A Better World Marketing Strategy - Case Study Example

Assignment 2: Marketing Plan Contents Introduction 3 Strategic Objectives 4 Mission 4 Goals 4 Business Summary 5 Company Overview 5 Competitive Advantage 5 Situation Analysis 6 Marketing Strategy 10 Segmentation, Targeting and positioning 11 Marketing Mix 12 Financials 14 Implementation and Control 15 Implementation 15 Control Activities 16 References 18 Appendix 19 Introduction In order to succeed in any business, the most important that needs keen attention is the marketing its products or services. A marketing plan is an intrinsic and most important part of any business plan. It is defined as the written document containing the analysis of company’s current marketing situation, opportunities and threats of the company that are existing in the external environment, marketing objectives and strategies that the company needs to implement and the financial components that the company needs to rethink to sustain in the marketplace and gain necessary competitive advantage. Marketing plan of is necessary because of the following reasons: The business must be aware of its internal strengths & weaknesses and the opportunities & threats that are present in the marketplace. This can help them to identify marketing opportunities in the marketplace. The business must analyze its products and service offerings from customer centric viewpoints as well as the target markets. The business must know its existing competition and the potential emerging competitors. Strategic Objectives Strategic objectives of an organization are defined as the broadly defined goals that the company must achieve to make it as a strategically succeed one. Strategic objectives are, in general, externally focused on market standing of the company, resources and capabilities of the company, and profit requirements of the company. Mission ‘A Better World’ is a nonprofit organization in Canada with an objective to deliver sustainable foundations needed to improve lives of people, in partnership with local governing authorities, development organizations and government bodies. The company’s objectives are focused on investing on people using their 100% volunteer approach that can make them significantly different from the competitors. Goals Organizational Goal: Improve regional health by significantly utilizing the financial and human resources. Marketing Goals: Build awareness of ‘A Better World’s work and impact of their work. Motivate volunteers and the local residents in their business interests, by building relationship between the environment bodies and the organization. Improve market share by improving the brand image. Business Summary Company Overview The company represents themselves as an investment group with an objective of investing in the people. The management team and directors of the organization are 100% volunteers and the donors are directly involved in projects in order to ensure them that the donation they have given for ‘human investment’ purpose is properly utilised. The company firmly believes that return of investment has to be ensured to the stakeholders because like any other nonprofit organization operating in Canada, it also operates riding on the backbone of donors’ investment. Their vision is to create better world by inspiring the people and organizations in the mission of improving lives. A Better World deals with voluntary and charitable services based on the donations they receive. The different service offerings they provide are in terms of education, income generation, community infrastructure, Healthcare programs and food security initiatives (a-better-world.ca, 2007). Competitive Advantage The competitive advantage of the company resides in the internal strengths of the organization. 100 % volunteers approach in the organizational structure, starting from the base level to the director level. This has ensured that all the people involved are competent and experienced enough to handle the business. Also, the business engages voluntary staffs from the different paths of lives, which can increase diversification in dealing the business. Direct involvement of donors in the projects as a way to show them their guaranteed return on investments. Situation Analysis Situation analysis refers to the collection of methods that are used to analyze an organization’s internal and external environment to understand its capabilities and business environment. Situation analysis looks at both the macro environmental and micro environmental factors of the organization. Situation analysis is nothing but the SWOT analysis of the organization. From the analysis in first assignment, the SWOT of ‘A Better World’ is described. SWOT Analysis of ‘A Better World’ Helpful factors Harmful factors Internal Strengths: Organization’s mission and vision. Diverse human resources and in-house marketing skills. Strong relationship with government bodies and stakeholders. Experience in grass root and national level. Good Coordination and motivation mechanisms. Total volunteers approach in organizational structure. Direct involvement of donors in the projects. This can ensure them about the expected return on investment. Tax relaxation by government. Weaknesses: Funding problems Understaffing and weak human resource policies. Gaps in coordination. Lack of systematic operation in the organization. Weak financial background due to complete dependency on public donations. External Opportunities Constantly growing nonprofit market in Canada. Political encouragement. Supportive external and relevant government policies/laws. Support from donor agencies and other developmental sector organizations. Positive community response. Favorable distribution of resources. Support from promotional organizations. Threats Security problems Detrimental external policies. Lack of access to target groups and locations. Sustainability issues due to budget problems. Anti-NGO approaches by media and advocacy organizations. Industry Analysis Canada has the world’s largest and most dynamic nonprofit industries in the