Strategic Marketing Planning for the Small to Medium-Sized Business - Case Study Example

STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN PART II Name Institution Tutor Table of contents……………………………………………………2 Executive Summary……………………………………………………….3 Introduction…………………………………………………………………4 The objective of UNE………………………………………………………4 Hierarchy of strategies……………………………………………………….5 Growth Market Strategies……………………………………………………6-7 Strategic Choices for Maintaining Competition……………………………..7-8 Strategies to Serve New Economy…………………………………………..8-9 Appropriate Designing of Organizational Structure and Market Plan………9-11 Micro and Macro Level Analysis…………………………………………….11-15 Roles of Marketing Metrics and Marketing Audits…………………………..16-17 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..17 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………18-19 Executive Summary Strategic Market Planning is the process in which a business unit sets up decisions that can yield a profound competition in the market it serves. The strategic plan usually is based on the number of the marketing process. In our assessment, we are going to take University of New England (UNE) as our case study. Under the chosen market, we are going to start by assessing the suitable strategic market programs applied by UNE and the relevance of this plans to the followers. Besides, we are going to determine the importance of these growth market strategies for market leaders and share the plans with the members of UNE life business. Furthermore, in the assessment, we are going to discuss some possible strategic choices that UNE life business adopts to maintain competition advantage in the market and outdoing the declining markets. Also, in the assessment, we are going to discuss some relevant market strategies that are essential to serve a new economy market basing on our case study, UNE life business. Also, we will assess the appropriate methods of designing an organized structure and marketing strategies for the implementation of different modest strategies for the UNE life business. We will then go ahead to identify some critical roles of marketing metrics and marketing audits about UNE life business. Lastly, by the end of the assessment, we should be able to apply the strategic marketing plan we have learned to better up our company. Introduction Marketing Strategies are laid down goals needed to be attained with marketing efforts. A business plan is usually determined by the enterprise objectives. That means both the business strategy and business objectives should work hand-in-hand. On the other hand, a marketing plan is a way you strive to achieve these established goals. Thus, a strategic marketing plan is the process in which a business unit sets up decisions that can yield a profound competition in the market it serves (Anderson, 2012). The primary objective of the marketing strategy and planning is to fit in the market competition. Basing on UNE, their services such as graduation services, co-curriculum services, and entertainment services are of high quality in order to fit into the market competition. Besides, the UNE provides quality catering services and holding of events such as wedding functions, family party, birthdays party, name them. The Objectives of UNE The main goals of UNE are to win more customers by the provision of high standard services that will attract them. In addition, they also intended to increase their financial income come the year 2016 as outlined in their article. Another objective is to improve their branding reputation of catering in the line of enhancing the trust and interests of their estimated customers. Hierarchy of Strategies Business level strategy The organization success and competence are mainly viewed to satisfying customers need in order to gain above average outputs or returns (Griffith, 2010). This is achieved through business level strategy. For the case of UNE, the need of providing quality catering services attracts more customers to buy their products. Continued purchase will in turn increase the return on the inputs. Corporate Strategy level This level occupies the highest rank in the hierarchy. It addresses the most general information. For example, what services or products are offered or how is the firmly organized. It usually involves the overall scope of the organization. Catering and life functions such as wedding, are striving to become the primary services offered at UNE, be it students, local community or the staff (Thorpe & Morgan, 2007). Functional Strategy level This strategy is concerned with functional areas of a firm such as marketing, production, human resource and development among others. This level implements the business level strategy and corporate level strategy. It enhances the training of employees and providing their well-being, hence creating working enthusiasm. The department thus goes step ahead in the branding of catering and function products to fit the market competition (Rosier, Morgan & Cadogan, 2010). Growth Market Strategies For a particular market to grow, there is a need to be a good relationship between the supplier and the consumer of the products. This will also be determined by the bargaining power of either the supplier or the users (Engelhardt, n.d.). Bargaining power of Suppliers Suppliers are the essential factor in the catering industry in that they determine the trust of the customer in the food they prepare. This impacts the kind of food they produce that is high-quality food in order to gain the consumers trust in the food they take. Life function and catering could show the advantage of bargaining with the suppliers of consumer goods due to transparent market price. Furthermore, the decoration of the place of offering such as advanced electronic products and advanced technologies contributes to building customers trust. Thus, the suppliers having those qualities will have immense bargaining power than life functions and catering. Usually, the bargaining power of vendors is typically moderate. Bargaining power of consumers Usually, the rate of consumers bargain is relatively high. With advanced technology and rapid development of catering industry, the consumer