Suitable Strategic Market Programs for UNE Life - Case Study Example

STRATEGIC MARKETIG PLAN Name Institution Course Date The relevance of a pioneer or a follower strategy In the current market situation, strategic planners strive to create more value for their products with an aim of reducing costs, and looking into way by which to grow domestic markets in addition to building new markets and revenues. This comes with a number of questions that demand answers. “Is it beneficial to be first with a product or service? Is being an innovator worth the risk? Is it wise to wait and learn from the experiences of the first entrant to the market? If you are a pioneer, what can be done to evade share erosion when a new player enters the market? If you are a follower entrant, what strategies would you adopt to make your entry successful?” (David, 1997, pp. 12). Research has proved that in many instances, being a pioneer in market offers an important and continuous market-share lead over upcoming competitors. On the other hand, followers or later entrants can be successful by implementing distinct positioning as well as advertising approaches. Pioneers in the majority of businesses become very powerful immediately after attaining the position of incumbent. Nevertheless, from time to time the pioneers become self-satisfied or are no longer having the ability to supply for the increasing or changing demands of the bazaar. New-fangled competitors can at this point take benefit of mistakes in the provisions of these old and complacent pioneers, or look for inventive techniques to advertise their manufactured goods or services. Pioneers that develop unique charisma in the market ought to be ready to act, or even better, predict prospective entrants and raise the barricades to their entry. For instance, a pioneer may decide to decrease its cost and hence reduce the worth of industry for a novel competitor, or can obstruct entry completely by controlling major delivery conduits (David, 1997, pp. 12). For similar brands entering market in different time periods, a follower or later entrant I most cases enjoys a faster and sharper takeoff than that of the pioneer entrant. Thus, UNE Life has a greater advantage in introducing the yoga program than its already existing competitors who are already offering the services. The major reason is that the follower, UNE Life, benefits from the cross-brand influence from the first entrant’s clients, a merit that the first entrant did not have when it operated as a monopoly (Golder and Tellis 1993, pp. 160). However, the pioneer entrants stand to enjoy what is referred to as the ‘interaction-based advantage’ of the first entrant. This is because, within-brand influence, the clients obtained by the first entrant become a source of a self-reinforcing competitive advantage to the pioneer entrant. At competition entry, the first entrant has more clients than a follower entrant, ad it can expect more brand-specific interaction, and consequently, more new clients per period, which in turn generate more communications. Whether a pioneer or a follower entrant is seeking to foil newcomers, it would be able by understanding the entry and defensive strategies available and the best time to plan and make decisions (Porter, 1985, pp. 68). Suitable strategic market programs for the UNE Life Competitive strategies mainly rely on the market setting as well as the positioning along with produce collection of the obtainable players. The following are strategies that UNE Life can follow to introduce the new program and achieve its objectives. Reduce price to penetrate an existing market: There are usually registration fee or maintenance fees associates with the health and fitness programs that are found in clubs or institutions. By introducing yoga program at a lower price than the pioneers like yoga centers at Armidale, UNE Life can catch the attention of fresh clients who would not have otherwise afforded such service and hence expand the overall market. “Reduced price may also induce the pioneer’s current customers to switch. Still, this strategy may lead to reduced margins for the business, compared with other players in the market, unless the cost of production for the business is relatively lower than that of its competitors” (Hill Ch, 1992, pp.12). Improving a product or service with focus on a niche market: UNE Life would be able to contend by looking for ways to be inventive in the market. The improvement could be incremental or radical. A good illustration of incremental improvement is where UNE Life improves the version of yoga program that its competitors are already offering. The enhanced program will be able to contend unswervingly with the current programs, or it can be well situated to catch the attention of a particular sector of the current market, in this case the female students of UNE. Furthermore, the enhanced program may be a focus for fresh clients that are not the existing target for the current program. For instance, the improved program may attract other females, not necessarily students from the neighborhood. Enhancing the program will attract customers even from already existing competitors and hence generate more revenue (Adu, Fyall, & Singh, 2001, pp 22). Target new geographic markets for existing products: Once UNE Life has introduced the yoga program and the markets have matured in the home base, the organization can look outside to more potential markets. For instance, UNE Life can come with a plan for sourcing customers from neighboring towns and offering transport services to these customers. Developing new channels of distribution to access new markets or better penetrate existing ones. UE Life can take advantage of the current technology and introduce training sessions on internet so as to reach more customers. Social networking has become very popular and it can be used by UNE Life as