world. It employs 12% of Canada’s economically active population as volunteers and they engage nearly same number of full time equivalent workers working in all branches of manufacturing sectors in the country. Total Business in Canada: According to 2010 reports on non-profit market survey, the total market size of non profits in $ 112 Billion (statcan.gc.ca, 2010) Without considering contributions from hospitals, universities and colleges, the total non profit industry size in Canada is $ 75 billion. It was found that the nonprofit industry is growing at a steady rate and its rate of growth is faster than that of the core sectors. The support towards this sector from the government is increasing continuously. Competitor Analysis Due to the growing nature of the industry, numerous numbers of competitors are there in the market place. . The Salvation Army is the largest nonprofit sector existing in Canada and it is growing at a rapid pace. This global giant is engaged in humanitarian activities for years and it follows a hierarchical quasi military organizational structure no enforce discipline, control and timely delivery of their service. The Mennonite Central Committee Canada is a USA based nonprofit body. It is a worldwide ministry governed by churches engaged in activities related to basic human needs and peacemaking. It has done membership with different charitable groups and forums to promote their activities (Based on the analysis in Assignment 1). The internal and external analysis of the competitors has shown the following things. 1. The competitors are enjoying the positive effects of diversified fragmented market. The competitors engage in humanitarian activities in underdeveloped countries and always trying to grow their market share. They are subjected to receive government support from all levels of the government, provincial, state and federal government. 2. Almost every nonprofit organization engaged in humanitarian activities beyond the boundary of the country by utilizing the financial and human resources of the foreign country. 3. There is always a lack of public support to the nonprofit sector though it engages large number of people in the business with substantial return. 4. Limited funding and budget problem is evident in almost nonprofit organizations. Even the larger sectors are also facing the same issue. Customer Analysis The company’s most of the businesses are based on the developing and underdeveloped nations because these countries need the support of a nonprofit organization more than any other developed country needs. In the home country, i.e., in Canada, they are engaged in small scale activities and primarily concentrate on gaining required resources as to build the adequate infrastructure to reach the distant developing countries. The main customers of ‘A Better World’ are the underdeveloped people. The business focuses on the educationally backward, low income customers and their welfare activities. Customers have the following distinct characteristics: Customers belong to the low income group. The customers are indifferent to the brand name of the non profits; rather they are mostly focused on the service they are receiving. Most of customers belong to educated backward sector of the society. The customers are highly influenced by the opinion leaders of their respective reference group and the government’s policies. Marketing Strategy The marketing strategy of the company can be deduced from the segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies of the firm. Segmentation, Targeting and positioning Market Segmentation Strategies: Market segmentation is the process of dividing the target market into subsets of consumers having common needs and wants and subsequently, implementation of strategies to target them. Geographic: Foreign underdeveloped and developing market. Demographic: ‘A Better World’ mostly focuses on demographic aspects of the customers. The customers are segmented according to their education levels, income profile and health conditions. Behavioral: The business is focused on the behavioral aspects of the target profile. Lack of financial support in under developed countries makes the poor people of the country a suitable market for these nonprofits. Targeting Strategies After segmentation of the market, there is a need to target the appropriate market with the marketing strategies of the company. Target market should be well defined and there should be availability of suitable product mix for targeting each market. Canadian Nonprofit organizations target the home market and host market in a two different targeting strategies on the basis of the fact that no one strategy will suit all consumer groups. Home Market: In case of home market the targeting strategy is market specialization where a number of products are offered in a single fragmented market. Foreign Market: A Better World believes in the fact all the markets are different. It varies from country to country, location to location and depends on the variation, no single standardized targeting strategy can be considered. The strategy should be market focused and it must be Selective Specialization. Positioning Self representation strategy of an investment group engaged in investment on people. 