Marketing Strategy: EJ's Innovation and More - Term Paper Example

EJ's Innovation and More - Marketing Strategy Target Market In order for a business to grow and achieve market leadership, it must create a strong market orientation. The company must seek to understand the customer needs and develop its marketing strategies in response to those needs. The strategies should aim at attracting, satisfying and retaining target customers. (Best, 1997) EJ's Innovation and More plans to enter into the high-technology market by introducing desktops and laptop computers. The products are integrated with the company's core competencies and signature features in voice recognition, touch screen, multiple languages and translation capabilities. These products will be marketed with unique capabilities and innovative designs that would differentiate it from its competitors. The products would be positioned as a highly differentiated product that adds value to the customers. The high-technology market is very much competitive with existing rivalry between successful companies such as Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Dell. Each company desires leadership in the market and utilizes aggressive marketing strategies in order to position their products as the preferred product in the technology market. EJ's Innovation and More will be playing in the same market and would compete with these companies. The company aims to market its desktops and laptops in all the fifty states of United States and its territories. It is the goal of the company to penetrate the US market and acquire its share. Market Segmentation The high-technology market can be segmented according to the different operating variables of the customers and their buying behavior. The table below summarizes the segmentation in the technology market. Table . High-technology market segment (Source: Colby & Parasuraman, 2003) Technology Segment Segment Description Explorers (Primary Target Segment of EJ's Innovation & More) The end-users are mostly working in technology professions. The customers are made up of commercial artists, designers and creators. They are interested in the number of capabilities and the latest developments in computing. They are innovators who look for new ways to produce better service in their profession. They buy value-added computers at par with the value for their money. Pioneers (Secondary Target Segment of EJ's Innovation & More) The end-users are lured by friendly design of the product, technical support and reassurance from marketers. The customers are made up of high-tech managers and their assistants. They want computers that satisfy their need for status but are easy to use. Companies mostly purchase their computers. Skeptics The end-users have few motivations with few inhibitions to adopt technologies. The customers are made up of home producers and parents who prefer computers that can be used for a variety of purposes and are not highly priced. Paranoids The end-users should be offered high levels of reassurance about the safety and security of technologies. The customers are mostly businesses that deal with sensitive materials such as banks and government agencies. Laggards The end-users may be reached out by being offered streamlined and easy-to-use offerings. The customers are mostly modern students who prefer economical packages. Service Quality Joseph Juran, a quality management guru, emphasized the role of management and stressed the definition of good quality as satisfying customer requirements and demand (Beckford, 2002). In service quality, the perception of the customer is ultimately the measurement of quality such that measuring customer satisfaction is the most common method of determining quality. However, the issues which determine customer satisfaction are varied and are often affected with the mood of the customer as with the provision of service (Rowbotham, Galloway, & Azhashemi, 2007). The customers tend to evaluate service quality through personal comparison with what they expect against what they perceive and experience. Several factors can influence customer expectations of service which may include their personal needs, beliefs, perceptions, and other situational factors. Furthermore, customers may acquire their expectations through explicit and implicit service promises, promotions and advertising, word of mouth or from their past experiences (Zeithaml, Parasuraman, & Berry, 1990). EJ's Innovation and More will evaluate service quality through a customer service program where satisfaction questionnaires, feedback monitoring and focus groups will be utilized. The company would administer the questionnaires to a properly selected sample using well-designed questionnaires that identifies satisfaction and dissatisfaction as well as their causes. The company would also encourage and monitor customer feedbacks, whether praise, comments or complaints. In focus groups, the company would employ panels of customers who would meet periodically and handled by a professional facilitator where they will discuss different issues, identified problems, and quality perceptions of new product developments. (Rowbotham, Galloway, & Azhashemi, 2007) The customer service program will be managed, maintained and reviewed regularly. Results of the customer satisfaction survey and measurements will be presented, criticized and evaluated during the business reviews and management meetings of the company. In order to address the different issues and problems as well as increase customer satisfaction, the company would pursue a total quality management system where quality is integrated in the whole organization as well as its processes. The results of the service quality measurement and customer satisfaction survey would be used as an input in improving the quality of the desktops and laptop computers. New product developments and improvements would be designed according to the requirements and needs of the customers as well as solving technical problems and issues. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System EJ's Innovation and More will benefit from a lot when implementing a CRM system. The CRM system will be focused on attracting and retaining customers and will be integrated into the Total Quality Management (TQM) system of the company. The CRM would be an essential input to the success of the TQM system. CRM is a business approach that seeks to create, develop and enhance relationships with carefully targeted customer in order to improve customer value, corporate profitability and maximize shareholder value (Payne, 2005) According to an editor of online and print trade publication MediaPost, the consumers are in control, nowadays; companies must give them what they want or they're going to go somewhere else (Mandese, 2006). The customers in the 21st century are highly empowered and fully aware of their bargaining power because of the onset of Information Age and the Internet. A CRM system would help the organization in understanding the behavior of their customers, in identifying how well they managed their customers, and in comparing their performance to an industry benchmark (Woodcock, Stone, & Foss, 2003). The high-technology market has a customer base that looks at how well a company provides them with the resources that they need to satisfy their business requirements. They are looking for products, services as well as the interrelationship between them and the provider. A CRM system would increase the acquisition and retention of profitable customers by initiating and improving relationship with the customers through the development of strategically targeted relationships using the advances in information technology (Payne, 2005). The company would analyze customer relationship through a range of databases, data mart, data warehouse technologies and a CRM system software application. They would be able to gather vast amounts of customer data and increase customer feedback which they can analyze, interpret and utilize constructively. A CRM system would enhance their service quality by identifying the sources of customer satisfaction and profitability. Customers are the biggest business asset. It is therefore empirical to shift the business focus into a relationship marketing strategy where growing this business asset and its market value is a priority (Payne, 2005). Using CRM, the company will be growing more effective and profitable relationships with multiple stakeholders as well as increase the number and value of transactions. Customer retention will increase because the relationship marketing would build customer value. A customer service program would encourage customer contact and involvement. As a result, EJ's Innovation and More can learn more about their customer's needs and build this knowledge into future products and service deliveries. Works Cited Beckford, J. (2002). Quality: A Critical Introduction (2nd ed.). London: Routledge-Wiley. Best, R. J. (1997). Market-based Management: Strategies for Growing Customer Value and Profitability. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. Mandese, J. (2006, September 20). New Technology, Portals Making Everyone A Network Programmer. USA Today . Payne, A. (2005). Handbook of CRM. Burlington, MA: Elsevier. Rowbotham, F., Galloway, L., & Azhashemi, M. (2007). Operations Management in Context (2nd ed.). Oxford: Elsevier Ltd. Woodcock, N., Stone, M., & Foss, B. (2003). The Customer Management Scorecard: Managing CRM for Profit. London: Kogan Page. Zeithaml, V., Parasuraman, A., & Berry, L. (1990). Delivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations. The Free Press. Read More