The Strategic Marketing Plan of UNE Life Business - Case Study Example

The strategic marketing plan of UNE Life business Name Class Unit Executive summary The strategic marketing plan analyses UNE Life business. The plan looks at all concepts related to strategic marketing management and applies them to UNE Life. This is done by specifically looking at the online platform. The plan starts by looking at the UNE Life mission, strategies and objectives. The market research shows that UNE Life is competing on online shopping industry. Through use five competitive forces, the plan shows that UNE Life has a great opportunity in the industry. UNE life should use the prospector’s strategy. This is through pursuing new, marketing opportunities and taking risks. UNE Life should develop new products and services while creating new opportunities. The micro and macro analysis proves that the industry is attractive. The plan is able to show that marketing research helps a lot in strategic decision making. The plan concludes by describing the significance of segmenting, targeting and positioning strategies for UNE Life. Table of Contents Executive summary 2 Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Relevance of the mission and hierarchy of strategies for UNE Life 5 Industry in which UNE Life, industry’s five competitive forces and appropriate conditions for the strategic fit of prospector strategy 6 Threat of new entrants 6 Bargaining power of suppliers 7 Threat of substitute’s products 7 Bargaining power of customers 7 Competitive rivalry 8 Prospectus strategy 8 Market and industry attractiveness through macro and micro level analyses 8 Macro level analysis 8 Micro level analysis 9 SWOT analysis for UNE Life 10 Strengths 10 Weakness 10 Opportunities 10 Threats 10 Relevance of the marketing research for the strategic decision-making of the UNE Life’s business and influence of product, pricing, distribution and promotion policies on marketing decisions 11 Significance of the overall segmentation, targeting, differentiation and positioning strategies for the UNE Life 11 Segmentation 11 Market targeting 12 Differentiation 12 Market positioning 13 Conclusion 13 References 14 Introduction UNE Life consists of several businesses which includes second hand bookshop, online shop and graduation services among other services. Through the second hand bookshop, UNE Life sells second hand books at a lower price. Students are able to save up to 30% of the cost of a new book. The online shop offers variety of products ranging from lab coats, dissection kits and UNE memorabilia. The graduation services helps in graduation celebration through offering gowns through hire, photos and special lunch order. Marketing strategy is based on pattern of decisions that are used to specify vital choices on product, markets and marketing activities (UNE Life, 2015). The plan looks at opportunity analysis through forecast of the marketing knowledge, segmentations, targeting, differentiation and positioning. The plan will look at the relevance of UNE Life mission and the hierarchies of its strategies. The industry in which UNE Life is competing will be analysed through accessing industry five competitive forces and discussing the strategic fit. The plan will then discuss the market and industry attractiveness through macro and micro level analysis with an aim of addressing the strategic challenges that UNE Life business faces. The relevance of marketing research for UNE Life will be discussed for strategic decision making and the influence on product pricing, distribution and promotion policies analysed. Lastly, the plan will describe the significance of overall segmentation, targeting, differentiation and positioning for UNE Life. This will be achieved through analysing the online platform for UNE life. Relevance of the mission and hierarchy of strategies for UNE Life UNE Life mission is experience life on campus. This is through being entertained, relaxing with friends, staying fit, celebrating and taking care of business. The main aim of UNE Life is to make the student life on campus more enjoyable and easier. Through provision of products and services by the university, life for the students and community becomes easier. UNE Life is able to make students experience life to the fullest at the institution (UNE Life, 2015). Strategies UNE Life is committed to ensuring that student life is made easier and enjoyable. The institution makes it possible for the students to experience life on campus. This is through provision of goods and services in a convenient manner. Provision of an online shop where the students can make purchases without making queues Online payment services Provision of all vital goods and services on a single platform. Students can shop for different goods and services using an online platform. This enables them to access deferent university business online. The services which consumer can access online are; SportUNE, Campus Essentials, The Stro, Belgrave Cinema, Sleek, Café Life and the Booloominbah Collection. These strategies are very vital for the success of UNE Life. The strategies support the business by making the services close to students and at their convenience. The students are able to access what they need without being physically present. Online shop makes it easy for the customers to make orders at their comfort (UNE Life, 2015). Industry in which UNE Life, industry’s five competitive forces and appropriate conditions for the strategic fit of prospector strategy UNE Life business is based on online shopping industry. Online retailing industry has been able to change the face of retail business in Australia. The industry has shown dramatic growth over the years (Laudon & Traver, 2007). Michael porter came up with a framework which models the industry. The model helps a lot in understanding the industry context which the firm is operating in. through use of porter 5 forces analysis it is possible to create a sustainable advantage in the industry. UNE Life will be able to benefit a lot through coming up with a strategy that can