100 % volunteers approach from different fields of expertise. This results in positive word of mouth. Involvement of donors in live projects to make them sure of their return on investment. Marketing Mix The marketing mix of ‘A Better World’ is as follows: Products The products are philanthropic and non profit in nature. The products should be provided with a value added strategy. Group profiling can be used to associate the users with the developmental plans. With this, different members can share their professional experience and improve networking. Customer feedback on their products must be present in their offerings to find the satisfaction level of the customers. Price: Most of the cases the products are offered as a free. But to overcome the cost of products, ‘A Better World’ will offer bulk pricing and contract pricing to business customers. This can result in satisfying unique customer needs. Place: ‘A Better World’ has to undertake the following sales and distribution strategies: Direct Sales: Direct sales approach should be the most preferred method of communication for the initial months. This can be expensive indeed, but in the long run this can result in customer satisfaction and high retention rate. Industry Events: The Company should engage in more industrial events and awareness programs to supplement direct sales efforts. Paid Word of mouth: this method can be useful in word of mouth distribution of company’s products and policies. Promotion: Public profiling in websites: When the product is ready to distribute, proper precautions must be taken to protect the competitive advantage. This can be done through proper web presence like websites public profiling in LinkedIn, blogging etc. Strategic alliance with institutions: ‘A Better World’s product offerings can be successfully complemented by collaboration with many large institutions. The institutions can include: Universities, colleges and academic institutions. Professional association with clubs and industrial groups. Online community association Financials The sector is expected to experience approximately 18 % growth in the next 3 to 5 years. The total capital of the company would be $ 134,506 (estimated at par with benchmark companies and existing competitors in same industry). In order to leverage the balance sheet and increase earnings of the shareholders, the company may include debt capital. Such debt capital must be limited to maximum of 50 percent of total capital which will make the debt-equity ratio 1:2. Beyond this amount of debt, the capital structure of the company will get highly leveraged leading to financial risk. The net income will be negative in the first year due to initial capital expenditure but it is expected to turn positive from the second year as shown above. The total non-current assets of “A Better World” are expected to grow at 0.6 % while the current assets will decrease by 2.1 %. The total liabilities of the organisation are expected to increase by approximately 2.5 % of which long-term liabilities could contribute 3.2 % growth in liabilities (Exhibit 1). Implementation and Control Implementation Implementation of any marketing plan is the most difficult thing to deal with. Although this phase is the last one present in the process, this is the most crucial stage. The reason behind this is, in implementation phase, the reality of the proposed plan can be observed. Most of the cases, the implementation phase is the decision changing phase, because in case of any loss in projected income, the marketing plan must be altered accordingly. After performing practical implementation of the plan, conclusion on the evaluation processes can be deduced and subsequent monitoring and controlling activities can be sort out. Awareness Phase The approaches of ‘A Better World’ should be a phased approach which will start with building brand awareness. Brand awareness can be generated through direct sales approach and paid word of mouth programs. Online searches and professional events can be effective ways of to gain visibility of brand. It has been observed from the external analysis of the firm that the firm has been subjected to numerous competitors in the market place. Thus, strategic alliances with different educational institutions and government bodies can result in increased customer awareness about the brand. Growth Phase After building awareness, a growth strategy of the company must be formulated. The plans for organizational growth should be planned successively with the implementation of the proposed plan. The different growth plans can be- Trial and challenge: most of the products are offered in free, though some products sold to business customers are priced with bulk pricing strategy. Product trials are offered with extra value addition. Increase member networking activity: proper networking activities can be useful enough to improve user experience and customer satisfaction. Increase in user numbers can result in company’s growth. Public Relations and Campaigns: Different PR methods, such as events, campaigns can change the organization’s sales. Control Activities ‘A Better World’ will evaluate their business activities through identification of user profiles which are potentially valuable to the business. This can result in selection of subsequent target markets. Monitoring and Control activities can be changed Business Consumers Monitoring of business consumers like foreign government, public organizations can be done by face-to face meetings, phone conversations and email surveys. The different finds need to be analyzed are: Employee fit: The first thing that needs to consider is the consideration of the business consumers of whether they are fitting with the nonprofit’s culture and objectives. Pay for performance: Objections should be based on the performance aspects of the employees. Recommendations from experts: Expert recommendation on the product offerings can be an effective way of detecting the issues of the existing and proposed marketing plan. Individual Consumers Public survey mechanism can be used to judge the current service level that is being served to the customers as well was the methods that will work well irrespective of the problems present in the plan. Individual consumer perception can be judged by observing the result of the marketing plan in successive times. References a-better-world.ca, 2007. About Us. Retrieved from: http://www.a-better-world.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1466&Itemid=67. statcan.gc.ca, 2010. Satellite account of non-profit institutions and volunteering Retrieved from: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/101217/dq101217b-eng.htm. Appendix Exhibit 1: The projected Income Statement and Balance Sheet of “A Better World” on the basis of above assumptions is shown below: Projected Income Statement Projected Balance Sheet Read More