International Portfolio, 2011) ICMI provides better services than Achieveglobal through certain certification programs and also through its effective partnering programs. Like Teejays, call centre training is the core services of ICMI. ICMI has identified China as a high growth sector and has already started establishing their client base in the country. (ICMI, 2011) Another possible competitor for Teejays is Tattersall Training, which is a UK based training institute. The company focuses on customer service training, stress management and time management. The company has already started its plan to enter the Chinese market. (Tattersall, 2011) It is not only the training institutes that acts as competitor for Teejays but the marketing companies itself can be a competitor. There are certain companies that do not outsource their customer service training activity. Such companies prefer to provide training to their employees at their premises for better customised training. For effectively competing in the market, Teejays should effectively segment and service the customers. The primary service provided by Teejays is customer care training which is offered by all major competitors. Though Teejays provide other related services, Teejays is not as strong as that of the competitors in the related services. While analysing the market, it can be seen that call centre training and customer service training is the major requirement of the whole industry. Therefore, Teejays have an edge to capture the market. Teejays should simultaneously develop the related consultancy services. Once Teejays develop a strong client base in the customer service sector, it can be grown to include all the other services offered by the firm. Teejays’ clients are mostly UK based companies. Teejays can still continue the client base in China as most of the UK based clients also have their operations in China. For most that does not have any Chinese presence at present, is looking forward for entering the market. Therefore, Teejays can still have their own customer base being maintained in China. But at the same time the company should market itself well for more client acquisition. Teejays should therefore adopt proper market segmentation techniques. Teejays’ existing clients can be segmented based on their needs. Need based segmentation will be useful for Teejays to identify the existing and additional requirement of the clients properly. “When choosing between competing products and services, customers select the proposition that meets their needs better than any other.” (Market Segmentation, 2011) Therefore, once the needs of the customers in the new market are identified, Teejays can customize their products based on that. The needs of customers may vary from one country to the other. It is not necessary that in China the client should avail the same services that it received from UK. Conclusion This report has given a clear idea about the Chinese market and what opportunities Teejays have in that promising market. Presently, for Teejays, there is no other market that is as promising as that of China. Teejays should definitely have to face with stiff competition from the established as well as the new entrants. The major competitors of Teejays would be Achieveglobal, ICMI and Tattersall. Compared to these companies, Teejays have less market penetration. But the way out of competition for Teejays would be to build on its existing client base. Teejays should hold on to the existing clients by providing them more value added services. Also Teejays should effectively use need based segmentation so that it is easier to identify the needs of the customers in the new market. Works Cited Chunyan, W., 2010. A Way out for China’s Call Center Market. [Online] Available at: http://en.chinasourcing.org.cn/content2.jsp?id=3139 [Accessed August 18, 2011] Graddol, D., 2008. English Next. [Online] Available at: http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-research-english-next.pdf [Accessed August 18, 2011] Hinhbing, Y., 2010. A Look into China’s Outsourcing Call Centers. [Online] Available at: http://en.chinasourcing.org.cn/content2.jsp?id=2905 [Accessed August 18, 2011] CCC, 2010. Markets in Motion – innovative customer care trends at the 13th Call Center Convention. [Online] Available at: http://www.yourccc.com/convention/review-2010.html [Accessed August 18, 2011] APRG, 2011. China’s booming call center market opportunities in 2011 and outlook to 2015. [Online] Available at: http://www.giiresearch.com/report/az189690-ch-booming-call-center.html [Accessed August 18, 2011] Live2care, 2010. The Importance of Effective Customer Service Training Peograms. [Online] Available at: http://www.welive2care.com/2010/03/17/the-importance-of-effective-customer-service-training-programs/ [Accessed August 19, 2011] Achieveglobal, 2011. Customer Service. [Online] Available at: http://www.achieveglobal.com/our-solutions/customer-service.aspx [Accessed August 19, 2011] International Portfolio, 2011. International Portfolio. [Online] Available at: http://www.callcentre.co.uk/icmi [Accessed August 19, 2011] ICMI, 2011. ICMI – Improving Customer Experiences. [Online] Available at: http://www.icmi.com/Why-ICMI.aspx [Accessed August 19, 2011] Tattersall, 2011. Tattersall Training. [Online] Available at: http://www.tattersalltraining.com/ [Accessed August 19, 2011] Market Segmentation, 2011. Market Segmentation. [Online] Available at: http://www.marketsegmentation.co.uk/segmentation_tmsc.htm [Accessed August 19, 2011] Greengrove, K. 2011. Needs-based segmentation: principles and practices. [Online] Available at: http://www.ijmr.com/Samples/Sample6.pdf [Accessed August 20, 2011] Khan, M. S. 1997. Why is China Growing So Fast. [Online] Available at: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues8/index.htm [Accessed August 20, 2011] Katz, L. 2011. China’s Economic Growth to Slow to 8.7% in 2011 From 10%, World Bank says. [Online] Available at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-13/china-economy-may-grow-8-7-this-year-slowing-from-10-world-bank-says.html [Accessed August 20, 2011] Read More