gains much experience. This means that the similar product is high in the catering market. Hence, the switching cost of consumers is low while the preference choice are diverse (Braunstein & Epstein, n.d.). The threat of substitutes. Substitutes are alternative services or products. When there are many injections of substitutes in the market, definitely the competition rate in the market increase rapidly. Since Life functions and catering provides high-quality services such as birthday party event holding and wedding event holding, their substitute such as Star hotels brings strong competition in the market. Existing rivals Rivals are those market suppliers that offers services like those you offer. When the life catering and functions services are densely populated within the UNE, the competition for customers definitely will hike. For example, Armidale hotel is mature as compared to UNE hotel hence attracts more consumers to it rather than UNE. This implies that Life functions and catering hotel will face stiff competition from huge hotels such as Moore Park Inn, Best Western Cotswolds Gardens among others. Strategic choices for maintaining competitions. The principal purpose of strategy is to provide the sustainable position of advance in a competitive environment. They can make a decision basing on various aspects. They can be; organizational purpose, mission and vision of the organization, competing by developing major organization capabilities among others. After years of development, Life functioning, and Catering has grown to maturity. In order to sustain the market competition, the following choices has to be made. Customer’s loyalty and satisfaction. In order to get customers loyalty and satisfaction, quality services have to be offered. UNE market being diverse, they should forego minor priorities and prioritize the provision of quality services. By so doing, they will win the morale, loyalty and satisfaction of their customers, hence fitting in the competitive market. Creative and flexible market program. To suit into the market competition, UNE needs to diverse in services they offer. A customer will prefer performing his needs under one roof rather than moving from place to place. Hence, when flexible services are provided, undoubtedly they will adapt to market competition. Strategies to serve new economy market Internet access for customers view. When a new economy enters the market, it should advance by using the most recent technological advancement. For instance, UNE catering department must employ the electronic self-service that is suitable and most reliant to the consumers. This practice will enable the new economy to stabilize rapidly in the market. Product promotion and branding system. When entering the market, the first task is finding and establishing customers. It is achieved mainly by promoting the products you are dealing in with either by advertising or by use of any method. Besides, the new organization entering the market should come up with brands that signify the products they produce. For example slogans, logos, name or design of the organization image or idea. Conducting transactions. The exchange of products that the new companies should be immediate for the users to have a recap of what products your company will be dealing with. Customer service and support. Since the products are in the market, the customers are not well versed with the products. This follows that the products should be displayed in order for the consumers to have a better understanding of them. For example, the introduction of a new variety of dish in the catering sector of UNE. In fact, there should be a brief description of the newly graded products. Product return and disposal. This strategy should be employed in order to create customers interest to take what pleases them most. In case the consumer finds the product or service not suitable for him or her, they should have the freedom to return the product. Delivering digital products. Since in today’s life technology has taken control, the products delivered should at least meet this requirement. No single consumer will ever prefer using an outdated products (Watson, 2005). Appropriate designing of organization structure and market plans Marketing plans A successful firm starts with a business plan. There is chronological order followed while coming up with a company plan. These rules include; situation analysis, key issues, objectives, marketing strategy, projected profits and loss statements and then contingency plans. Situation analysis. Before beginning the layout of the plan, the need of why you want to enter the market should be an outline. This naturally starts with personal evaluation before starting a business. Critical issues. These are derivatives from your personal analysis. They are mainly meant to encourage the individual to take a step ahead and write a business plan. Objectives. These are the laid down manifestos you will like to accomplish at the end of your company plan. For example UNE objectives is to provide quality education and supportive needs to her customers. Marketing strategy. Marketing Strategies are laid down goals needed to be attained with marketing efforts. A business plan is usually determined by the company objectives. This is an evaluation that enables an individual to decide on whether to make a gain or loss (Öberg, 2010). Project statement of profit or loss. In every market, there is whether a loss or a gain, under planning, it should then be noted that the market can either be active to generate profit, or it might be negative, hence lost generation. Contingency plans. This is the final copy of the business plan. It should entail all activities of activity that should be accomplished. Benefits of business plan The chart to success: Having a proper business layout, the probabilities of making a profit are relatively high. More so, the input is well utilized in order to meet the market needs and competition. Company operation network: With an appropriate layout, the UNE is able to assess the supplier and consumer network. Thus, the output is higher when a business is planned appropriately. Captured thinking: With a well-organized