Progressive Marketing for Halifax - Essay Example

Marketing Scenario 1. What marketing strategy options are open to Halifax in order to grow the clinic Halifax should take extreme care when formulating and executing strategy options. In some emerging markets, marketing strategy options efforts can raise eyebrows if companies appear to be exploiting regulatory loopholes and lack of consumer resistance to intrusion. The prograssive way for Halifax to grow is to enter a new market, in other words to to select the right target market. The new market segment can include owners of birds, pet fish and reptiles, who often have much problems with professional veterinary service. This strategy options are the most promising one, present day situation in veterinary market is marked by two factor - specification, which is to do with the 'design quality' of service, and conformity, which is to do with the 'process' quality which is achieved are of particular importance to customers. On the other hand, Halifax can open its branchers in other city areas. This strategy will help to attract new clients providing veterinaty services near their residence. This strategy will help the clinic to create a strong brand image and increase the number of loyal customers. Service concepts of Halifax should include improvement of communication, and the environment composed of all the individual services. 2. Why is client retention so important for many businesses Client retention is important for many businesses because customers create demand in an industry. On the one hand, it helps the company to standardize services and, on the otehr hand, it secures the business from decrease in sales. Client retention is important because it helps to know customers "one by one", and it allows the firm to meet particular needs of the clients and find specific ways to solve their current problems. Also, client retention makes it possible to develop a basic long-term goal and objectives of an enterprise, and adopt courses of action and allocate resources necessary for carrying out these goals. Customer reteention will help to generate profit (McDonald, Christopher, 2003). 3. What ideas do you have for building and retaining a loyal group of clients Customers loyalty can be achieved through the people who are employed in the sphere. That is why maximizing each employee's potential as an individual and as a team member will be a key to maximizing the profitability of each hotel. To ensure customer satisfaction the veterinary clinic should implement and develop new strategy based on Web services. It is not a unique and a new form of service, but, unfortunately, this type of service is seldomly used by veterinary services. The idea of the web-enabling veterinary services is to provide the clinic with the tools they need to compete more e effectively and to grow their businesses successfully. To build a loyal group of clients, Halifax should consider time as the important factor of delivering service. Consider first the fee of services, a customer takes into account the delay or wait. This delay or wait will normally be evident as the period of time between placing an order and receiving the service. This is clearly an important dimension of customer service, because veterinary service is depended upon providing services at the exact time Another factors helped to retain a loyal group of clients include location of the clinic (and its subsidiaries), the cost reductions, high service quality and staff communication skills, free of charge web services and call centers. Ultimately they are the two factors which determine the quality levels provided by hotel industry to its customers. These two factors however are themselves determined by other factors. Service concepts are based on understanding the unique environment in which hotels operate. 4. What market segments exist in the market for veterinary services for household pets Market segmentation is the process identifying specific segments of clients with similar demands who exhibit similar responses to a firm's marketing mix. Within veteribary services market, few segments are found. There are veterinary medicine and dentistry, ourgery for animals, testing services. Veterinary practice are also include rural practice (farm animals) and town practice. On the basis of pets charactaristics the market are divided into cats and dogs practice, birds service, pet fish and reptile practices. 5. How would you define a sustainable competitive advantage in the veterinary services market Taking into account peculiarities of veterinary market, it is possible to say that sustainable competitive advantage means that to achieve competitive advantage, a clinic should create value for their clients, select markets where it can excel and present a moving target to their competitors by continually improving their position. Three of the most important factors are innovation, quality and cost reduction (Porter, 1980). A clinic can develop new service for existing markets or new market segments. A sustainable competitive advantage includes the mix of new servoces, prices, promotion, packaging, advertising and field services. A continuum of resource sustainability is composed of a veterinary clinic's resources and capabilities characterized by their durability and imitability (that is, they aren't transparent, transferable, or replicable). At one extreme are slow-cycle resources, which are sustainable because they are shielded by patents, geography, strong brand names, and the like. These resources and capabilities are distinctive competencies because they provide a sustainable competitive advantage. Scenario 2. 1.What marketing research design would be most appropriate for this project They may be general forces and trends within the overall societal environment or specific factors that operate within an organization's specific task environment, often called its industry. The internal environment of a corporation (strengths and weaknesses) should be evaluated, and SWOT analysis should be the part of the marketing research. They include the corporation's structure, culture, and resources. The social environment includes general forces that do not directly touch on the short-run activities of the organization but that can, and often do, influence its long-run decisions. There is a danger of ignoring the environment, as customers and their needs, competitors, changes in technology, etc., can play an important role in determining competitive success. Internal marketing research is concerned with providing management with a detailed understanding of the business, how effective its current strategies are and how effectively it has deployed its resources in support of its strategies. The external environment consists of variables (opportunities and threats) that ire outside the organization and not typically within the short-run control of top management. These variables form the context within which the corporation exists. The external scanning involves the threat of entry to an industry by new competitors depends up the 'height' of a number of entry barriers (Welford, Gouldson, 1993). 