Marketing Management in a Global Economy - Essay Example

? Marketing Management in a Global Economy MARKETING MANAGEMENT IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY Define in full detail the 4 P’s of marketing, and give an example of a company (corporation) that has fully mastered the 4 P’s ensuring their customer is a repeat customer The 4 Ps of marketing are made up of product, place, price, and promotion (Doole & Robin, 2008). The product involves what the customer wants from the product and what they need to satisfy, what features your product possesses to meet the customer’s needs, and how the customer will use your product. The product mix also consists of what the product will be named, branded, differentiated from your competitor’s products, and what its most effective price would be to ensure profitability. When dealing with place, the company needs to ask where the buyer will search for the product, how the client will access the correct distribution channels, if they need to use a sales force, and what the competitors do that an individual can learn. For the pricing section of the marketing mix, the company requires to determine what the product’s value is to the client. Whether there is an established price point for services or products in the area, whether the client price is sensitive enough to give one an extra market share with a small price decrease, and how the company’s price compares with the competitors (Doole & Robin, 2008). When it comes to promotion, the company discerns when and where they can get their marketing measures across to their target market, how they can reach their audience via radio, press, or billboards, what time is best to carry their promotion, and whether any environmental issue dictates the marketing launch’s timing. The company also needs to determine how its competitors carry out its promotion. 2. Define Value Chain, and give an example of a company that utilizes a Value Chain Delivery Network, further cite the success rate of their value chain network. The concept of the “value chain”, owes its existence to Michael Porter, a management guru. Value chain refers to the sequential group of support and primary activities, which an enterprise carries out to turn various inputs into outputs that benefit its external customers (Doole & Robin, 2008). Various companies worldwide utilize value chain analysis, although the information shared about it is minimal because knowledge of one’s Value Chain Analysis means loss of competitive advantage. The profit wars have now moved to the supply chain arena with the VCA model now used for modeling across top clients like Target Stores, which utilize various kinds of services in the various quantities. Through the aid of some analytics, the company’s logistics department can utilize the data for engagement with the customer and search for an optimal supply chain scenario. Toyota Motors is an example of a company that utilizes an integrated value-chain delivery network. Toyota manufactures its automotives via the TPS system, which puts emphasis on a lean system of manufacturing. This system was created to improve the cars’ quality, with the clients also being able to order the cars efficiently and quickly. Toyota Motors possesses an integrated system, known as TPS, in its production process. This system portends various advantages for the company’s production system. This ranges from Human Resource management to its products. This is further evidenced, in the fourteen principles, to which Toyota holds dear, including the quality of service, the efficiency of the production process, in addition with the quality of, the final product. This has allowed Toyota to become the biggest automotive company in the world because of lean management that can be derived from a value chain delivery network. The system allows the company to deliver cars as fast and efficient as possible. 3. What is MIS (from a marketing point of view) and how does it affect the marketing research process? MIS is a system of communications, documents, procedures, and equipment that collects, validates, transforms, retrieves, stores, and presents data to be utilized in management, controlling, and accounting, budgeting and planning (Doole & Robin, 2008). Management is the science of rational resource use with the objective of achieving the results the company desires. Information refers to processed data that the recipient can understand, and a system is an interrelated group of units that carry out a task through an approach that is synchronized to give desired results. While consumer research acts as the foundation of data collection, MIS turns it into information that can be used. Interaction between the two is vital in order to develop marketing strategies that are timely. The MIS professional enters data collected via MRC into a database and turns it into management reports for later use (Doole & Robin, 2008). Managers who use MIS reports for timely analysis of information from consumer research get increased sales, thus profits. However, MIS is not an exact science, since consumers do not always buy what they say they will during the surveys. MIS affects market research in several ways. They can be utilized to survey potential markets and, thus, help to develop specific strategies for marketing. MIS also aids in the design, analysis, and the implementation of strategies aimed at promotion of particular products according to quality and price. Information Systems are also effective in management of critical market research issues, such as budget analysis, milestone establishment, media policies, and segment management. Additionally, MIS helps to create effective plans for marketing via identification of the target market, implementation of the marketing campaign, and evaluates the performance of generated plans. 4. Why is marketing research so important before launching a new product? Cite companies that failed because lack of market research, additionally, cite companies that great success with a product because of extensive product research. Knowledge of one’s target market is an important element in successful marketing campaigns. Use of marketing resources on a group that is not the company’s target market is wasteful and useless. However, having knowledge of the target market becomes ever more critical when one is launching a new product because, even though the company has money for marketing, there are work force and resources on line. Market research is, therefore, totally necessary when launching new products. Marketing research is vital if a company wants to survive its competition. It helps to understand and ascertain information about the competitor, for example, their network, scale of operations, and customer focus. It also helps to decide a company’s target market by collecting information regarding the customers’ gender, buying behavior, age, and location. This aids the competition to zero on the target market for their products. Market research also helps the company increase their sales, thus maximize their profits. It is possible to determine whether products fill the customer’s bill through comprehending the needs of the customer. This can also be used to convert non-users of the products into clients, while increasing sales to already converted clients. Compared to price a company pays for failed products; market research is cheap on a relative scale. Several products have flopped in the market due to poor market research. One example is Coors Rocky Mountain Spring Water (Doole & Robin, 2008). While one would have expected a popular brand of beer to pull effortlessly off another refreshing beverage, lack of proper market research means they did not discover that their customers did not come to the realization that clients did not want Coors sans alcohol. This ended up costing them work force hours and resources, much more than market research would have cost them. 5. What constitutes a profitable customer? Further, how does a progressive company measure a customer’s lifetime value? A client can be referred to as a profitable customer if the resources used to get and maintain her or business is less than the profits earned from the business (Doole & Robin, 2008). So as, to determine the profitability of the customer, many factors need to be taken into consideration, such as cost of customer service and support equipment, time, wages, revenue generated from the client, commissions paid, and the cost of sales efforts. A profitable customer could become unprofitable when business volume is reduced, and the client demands extra attention. Estimating CLV is quite straightforward. The value of all a client will ever buy, is equal to what her buys will contribute to the company’s operating margin less the marketing cost used on her. While it is impossible to determine how much the client will buy from the company in the future, the company can make an estimate via analyzing her past buys over time, then using that pattern to project the buys forward using statistical methods. CLV combines the estimated financial value of the customer and the length that they expect the relationship with the customer to be. If a customer, for example, is forecasted to portend a five year relationship with the company, with an average spend of one hundred dollars a year, then the customer’s total CLV amounts to five hundred dollars. To be more precise, the company, could discount cash flows in the future to come up with a net present value. However, even focusing on the basics ensures that one is equipped for the future. CLV consists of two major factors that the retailer can influence, which are; annual spending and length of the relationship. The manner in which a retailer extends customer relationships directly or indirectly influences these factors. Reference Doole, Isobel. & Robin, Lowe. (2008). International marketing strategy : analysis, development and implementation. London: South Western Cengage Learning, cop. Read More