enhance the firm long term profits. Threat of new entrants Online retail market is characterised by low barrier to entry. For new players, it is relatively easy for them to enter into the market (Porter, 2008). The main problem is the fact that new players face a tough time to gain brand recognition. This is due to their low ranking on the search engines. New entrants into e commerce require huge budgets to compete with the established players. This makes it hard for new players to enter into competitive online marketing. For new players they face competition due to brand loyalty. Customers are very less likely to switch to a new brand. UNE Life have established themselves to the students and created brand loyalty (UNE Life, 2015). They are also well recognised giving them a competitive advantage. Bargaining power of suppliers There are a lot of suppliers to UNE Life. The company have varying business online which depends on deferent suppliers. The bargaining power of individual suppliers is low. When suppliers have more powers, they can work together to increase the prices (Porter, 2008). This cannot happen for UNE Life since these actions can lead to legal redress when discovered. UNE Life does not have dominant suppliers. The second hand books can be bought from different suppliers. The university is also capable of producing own gowns as well as outsourcing. Threat of substitute’s products UNE Life sells a vast range of products online. This makes the threat from substitutes very low. The university have been expanding their range of products based on the needs of students. The ability of students to choose substitutes is low. For example, buying books from UNE life online stores saves customers 30% of the price (UNE Life, 2015). To determine the threat of substitutes, one has to look beyond the industry. There are very few substitutes to UNE Life products in other industries that can significantly affect the profits. Bargaining power of customers The customers in this case are students at UNE Life. When the customers have a strong position, they have capability to pressure the market and lower the prices or demand for better quality. In this case, the bargaining power of customers is medium. The customers are more concentrated than sellers. Customers are price sensitive and the university have catered for this by offering low prices. There is high brand loyalty. A larger portion of sales by UNE Life is through the customer purchases (Jun, Yang & Kim, 2004). Competitive rivalry UNE Life faces high competitive rivalry. For a business to succeed, they must understand their competitors as well as their strategies (Porter, 2008). The level of rivalry varies depending on the industry. Understand the differences between the rivals helps a lot in coming up with a strategy. UNE Life faces competition in its business from both online and offline sources. The students can buy products from a wide range of suppliers, retailers and distributors both online and offline. E commerce business in most cases engage in price based competition. This makes it hard to raise prices. UNE Life has limited ability to raise prices due to competition (Laudon & Traver, 2007). Prospectus strategy Based on this analysis, UNE Life should adopt prospectus strategy. This is through pursuing new market opportunities. UNE Life must take risks and explore competitive environment. This will involve coming up with new products and creating new market opportunities (Kotler, 2012). Market and industry attractiveness through macro and micro level analyses Macro level analysis Online marketing have been growing at a very fast rate. This has changed the way consumers do transactions. Over the past five years, the industry has seen a growth of 16.5% in Australia. The industry is estimated to have revenue of $16bn and employs over 62,200. There are over 44,429 online businesses in Australia. The rise of online shopping have been assisted allot by the rapid growth of internet over the years and the penetration of broadband (IBIS World, 2015). This has been combined by the consumer acceptance of online shopping methods as an alternative to traditional shopping. The industry have highly benefited from consumers who seeks value and variety. Through online shopping, consumers are offered variety and the geographical barriers are eliminated (Eroglu, Machleit & Davis, 2001). Online shopping has seen a great demand from consumers. The industry is in the growth stage of its lifecycle. It is expected that the industry will grow annually by 10.2% up to 2021. This suggests that the industry is experiencing a higher growth rate than the Australian economy. There are large numbers of new entrants with new online stores having an annual increase of 9%. Micro level analysis UNE Life online shopping is expanding very fast. The business has been able to offer consumers goods and services conveniently. Consumers can comfortably make purchases online. Most of the target consumers are the students. Students have scheduled day to day activities. Due to time limitation, online shopping is their best alternative. UNE Life online shopping offers gown for hire, books, and hair products among others. Most of the products offered are the basic needs for the students. Due to the time constraints, the students are able to get what they need at the right time. The target market is composed of students and UNE Life staff (UNE Life, 2015). The university should expand their target market and reach the general community. This can be achieved through diversifying their products and carrying out marketing that will include the community. Through diversification and increasing their target market, UNE Life will have a competitive advantage. SWOT analysis for UNE Life Strengths Boundary less No time constraints Saves time High interaction with customers Low transaction cost Niche products Weakness Fraud Low discounts and bargaining Lack personalized services Limited exposure Distribution costs Opportunities New technologies High expansion High growth Low competition Availability 24 hours Threats Changing