a marketing strategy and also use it as a platform for obtaining more customers by offering online classes in yoga program. The relevance of the growth-market strategies for market leaders and share-growth strategies for followers for UNE Life's business Market share is the portion of total market that an organization or brand commands (Bernhardt, 1991). Market share strategies on the other hand are the activities and plans that a company utilizes to either increase, maintain its share or to harvest or divest them from its market. Since market share is directly related to competition and the marketing effort, the share strategy adopted depends on the organization’s objectives, resources, size and industry position, in addition to history and management orientation, all of which determine the competitive position it occupies. Kotler (2002) suggests four competitive positions, namely market leader (the highest market share goal), market challenger, market follower and lastly the market nicher position. For example, a market leader would adopt strategies that defend or maintain its share while a market challenger would employ growth strategies aimed at gaining share from the leader. A “market leader is the firm that has the largest market share and dominates the competitors in a given market. This leader dictates the pricing strategies of its competitors and is the first to introduce new products” (Kotler, & Armstrong, 2004, pp. 43). If UNE Life business decides to be a market leader in yoga program, it must be able to protect its position against all new entrants and seek ways of expanding the market or expanding its current market share. A market follower on the other hand “is a business that competes in the marketplace by following the market leader rather than by attacking it directly” (Kotler, & Armstrong, 2004, pp. 43). If UNE Life wants to be a market follower in yoga program, it should strive to maintain existing customers (its female students) and attract new customers (non-student females from the neighboring community). Yoga is a program with very little product differentiation and high price sensitivity and hence UNE Life adopting the follower strategy would prove helpful. “By implementing this approach, the organization can be able to prevent aggressive price competition and it would gain new customers by offering a quality service at a good value” (Kotler, & Armstrong, 2004, pp. 43). As a follower in the market, the new program for UNE Life business and its growth strategy must be supported by adequate and relevant operational skills or core competences, privileged assets, and growth skills in addition to special relationship. The organization needs to develop special internal and external relationships and linkages, particularly with trade bodies, and government departments so as to create strong value systems that can help open new and more opportunities for the new program to thrive. Having the skills and linkages supplies the necessary competitive advantage in addition to erecting barriers against competitors and mitigate risk of failure of the growth strategy. By adopting the follower strategy, UNE Life business ca first observe what its competitors have been offering and get a better understanding of what works and what does not and it will have the opportunity of moving fast and smart enough to overcome the advantages of the leader or first mover. UNE Life has the advantage of using the pioneers’ experiences to learn about their customer tastes, design techniques, potential size of a market, marketing and sales strategies. The organization will also be able to learn from the pioneers’ mistakes (Kotler, & Armstrong, 2004, pp. 44). UNE Life may also decide to adopt a leader strategy and dominate that market especially against potential competitors. By doing so, the organization will enjoy an almost insuperable head start and gain substantial market share due to lack of stiff competition. Being a leader or a first mover in the yoga program, UNE Life can be able to define and own a market but also has a risk of failure. Adopting a leader strategy makes an organization to be the first to market and build infrastructure to capitalize on before others. Strategic choices for the UNE Life's business offerings for maintaining competitive advantage in shakeout, mature and declining markets Like organization, markets expand and progress as time goes by. “Not only do the group of competitors within a firm’s industry change constantly but the nature and structure of industry can also change as it matures and its markets become better defined. A market’s developmental stage influences the nature of competition as well as potential profitability among competitors. While identifying the current life cycle stage in a market can be challenging, it is necessary to be aware of how the industry shifts over time” (Kotler, & Armstrong, 2004, pp. 44). A youthful business that is starting to form is regarded as being in the introduction phase. There is usually low demand for the industry’s output during this stage since the product or service is still increasing. Basically, “all purchasers are fist-time buyers and tend to be affluent, risk tolerant and innovative. After major technological issues are addressed and customer demand begins to rise, the industry enters the growth stage. Growth continues but tends to slow down as the market demand approaches saturation. The number of first-time-buyers decrease and most purchases tend to be upgrades or replacements” (Kotler et. al, 1999, pp. 41). To survive in this stage, the UNE Life needs to pump in money to acquire new facilities and equipments. Shakeout is the period when “industry growth is no longer rapid enough to support the increasing number of competitors. Consequently, a company’s growth is contingent on its resources and competitive positioning instead of a high growth rate