Market Strategy Planning and Effective Communication - Assignment Example

Answer Market strategy planning and effective communication is one of the most crucial aspects of a firm entering a new market. The organizations need to adapt to the wide spectrum of environmental elements of the new markets primarily because market strategies need to be tailored according to the environmental conditions of the place. The strategy is planned around two core areas. The first one focuses on the competencies of the product/ company and the second one prepares a facilitating background environment within which it operates. In such a scenario, marketing mix becomes one of the most credible strategies for the organizations. Emerging markets become vital in the era of globalization and can be defined as the new area with high income and where the demand for the product can be created with relative success. A good marketer always tries to exploit the personal preferences of the persons to influence his behaviour as a consumer of goods and services that he wishes to sell. It is important that strategy that is formed needs to be localized to suit the local conditions. The marketing mix ensures and exhibits understanding of the cross cultural values and handles issues with sensitivity. It uses various communication platforms to attract customers. Advertising, brand creation, market segmentation etc are used to promote the goods and services. Indeed, advertisements are the most prolific example of segmented marketing where the contents of advertisements are decided by the target group. Hence, it has become the most widely used market strategy in the organizations across the globe. (257) Answer 2 The fast changing environment of technological innovations has made it imperative for the people at large, to face the challenges of the new age with vigour and imagination. The impact of computer has been extensive in almost every area of one’s life including professional and personal that has totally redefined the lives of the masses. The direct and indirect use of computer technology in every sphere has made it indispensable. The information technology with its huge scope has revolutionized the concept of the distance and time and thereby, given a new meaning to communication. The popularity of internet has also been one of the most promising instruments of advancing one’s business base and used extensively across the globe. The fast and efficient mode of communication through the internet technology has created a huge database of potential market for the businesses. The need to tap this emerging market has become a necessity in order to compete in the new global environment. ‘The Internet with its low-cost entry and ease of use quickly changed how information was exchanged and removed the distance barriers for business partners’ (Gottardi et al. 2004). Internet, used as a potent communication tool, provides a vast scope of income generation avenues through increased opportunities. The internet presence of the business through interactive module of the website facilitates and encourages usage of e-commerce for a win-win situation and helps to exploit the vast potential of the internet to benefit business through the huge database of customers that internet provides at the click of a mouse. (255) Answer 3 The fast changing socio economic dynamics have created a fiercely competitive business environment and organizations tend to adapt to the constantly evolving business environment. The main objective of any business is profit making which it derives by making its products and services available to people. Hence, the core business strategy of any business heavily relies on the market strategy that facilitates its products and services to meet the needs and requirements of the people at large. Hence, for these reasons alone, the employees of the organizations also come under the purview of ’customers’. The globalization has made it necessary to redefine socio cultural values so that the organizations are able to tap the emerging market of rapidly growing multicultural society. It is essential that there is shift from the traditional to embrace the diverse cultures and incorporate the needs and requirements of the people coming from different culture, race and religion. The organizational structure and culture prepares the organizations to develop cross cultural values that reflects in its business strategies and market strategies that are sustainable. This has, in turn, made a significant impact on the consumer buying decision which seems to be motivated much by their socio-cultural value system. (200) Answer 4 Tom Peters emphasizes the intangibility of service operations over the other characteristics of services primarily because they provide the competitive edge in the highly cut throat business environment of contemporary times. Data, information and knowledge are the three major elements of the informed choices that need to be effectively linked within the organizational goals and objectives to promote and create effective market strategy for the goods and services. Therefore, the intangibility of these elements makes it imperative to understand these factors so as to exploit them and gain leverage to improve and improvise performance outcome. The data can be broadly defined as the facts related to various issues and subject areas within the organizational paradigm. The information is the process of streamlining the data into certain specific format and order so that they acquire value addition by virtue of their arrangement in specified manner. Knowledge becomes