The development of a marketing plan for Deloitte Croatia - Essay Example

Deloitte Croatia is entering its 11th year of operation in Croatia. The audit service line is now recognised as the market leader in Croatia. The challenge now is where to go from here! The goal five years ago was to become number one in the local market which has now been achieved. Marketing per se has not been the major success factor in obtaining this achievement, however, as we seek to progress to the next level, the idea that marketing needs to take us to the next level has been recognised.

Our success historically has been achieved by having the right people at the right place at the right time. Two years ago, we setup a marketing support function, and it is the belief of partners that we can now “pull away” from our competitors by having a more market orientation and adopting the holistic marketing concept in a more meaningful way. The market is still considered immature from the perspective of clients understanding the value that a global firm such as Deloitte can bring to their businesses.

This is clear, as 50% of the market is still serviced by local auditors who are not internationally accredited and who are not able to “bring to the table” global solutions. It is in this area that the partnership believes that there is potential to obtain new and emerging businesses, and small businesses that will qualify for European Union funding for economic development once Croatia enters into the European Union in five years time.[Bamako, Ivan. 2008]. Last year Deloitte celebrated ten years of operations in Croatia.

This was a high profile local event, with the Prime Minister of Croatia attending the celebrations and at the same time opened our new offices in the city of Zagreb.Deloitte Croatia is a partnership that forms part of Deloitte Central Europe. This regional partnership consists of seventeen countries within Central Europe. We are the only regional partnership made up of so many different countries. Most other partnerships consist of their own country, so in many ways we are unique within the Deloitte world.

Deloitte Croatia is organised into five functions or service lines. The service line offerings are Audit and Advisory, Risk Advisory Services, Taxation Consulting, Financial Advisory and finally Management Consulting. The biggest service line is Audit and Advisory, which accounts for approximately 50% of the business. Deloitte's growth over the past five years has been spectacular. Five years ago, we were still the smallest of the "Big 4" in the Croatian market place. Today we are the biggest by revenue and by employees.

The success of the practice over the past five years has been the result of bringing the right people into the practice from local Croatians but also bringing in international professionals who brought with them significant international expertise. This was very much appreciated by local business and it has resulted in significant growth for the practice over the past five years. The growth year on year has been 25%. This in itself has caused a few challenges for the practice in trying to find enough quality people to help with the workload.

Local universities have not been able to generate a