business plan, the trust in consumers is convinced to turn back to your market. For example, most UNE students will prefer visiting a school café rather than going to Moore Park Inn, Best Western Cotswolds Gardens among others other hotels. Top level Reflection: With the proper and well-analyzed business plan, when entering the market, the will be able to compete with top leading markets. Thus, the situation of the then company can adapt to the market competitions faster. Rallying points: The marketing plan gives your troops a rally paint points. This ensures that they can access the kind of products they are most confident to take (Tiscini & Raoli, 2013). Designing Appropriate organizational structure An organization structure should reflect the type of products they deliver. The need to brand and upgrading of their products is essential in building the consumers believe in their products. Thus, an organization structure needs to be organized appropriately to meet the consumer’s satisfaction (Singh & Srivastava, 2015). Functional competencies and resource allocation: resources allocation is the physical distribution of the products while technical competence is the verge on which a business operates to suit market competition. UNE life business has allocated their resources equally in its field. The catering and functions sectors, sporting industries, academic sectors among others. Besides, the then organizational should work in order to adopt the market competition. Service organization: the kind of services offered by the group should be of high quality to meet market competition. For instance, the catering and function should provide quality recipes and large events grounds respectively to meet the market competition. Micro and Macro level analysis Micro-environment analysis Shortage of labor is the major prevailing challenge in catering and hotel industry in Australia. This context will affect Life functioning and catering industry directly. Basing on the existing relevant labor agreement, hotels meet some special requirements in recruiting of foreign labor. However, these foreign labor providers must have well proficiency of English language thus making it difficult in recruiting proper manpower. At present, work the labor shortage in catering and hotel industry is up to 56,000. The restraint managers and Chef are among the most shortlisted handed post. Thus, the scarcity of these personnel affects food quality and level of services of whole catering market and hotel market. This thus implies that Life functioning and catering has to make proper preparation in order to adopt the market competition (Lurweg & Uhde, n.d.). Macro environment analysis basing on PEST model Political factor Australian was a colony of UK. There have been continued political environment traditions and democratic system of UK. Besides, it created political features with the entry of steady flow of immigrants. However, the Australian political culture has changed for over five years ago, with an enormous change effected in the year 2013. The premier position changed from Tony Abbott to Julia Gillard. Though the Australian political environment cannot be modified in a short term, it will thus not cause much change to the economy and social system. Thus, Life function and catering industry are not affected much by the current political environment. Economic factors Due to economic regression, Australia is facing the enormous economic challenge. The Australian Dollars has continued to weaken within the last five years and created the lowest level within the market. The price fall of bulk commodities such as iron ore contributed to a credible increase of economic budget deficit in 2014. Besides, the channeling force of Australian growth, exports and consumption indicated poor performance in the year 2014. To promote economic regression in Australia, the Reserve Bank of Australia came up with interest-rate cut action in the year 2015. Thus, economic recession in Australia is bound to cause an immense negative influence on catering and hotel industry. Technological factor Information and Technology (IT) plays a vital role in both catering sector and hotel industry. Australia being a leading in information technology, there has been an immense industry scale. With increased use of Smartphone to access the internet, there has been a rapid advancement in the field of technology. Thus, improvement in technological environment gives a greater support the catering industry and hotel industry in Australia. Social factor Australia being an immigrant country, there are varied varieties of food from different countries. Indian foods, Japanese foods, Chinese foods among others. The diversify cuisine culture lead to the rigid competition in the catering industry and hotel industry. However, food safety in Australia is an important challenge in the hotels and catering industry. Market research Market research is the act of collecting and settling of relevant market information logically with the intention of understanding the market situation, development trend for providing aims for marketing choices. In Life functions and catering industry, market research is essential in identifying the demand. For example, average monthly income, consumption types and habit in hotel and catering sector by the consumers and their consumption preferences. Marketing research thus is essential for Life function and catering industry in UNE as it enables to build an effective marketing strategy and developing new market targets (Hamersveld & Bont, 2007). Marketing mix There are diverse forms of the marketing mix. This is mainly intended to provide product strategies, price strategy, place strategy, and promotion strategy (Richter, 2002). Product strategy There is diversified product strategy taken by Life functions and catering. Apart from proving catering services, Life functions, and catering industries offers other services such as school formal, birthday’s events, wedding and anniversary events, family or friend’s party events among others. This facilitates the additional enjoyment of the consumers. Life function and catering launch these new package products to enable the users to