the most important part of organizational functioning. Knowledge can be defined as the ideas, thoughts, opinion, observation, application of all these in our everyday life and categorizing them in some systematic format so that can be further used, modified or changed as per our need. The diversity in the area of knowledge is the most important aspect of market strategy. Knowledge management through effective communication becomes important part of workplace (Raghuram, 1996). The knowledge worker through his expertise in the defined area becomes an intrinsic part of developing processes within and outside the organizational capabilities that produce innovative market strategy to gain competitive advantage. (252) Answer 5 In the current era of advancing technology and rapid globalization, effective communication is one of the most important tools of business strategy. It helps to overcome the barrier of socio-psychological paradigms that is increasingly becoming a major factor in the sales and market strategy. Shultz say that it is the end-users who now control the markets rather than the marketers (Shultz, 2001). The rapid globalization has created a pluralistic society which has diverse needs and requirement. New market strategy has promoted the concept of diversity in the workforce, which understands the wider implications of the emerging multicultural society and improvise techniques and skills that facilitate better perception and understanding of people. The strategies must understand the wider implications of the emerging multicultural society and improvise techniques and skills to encompass traits and behavioural pattern that facilitates better perception and understanding of people. The advertisements have succeeded because men are portrayed as approachable entities with whom the common man can easily identify with. Brands need to be created in a manner that goes beyond and reaches people coming from different race, colour or nationality. The wider ramifications of communication are extremely critical for not only creating effective market strategy but it is also intrinsic part of delivery and measure of successful market strategy. The dissemination of information and understanding of changing dynamics of societies across the globe promote development of strategies that meet the challenges of the contemporary times. (238) Answer 6 It is true that increased awareness among the customers has put more pressure on the marketers. Even though the customer base is increasing, it is becoming difficult not only to attract more customers but also to retain them. Thus, segmentation of the market to tap the potential of the customers is an essential part of market strategy. It helps to identify the target customers for the existing and new products and meet the challenges of their changing requirement. Market segmentation of the market to differentiate elements is vital in the highly competitive business environment. The segmentation helps to create a niche in the market. The mixed segmentation is hugely popular in the contemporary times and gives a big leverage to the companies to plan its market strategy in a more flexible manner and successfully introduce their products in a new market. Marks and Spencer Plc. And Virgin, both companies have successfully used segmentation in their market strategy to improve and improvise their business outcome. While Marks and Spencer continuously updates its products and services to suit the changing demands of the public at large, Virgin has used innovative business practices through new product development to gain leverage in the highly competitive global business environment. Both the organizations have used effective marketing metrics to boost their business performance. Their market strategy has promoted the concept of diversity in the workforce, which understands the wider implications of the emerging multicultural society and improvise techniques and skills that facilitate better perception and understanding of people. (254) Answer 7 Indeed, the creation of value for customers is the source of competitive advantage for a providing organization. In order for the company to follow a strategic growth plan, it is important that it understands and takes into account the vagaries of anticipated demands for the products by the factors that may or may not conform to market rules and regulations. It is important to develop better understanding with customers with regard to consumer demands and correlate it with the product so that appropriate market strategy could be developed. Levitt says that the marketing takes into account the preferences of the customers and thereby builds a solid customer loyalty that result in sustainable customer base that has potential for growth because it continues to satisfy the changing requirements of their needs (Levitt, 1960). There are certain values that the consumers expect to get from the products and services that he buys. These are called universal values and can be primarily stated as fairly priced, quality product which must be accompanied by pre and post purchase service. In other words, the customer expects to be treated with good behaviour and assistance when refund or exchange is sought by the customer, which considerably reduces the risk of buying sub standard product. With the advent of new technologies and communication, while the personal interaction has considerably reduced but the quality and after sales services have remained major tools of retaining customers. Hence, ecommerce activities have increasingly become major tools that provide competitive edge in the cyber age.