The Analysis of the International Strategic Management - Essay Example

INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT: With the aid of diagrams analyse: a) A strategic marketing planning framework. b) How and why the details of this strategic marketing process may differ in the international context. a) The strategic marketing planning framework is used in order to develop a marketing project that will be used in the promotion of specific products/ services; this plan can involve either in the national or the international market; in the last case it needs to be appropriately customized in order to meet the customer preferences, the characteristics of the market (e.g. stable or volatile market) but also the strategic initiatives of the competitors – referring to the marketing plans developed by the competitors on similar products – an issue of particular importance if the promotion of products/ services in the global market is attempted. The first criterion for the development of a strategic marketing plan framework is the organizational environment – internal and external (Chaffey, 2006, 14),; the identification and the evaluation of the conditions in the organizational environment is a prerequisite for the development of effective strategic marketing plan framework; these conditions can be identified and analyzed using two different strategic tools: the PEST analysis and the SWOT analysis; the first of these tools reflects the following elements of the organizational environment: a) Political, b) Economic, c) Social and d) Technological. The above elements are analyzed as follows: a) the Political elements of the organizational environment represent the political conditions of the market in which a firm operates; stable political conditions can be positively affect the development of commercial activities within the particular market; therefore the effectiveness of a specific strategic marketing plan framework is expected to be increased, b) the status of the economy in the country where a fist is established is important in order to decide on the potential expansion of the firm – not in a foreign market (where the conditions of the economy of the targeted market are also expected to play a key role) but in the local market, c) the social characteristics and culture of a country affect the consumer preferences in regard to all products/ services; in this context, the local ethics and culture have to be taken into consideration when a firm’s marketing campaign is to be planned, d) the technological elements of the organizational environment reflect the technology used in various organizational departments; this technology is likely to affect the performance of the firm – including its ability to develop innovative products/ services; therefore the technology available for the development of business projects – in general, the technology used in the firm’s daily operations – need to be taken into consideration when the firm’s marketing plan is designed. Another framework used for the evaluation of a firm’s ability to develop an effective marketing plan is the SWOT analysis; this model refers to the following four categories of organizational characteristics: a) the strengths, b) the weaknesses, c) the opportunities and d) the threats. These characteristics reflect the following organizational conditions: a) the strengths of the firm in relation to its competitors but also in relation to the market demands (for example ability for rapid production, ability for producing high quality products, ability for developing the existing customer base and so on), b) the weaknesses usually refer to the limitations of the firm in regard to specific activities (for example, lack of ability to develop innovative products, lack of skilled employees, lack of strong strategic alliances and so on), c) the opportunities indicate the factors in which the firm has prospects to succeed or the methods which, if used by the firm, are explained to support the organizational performance (for example, chances for increased profits from a particular product/ service, lack of strong competitors in a specific market sector and so on), d) threats represent the risks for the firm in case that it will be involved in the production of products or the provision of services that are not expected to be welcomed in a specific market. In accordance with the above, a firm’s strategic marketing plan framework would include the following stages: Identification of market conditions Identification of market needs Research on the market for similar products/ services Evaluation of the competitor’s position Evaluation of marketing plan’s cost/time Evaluation of the risks involved Development of the monitoring mechanisms Development of the plan in practice In case that the above strategic marketing plan framework will be used for the promotion of products/ services in the international market then it needs to be appropriately customized in the context described in the following section. b) The strategic marketing planning framework is likely to be differed when it is going to be used in the context of the international market; the most important reason for this differentiation is the level of competition existed in the international market (Beamish et al., 2005, 19); indeed, firms that are interested in promoting their products in the global market have to be able to compete their rivals. A framework that could help to understand the differentiation of marketing plans in the international market is the model of Porter on industry competition (Figure 1, Appendix); it is made clear in the specific model that competitors have a crucial role in the level of pressure faced by firms that try to enter the international market (Brassignton et al., 2006, 37, White et al., 2006, 25). These firms need to make changes on their strategic marketing plan framework ensuring that their products/ services will manage to face the pressure of the existing products/ services but also of any substitute product/ service developed by the competitors (Gilligan et al., 2009, 68). Other factors of the firm’s strategic marketing plan framework that are expected to be influenced if this plan is used in the context of the international market are the following ones: a) the risk related with the firm’s marketing campaign; the failure of the marketing plan introduced in the local market can lead to limited losses; if this plan is developed in the context of international market, the damage for the firm can be significant (Ferrell et al., 2007, 85); b) the cost/ time of the marketing campaign; in the context of the national market the cost of a marketing campaign can be limited; if the same plan is developed in the international market the cost can be extremely high – increasing also the risk from a potential loss as explained above; furthermore, the time required for the development of international marketing campaigns can be extremely long; chances for delays are increased taking into consideration that the global market is extremely volatile while the national market is easier to be controlled. Additional alterations could be also required on marketing plans that are used in the international market place in case that the target market is extremely demanding or if the global economic conditions are instable. On the other hand it is noted that ‘a strong marketing planning capability may not only reduce the incidence of postplan improvisation but also contain inherent process rigidity’ (Dickson, 2004, p.371); in other words, the success of a strategic marketing plan framework in the international market cannot be considered as guaranteed – even if all necessary adjustments are made on this plan in order to meet the global market’s demands. The above view can be explained by referring to the resources employed for the development of strategic marketing plan framework; if these resources are not adequate or appropriate then the specific framework is expected to fail to achieve the targets set by its planners. Towards this direction, it is highlighted that ‘marketing-quality interactions are associated with senior management quality leadership, strategic quality planning process, and control system characteristics’ (Morgan et al., 1998, 190); the factors influencing the quality of marketing plans are differentiated each time in accordance with the organizational environment, the willingness of the employees to participate in the development of these plans and the level of monitoring of these project when they are finally realized. The success of marketing plans has been often related with the knowledge on marketing – referring to the skills and the competencies of marketers; regarding this issue it is noted by Rossiter (2001) that ‘three stages are envisioned in a project to investigate marketing knowledge: identification of the forms of marketing knowledge, specification of and agreement on the content, and development of a comprehensive test to measure acquisition of marketing knowledge’ (Rossiter, 2001, p.9). The marketing knowledge – as described above – will help a firm’s marketers to understand the challenges of international market – if they are required to develop a strategic marketing plan framework that will be used in the promotion of products/ services globally; this understanding will lead to the increase of the effectiveness of the specific strategic marketing plan framework in the context of the international market. References Beamish, K., Ashford, R., 2005. Marketing Planning. Elsevier Brassignton, F., Pettitt, S., 2006. Principles of marketing. Pearson Education Chaffey, D., 2006. Internet marketing: strategy, implementation and practice. Pearson Education Dickson, P. (2004) The Paradox of a Marketing Planning Capability. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 371-385 Gilligan, C., Wilson, R., 2009. Strategic Marketing Planning. Butterworth-Heinemann Ferrell, C., Hartline, M., 2007. Marketing Strategy. Cengage Learning Morgan, N., Piercy, N., 1998. Interactions between Marketing and Quality at the SBU Level: Influences and Outcomes. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp.190-208 Rossiter, J., 2001. What Is Marketing Knowledge? Marketing Theory, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.9-26 White, V., Ledgerwood, J., 2006. Transforming microfinance institutions: providing full financial services to the poor. World Bank Publications Appendix Figure 1 – Five Forces of Industry Competition (Porter, 1998, p.22) Read More