environment Innovation Privacy concerns Fraud Relevance of the marketing research for the strategic decision-making of the UNE Life’s business and influence of product, pricing, distribution and promotion policies on marketing decisions Marketing research is vital to strategic business decisions. It is a process of gathering information to gain full knowledge. The marketer gains knowledge on what is happening, when and the choices available. Marketing decisions, needs support from some level of research. Through research, the effectiveness of the decision is enhanced. The marketing mix decisions (4Ps) that UNE Life will make must be based on research. The price will be determined by the market forces which can only be determined through research. UNE Life will price its products based on level of competition and the market rates. The distribution is based on the cheapest and convenient means. When making promotions, UNE Life looks at the target market needs. This helps a lot in determining how to carry out promotions. Significance of the overall segmentation, targeting, differentiation and positioning strategies for the UNE Life Segmentation UNE Life have utilised different criteria to classify their buyers. This has helped UNE Life in getting a full picture of its customers and creating value for them. The used basis of segmentation by UNE Life is bahavorial, geographic, psychographic. Through bahavorial segmentation, UNE Life have looked at what the customers’ needs and the way they use the product. Through geographic segmentation, UNE life looks at the location of the customers. Most of the customers are students and staff who live near the institutions. This has made UNE Life come up with distribution channels that are convenient for their target customers. Psychographic segmentation looks at how the customers think and what they value. Most of the university students values convenience and are price sensitive. The students are sensitive about the price hence are likely to buy products which are cheap in price. They are also sensitive to quality. Through bahavorial segmentation, students prefer shopping online due to time constraints. Demographic segmentation is the most utilised segment due to availability of information. UNE Life has data about their prospect customers in their databases (Cross, Belich & Rudelius, 2015). Market targeting Through market targeting, UNE Life comes up with measures of segment attractive. This is through selecting the segments that they will target. Each of the segments is evaluated for their attractiveness. This is followed by selecting the most appropriate segment to enter. UNE Life targets the students and staff. UNE life can expand their target market by targeting the community around the institution (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010). Differentiation Differentiation involves coming up with offers that are different from the competitors. UNE Life has been able to utilise differentiation strategies in their products. Most of the products and services offered by UNE Life are different from those of the competitors. This is through unique characteristics and niche offers (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010). Market positioning This is final step in market segmentation. This helps in coming up with a unique and distinct position for the product in the consumer mind. Consumers should be able to identify the brand different from the competitors (Chen & Uysal, 2002). UNE Life has positioned their products as meaningful to consumers, credible and unique. The online shopping platform has been able to position itself as unique and convenient for the students and staff. Students view the platform as a convenient way to do shopping and a part of their campus life. It’s a platform where there are shopping is made easy and consumers can get everything they need online (Hooley et al., 2001). Conclusion UNE Life online shopping platform have a great opportunity in the industry. The industry statistics shows that there has been a robust growth over the years. The market research makes it easy for UNE Life to make marketing decisions and come up with appropriate marketing mix. Porter five forces analysis shows that the industry is attractive and UNE Life should invest more on targeting the wider community. This will make UNE Life to have a larger market share and enhance its competitiveness. UNE Life has been able to segment, target and position itself well in the industry. The market plan shows that UNE life has a great opportunity in the e commerce sector. References Cross, J. C., Belich, T. J., & Rudelius, W. (2015, January). How marketing managers use market segmentation: an exploratory study. In Proceedings of the 1990 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 531-536). Springer International Publishing. Chen, J. S., & Uysal, M. (2002). Market positioning analysis: A hybrid approach. Annals of Tourism Research, 29(4), 987-1003. Eroglu, S. A., Machleit, K. A., & Davis, L. M. (2001). Atmospheric qualities of online retailing: a conceptual model and implications. Journal of Business research, 54(2), 177-184. Hooley, G., Greenley, G., Fahy, J., & Cadogan, J. (2001). Market-focused resources, competitive positioning and firm performance. Journal of Marketing Management, 17(5-6), 503-520. IBIS World, (2015), Online Shopping in Australia: Market Research Report, Retrieved 5th August 2015 from, http://www.ibisworld.com.au/industry/default.aspx?indid=1837 Jun, M., Yang, Z., & Kim, D. (2004). Customers' perceptions of online retailing service quality and their satisfaction. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 21(8), 817-840. Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2010). Principles of marketing. Pearson Education. Kotler, P. (2012). Kotler on marketing. Simon and Schuster. Laudon, K. C., & Traver, C. G. (2007). E-commerce. Pearson/Addison Wesley. Porter, M. E. (2008). Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. Simon and Schuster. UNE Life, (2015), shop, Retrieved 5th August 2015 from, http://shop.unelife.com.au/ Read More