(253) Answer 8 In the contemporary environment of competitive business, providers need to appreciate how the customers make decisions. There are three types of consumers: Users or the end-users are those consumers who are actually using the products and services. They constitute major segment of the market that has direct and indirect impact on the performance outcome of the marketers; Payers are those persons who pay for the products and services which would be used by others; Buyers are people who actually make payments for the products and services bought. The three types of consumers have certain personalized values which significantly influence consumer behaviour. Users are highly swayed by products and services that carry some desired social image and acts as value addition to their social status. Another very important thing is that the consumers look for products and services that also gives them personal satisfaction and offers good value. The payers are more concerned about the payment modes and prefer to make payments through credit cards. The other financing facilities like paying in instalments greatly makes the product and services highly affordable to a larger segment of consumers who want to become customers. These are some of the crucial compulsions of the rapidly transforming societal paradigms and emerging new value based consumer behaviour that require more comprehensive and innovative approach to market strategy. Consumer psychology and analysis of database of customers are important part of market strategy to gain leverage against their rivals. Hence, I do not agree with the statement that ‘individual customers use a very different decision process to that adopted by organizational customers’. (264) Answer 9 Customer satisfaction is important part of customer satisfaction and marketers are increasingly adopting new market metrics to gauge the level of customer satisfaction. Marketing metrics are basically tools that help to improve and improvise market for the goods and services by facilitating useful information. ServQual model is a strategic tool to identify the gap between the customers’ expected and perceived quality of the product and the actual quality offered through the product and services provided. The service quality can broadly be defined as per the customer’s perceived satisfaction with the service or good (Dotchin and Oakland, 1994; Asubonteng et al., 1996; Wisniewski and Donnelly, 1996). When the expectations are greater than the performance of the goods and services, perceived value is less that results in customer dissatisfaction (Parasuraman et al., 1985; Lewis and Mitchell, 1990). According to Nargundkar and Srivastava (2002), knowledge about customer and their required is considered to be critical for the long term success of a business. The compulsions of the emerging new dynamics in the global businesses have necessitated for people-centric policies and plans that would meet the challenges of the changing social patterns and its changing demands. ‘A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can preserve. It must deliver greater value to customers or create comparable value at a lower cost, or do both’ (Porter, 1996). While product is of vital importance and it’s pricing makes it a saleable item, maintaining a good database of customers is intrinsic part of market strategy which helps one to know the changing preferences of the customers in the rapidly changing times. (271) Answer 10 Organizations often struggle to balance in their marketing strategy the two elements of efficiency and effectiveness. The organizations meet the fast changing demands of the people by developing new products and services that meet the requirements of the people. Looking at the fast changing requirements of the customers, it becomes important for the firms to introducing the product at the right time is crucial but at the same time, the success would also depend on its quality and the pricing, both of which are difficult to manage because the time and the quality would make the products slightly more expensive. They need to identify the changing requirements efficiently and develop products timely so that customers’ changing preferences are effectively and timely met. Hence, new product management must include exigencies so that the three factors can collectively be approached to make the product appealing for the people while at the same time, encourage creativity and innovative practices that give a unique perspective to participatory approach of management and employees. The success of the new products considerably depends on the three major factors: timeliness, pricing and quality. Markets thrive on the processes of the learning organization which ‘continuously acquire, process, and disseminate throughout the organization knowledge about markets, products, technologies, and business processes’ (Slater and Narver, 1995). Hence, speed and flexibility have become extremely important ingredients for the products so that the organizations can timely and efficiently meet the fast changing preferences of the customers. The new product development requires an integrated approach to creative learning that may result in the development of new products. (263) (2530) Reference Asubonteng, P., McCleary, K.J. and Swan, J.E. (1996). SERVQUAL revisited: a critical review of service quality. Journal of Services Marketing , Vol. 10, No. 6, pp. 62-81. Dotchin, J.A. and Oakland, J.S. (1994). Total quality management in services: Part 2 Service Quality. 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