choose from the list provided with. Thus, a variety of products will be essential to provide a conducive portfolio for the competitiveness of Life function and catering industry. Price strategy Price is essential in hotels and catering industry that impacts the consumers to making a decision that generates profit in an enterprise. Thus, suitable marketing strategy contributes to achieving the set objectives and goals in the market. Life function and catering industry can thus adopt the law price to increase the rate of consumers. Place strategy Online sale platform is a mostly used supply channel. Life functions and catering should establish their online distribution channel by particular e-commerce platform, official website, or cooperation with third-party Corporation. The online sale platform will meet the consumption demand of most young people. Meanwhile, it may significantly expand the consumer group off campus and reduce their time cost. Promotion strategy This is the creating an awareness of the new product or services or an upgrade of the old services through advertising. Thus, Life function and catering should advance the advertising promotion to aim the potential consumers who are of UNE. By doing so, the interaction between the customers will be strengthened. Targeting and segmentation Market segmentation is favorable to find the new market chance and develop a new market. It is easy to understand the relevant situation of each market segment and enterprise can adjust the marketing strategy based on market demand change (Ferrell, 2012). According to the geographic factor, Life functions and catering can classify the market consumers into customers on and off campus. Furthermore, based on a demographic factor, the consumer group of Life functions and catering may be divided into a young student of UNE and married office worker with a harmonious family. Considering the long-term development plan, Life functions and catering should choose the married office workers off campus as the target market. Generally speaking, these kinds of customers have the steady income and more events to celebrate. The concentrated marketing strategy is an excellent choice for Life functions and catering in the target market (Robertshaw, 2000). Differentiation and Positioning Differentiation mainly indicates the uniqueness of the product and services of a business offer to adopt the competition. . Differentiation strategy is beneficial to improve the customer loyalty. Life functions and catering needs to make an appropriate market positioning for highlighting own enterprise image in the strongly competitive hotel and catering market. Considering the major competitors, the market positioning of Life functions and catering is to provide a comprehensive series of services for customers to successfully celebrate some important event with an appropriate budget less than luxury hotel (Finch & Geiger, 2010). Roles of marketing metrics and marketing audits Marketing metrics Marketing metrics is one of the leading market research firms that is focused on advisor-sold investigates and insurance worldwide. They are thus set in a systematic way. Setting standards of performance: this is the crucial marketing metric step that ensure the standard and performance of the firm are stipulated appropriately. In Life function and catering industry, the standard and performance of the cafe is well set to attract more consumers. Besides, they are maintained in order to meet the market competition (Mamula, 2012). Specifying the necessary feedback data: data in a Life Functions and Catering industry should be defined in order to anticipate the strategy to improve the industry. Obtaining the needed data: after the data has been investigated and collected, the Life functions and catering industry should enable it to be stipulated. Evaluation of feedback data: the feedback data should be analyzed in order to give quality outputs. The Life function and catering industry in UNE thus should have an enough evaluation to suit into the market competition. Taking a corrective action: the main purpose of having marketing metrics is to generate, data, evaluate it and come up with the solution. Life function and catering industry need to have a systematic marketing metrics to have quality feedback that will enable them to strategize in marketing competition (Pauwels, 2015). Marketing audit Marketing audit is a systematic, impartial and critical appraisal and reviews of the summing of total marketing operation; of the important objectives and policies and the assumption that underline them. Basically, it involves an examination, analyzing, evaluation or review of marketing activities of an organization. After the evaluation, various defects, deficiencies, problems, vulnerabilities, and other weakness accounted in the organization markets are identified. Besides, the marketing audit does try to suggest recommendations; that can help to overcome or solve problems encountered. In general, marketing audit tries to improve marketing performance of an organization. Marketing audit is a systematic, extensive, independent and regular examination process. It is comprehensive or extensive due to the fact that it covers the entire marketing undertakings of an organization. Besides, it is methodological process since it strictly involves procedures or steps that are strictly followed (Singh, Sharma & Chahal, n.d.). Conclusion Marketing Strategies are laid down goals needed to be attained with marketing efforts. Business strategy is usually determined by the business goals. For any particular market to suit the market competition, there is a need to have a systematic way of handling its legal activities. Bibliography Anderson, D. (2012). Strategic marketing planning for the small to medium-sized business. [New York, N.Y.] (222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017): Business Expert Press. Braunstein, E., & Epstein, G. Bargaining Power and Foreign Direct Investment in China: Can 1.3 Billion Consumers Tame the Multinationals?. SSRN Electronic Journal. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.343540 Engelhardt, L. 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