2. Who would you contact to obtain information that would be relevant for the research Obtaining benchmark data needed to create an external-based comparison of performance and improvement can be difficult, since most organizations are secretive about internal measures of performance. However, procedures exist, using for example consultants, or survey organizations, to enable market-oriented measures to be obtained, against which an organization can measure its own performance. Thus, there are two basic complementary aspects of performance measurement: internal, against company norms and standards; and external, against competitors standards These are database sources internal to the company, and include the following: the accounts department may provide the production and delivered cost of the product; value of sales by segments of total customers; total cost of discounts given; value of creditors and debtors; cost of returns; cost of after sales service. Information possible from the sales department includes: speed of handling orders; dispersion of current customers; total sales for each product in the range. Consumer panels: These are groups made up of a large representative sample (group) of consumers of the particular products under research. Retail audits: A representative sample is organized by an independent agency but this time it is made up of retail outlets rather than consumers. A few sources of primary data from consumer and user markets include: consumers, retailers, wholesalers, factors, brokers, suppliers of goods and services and manufacturers, extractors, processers, voters or donators and beneficiaries in the case of charities or members of trade unions. One method of obtaining primary data is through field surveys undertaken by the company. This involves the company directly undertaking a planned marketing research study on interviewees/ respondents (Welford, Gouldson, 1993). General questions 1.Describe the types of environmental factors that are likely to affect companies in the manufacturing industry. The social environment includes general forces that do not directly touch on the short-run activities of the organization but that can, and often do, influence its long-run decisions. Economic factors influence the exchange of materials, money, energy, and information. Technological environmental factors generate problem-solving inventions. Political-legal factots allocate power and provide constraining and protecting laws and regulations. Sociocultural issues regulate the values, mores, and customs of society. With the changing economic environment, factors such as globalization of markets, international economic integration, removal of barriers to business and trade and increased competition have enhanced the need of transportation. Firms operating in a relatively simple and static environment can generally rely on management strategies that are based on historical data (McDonald, Christopher, 2003). 2. What are the main differences between consumer and business to business marketing Customer marketing is essentially a matching process between the needs and expectations of customers, and the organization's ability and capacity to satisfy them. The main difference between customer and bysuness-to-business marketing lies in the nature of business process. It means the role played by Web service in product selling. The differences include lower cost of products in B2B model. B2B deals with other businesses, but B2C sell the goods to end-user only. The B2B sales process is lengthy, in comparison with B2C model which is quicker. B2C is interested in quicker decision-making, while B2B tries to maintain long-lasting relations (Turban, et al, 2004). 3. Discuss the importance of brands in business-to-business marketing The recognition of brand is very important in B2B if the players in an industry produce differentiated products onother businesses are brand loyal, then potential new entrants will encounter resistance in trying to enter the industry. Brand loyalty is also important factor in increasing the costs for customers of switching the products of new competitors. If existing competitors are already obtaining substantial economies of scale, this will give them an advantage over new competitors who will not be able to match their lower unit costs of production. In this case brand image plays an important role because new competitors may find it difficult to gain access to delivering service, which will make it difficult to provide their service to customers or obtain the inputs required or find markets for their outputs. This is also closely tied in with the extent to which other businesses are brand loyal. The more loyal partners are to one supplier's products (for whatever reason) then the threat from substitutes will be accordingly reduced. If B2B are loyal to brands, there is likely to be less competition and what competition there is will be non-price competition. If there is little brand loyalty then competition will be more intense. If buyers are strong and there are close substitutes available for the product, the degree of competitive rivalry will be greater. A high degree of rivalry will usually compromise the potential profitability of an industry and will typically result in innovation which stimulates consumer demand for the products of the industry (Turban et al, 2004). References 1. McDonald M., Christopher M. 2003, Marketing: A complete Guide. Palgrave Macmillan. 2. Porter M.E. 1980, Competitive Strategy: techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors. New York, Free Press. 3. Turban, E. D. King, J. Lee, and D. Viehland. 2004. Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. 4. Welford, H. Gouldson, K., 1993. Environmental Management and Business Strategy, Pitman. Read More