within the industry. Marginal competitors are forced out, and a small number of industry leaders may emerge. Maturity is reached when the market demand for the industry’s outputs is becoming saturated. Basically all purchases are upgrades or replacements, and industry growth may be low, nonexistent, or even negative. Industry standards for quality and service have been established and customer expectations tend to be more consistent than in previous stages” (Pearce, & Robinson, 1997, pp 97). When UNE Life’s new program reaches maturity, the organization can survive by seeking new uses for their services in addition to pursuing new markets, mainly through global expansion, for instance developing websites that offer yoga tutorials. By doing so, the organization will be seeking to revert to a more prosperous growth stage. The decline stage takes place when demand for a business’s goods and services diminishes and this happens when clients start turning to more expedient, more secure as well as of superior value products from companies in alternate businesses. To overcome this stage, UNE Life may be required to divest their business units in this stage or focus on reinventing themselves and look for an innovative wave of development connected with related services. The relevance of various strategies to serve new economy markets in regards to UNE Life's business The success of UNE Life’s business in introducing yoga program mainly lies in the organization’s ability to determine the target market, ability to specify the market strategy as well as developing the tactical plans. The initial stage in developing marketing strategies is the identification of “target market, specifying whom the organization is trying to attract. Selecting the target market involves evaluating organization’s own strengths, the competitive intensity for the target market, the cost of capturing market share, as well as the potential financial gain in attracting the targeted group” (Kaplan, & Norton, 1996, pp. 75). As discussed earlier, UNE Life’s business has decided to follow only a detachment of souk segments or just one souk subdivision, which is providing yoga program to female students. This is referred to as the market concentration strategy (Kaplan, & Norton, 1996, pp. 75). In selecting only one segment, UNE Life’s business has got to be capable to protect its selection in the face of antagonism. The organization’s entire future in providing yoga program to its female students will be based on UNE Life’s business capability to “solidify its market-share position within this particular group. This strategy offers the advantage of providing opportunities for efficiencies in production, distribution, or promotion, because the organization can tailor its efforts to one segment’s requirements. The organization must then decide on the market position it will take. It can decide to be a market leader, a market challenger, market follower, or a market niche” (Kaplan, & Norton, 1996, pp. 77). Since UNE Life’s business is not the first to offer yoga program in the region, it cannot be a market leader. The best strategies to adopt would either be a market follower or a market challenger. As a market challenger, UNE Life’s business can attempt to confront the market leaders, who are its competitor in yoga program by being forceful in their policy preparation. The organization can show aggression to the souk leader, by either straightforwardly competing for the leader’s clients, or through attracting clients or souk sections where the souk leader shows some form of weakness. If it decides to be a market challenger, UNE life’s business can follow a number of strategies that possibly will engage one or more of the marketing mix fundamentals, like reducing price, less expensive merchandise alternatives, an enhanced allocation plan, or a new promotional strategy (Kotler et. al, 1999, pp. 43). On the other hand, UNE Life’s business may opt to be a market follower. Adopting this approach enables the organization to compete in the market by following the market leader instead of attacking it openly. The organization will be able to maintain its existing customers (the female students) and attract new ones (from the neighborhood). This is a very good approach since the service they want to provide has very little differentiation and high price sensitivity. Since this is an institution and yoga program is not the only or the main activity, the organization will be able to prevent aggressive price competition if it adopts market follower strategy. The organization can also try attracting new customers to its existing services through a process known as market development. The best way of doing this would be finding new ways of using existing services. For instance, the institution can offer the yoga program to the neighboring high schools female students and hence attract them to join the institution on completion of their high school studies (Pearson, 1990, pp 54). The appropriateness of designing organizational structures and marketing plans for the implementation of different competitive strategies for the UNE Life's business “Strategic management is a highly significant element of organizational success. Strategic success needs a clear understanding of the needs of the market, as well as the satisfaction of targeted customers more effectively and more profitably than by competitors” (Katsioloudes, 2006, pp. 23). For an organization to thrive, it ought to conduct strategic management so as assess the structure of the business. The successful implementation of strategic plans is possible with the leaders that understand and move with the pace of change in social, economic, and cultural as well as technological fields (Katsioloudes, 2006, pp. 23). Business stratagem requires a business to have a competitive benefit. Businesses require plans so as to make sure that allocation of capital is done in the most efficient manner. UNE Life business requires possessing a sustainable competitive advantage over its rivals for it to sustain the new program. According to Porter (1987), UNE Life business can achieve competitive benefit if it is capable of creating worth for its customers. Senior management has an obligation of communicating tactical objective to workers, together with junior and departmental administrators, who then ought to recap that objective and interpret it into the manner through which their assistants work. The administration of UNE Life must also make sure that the people have the right skills to ensure the success of the competitive strategy through hiring and training. It is also the responsibility of management to ensure that people have right attitudes that support the strategy in addition to ensuring that people have the resources they need to do their jobs well (Taghian, & Shaw, 2008, pp 345). Unless the workforces have valid motivations to put into practice the plan, they will hesitate committing themselves to it, and it is highly likely that the plan will fail. The most excellent way to implement and ensure success of UNE Life’s business strategy is a “rewards system that aligns employees’ interests with the success of strategy” (Katsioloudes, 2006, pp. 23). Thus, the structure of the organization needs to be reorganized so that “every unit and every employee have measurable performance goals with clearly stated rewards for goal achievement” (Taghian, & Shaw, 2008, pp 347). The plan has to be sustained by additional college fundamental actions such as client service, hiring and teaching, operations, as well as “other activities that interlock the support system. As far as organizational structure is concerned, reorganizing people and material in support of a new strategy is enlightening and valuable” (Webster, 1995, pp. 10). The business structures are important for the implementation of strategies. The business structures should be taken into account when determining and implementing strategies (Webster, 1995, pp. 10). The critical role of marketing metrics and marketing audit in relevance to UNE Life's business The term marketing can be referred to as “the management process that identifies, anticipates and satisfies customer requirements profitably” (Kotler et al. 2006, pp. 98). On the othe hand, marketing audit may be referred to as “a comprehensive, systematic, independent, and periodic examination of a company’s or business unit’s marketing environment, objectives, strategies and activities with a view of determining problem areas, opportunities and recommending a plan of action to improve the company’s marketing performance” (Keller, 2007, pp. 24). The UNE Life’s business must practice marketing audit so as to obtain the anticipated as well as practical promotion performance. Marketing audit is a must for the organization if it wants to be able to discover novel openings in addition to avoiding up-and-coming threats, in addition to maintaining performance consistent with anticipations and resolve the particular predicament. Marketing audit will help UNE Life’s business to review its marketing operations from time to time to make sure “the business is in line with the changing environment and emerging threats and opportunities” (Kotler, 1977, pp 70). Doing marketing audit regularly will help in conducting a comprehensive, independent, systematic and “periodic examination of organization’s marketing function, which will in turn lead to early detection awareness of existing or upcoming marketing issues that may have an impact on the organization’s business performance. Thus marketing audit will help the business increase in market share; a predominantly marketing influenced performance” (Morgan, Clark, and Gooner, 2002, pp. 370). Conducting marketing audit will help the organization to achieve its goals by growing the market worth of the share as well as the organization’s general economic performance. A marketing audit is a comprehensive assessment and appraisal of marketing performances along with outcome. It provides a foundation for performance dimensions together a structure for successful industry planning to make best use of constructive external acuity and demand generation in addition to minimizing the internal conflict concerning marketing activities (Brownlie, 1996, pp. 102). Marketing metrics is the “gathering of data on marketing campaigns, channels, treatments as well as customer responses so as to track the effectiveness of customer relationship management (CRM) activities” (Ambler, & Riley, 2000, pp. 2). UNE Life’s business can use marketing metrics to assess precedent performance to develop prospect approach along with implementation in line with control theory which suggests the need for ex-post information on advertising programs as a significant part of the sequence of analysis, preparation, execution as well as control. Marketing metrics can also help UNE Life’s business in documenting “enforcement of the contract between corporate and functional (for instance marketing) management. Moreover, strengthening the wider pursuit for a balanced scorecard of performance which puts importance on such indefinable assets as brand equity that account for a large and growing amount of shareholder value,” (Davis, 2007, pp. 17). UNE Life’s business can use marketing metrics to measure its various dimensions. Regular use of marketing metrics can help UNE Life’s business in developing client value-based managerial procedure and culture, which in turn improve the attainment of goals laid down for CRM programs. Marketing the new yoga program requires “marketing metrics to demonstrate its performance as well as take a more responsible role in managing profits and profitable growth”, (Davis, 2007, pp. 17). 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