WorkRight Employment Solutions - Research Paper Example

WorkRight Employment Solutions Samer AlSarraf December 9, MKT 501.81E – Marketing Management Professor Vergara Texas A&M University - Commerce Contents Introduction 4 Stages In Development Process 5 Product Development 9 The competitive environment 10 Environment Scan 10 Analyzing the Macro-environment 11 Social – Culture Environment 11 Packaging 12 Product Positioning 12 Test Marketing 13 Abstract WorkRight is a webpage that will provide employment solutions to the students of Texas A&M University Commerce (TAMU-C). It will be our first business initiative and a lot of market research was done before deciding on the type of business and target market. Our target market is the students of TAMU-C who are looking for full time and part time jobs. Our web page will be hosted by our university. Companies can post their jobs on our web pages and we can forward the resumes of students to them. Besides that we will also provide career counseling and training services. In career counseling we can help students figure out the kind of job they want. In training services, we will introduce courses where student can learn communication skills, computer skills etc. This start up will be for a good cause as it creates employment opportunities for students who have to pay their tuition fee and support their families. Introduction Market Research is a strategy that ensures an entrepreneur’s safety before he starts a new venture. It is important because the entrepreneur can weigh the pros and cons of doing business in a particular industry before making an important business decision. Market research comes before finance and legal formalities as it is the starting point for any enterprise. The nature of our service will be that it will consist of a website that will help students of Texas A&M University-Commerce (TAMU-C) to find jobs. This is an important service as it generates employment for fresh university students as well as for people who want to switch their present jobs. It depends on the producer how narrowly or widely he defines his target market and audience and it is this target market or audience that determines the amount, type and price of the producer’s output. My brand is a website for students at TAMU-C so that they can find jobs that match their degrees and skills. The name of my brand is WorkRight and the webpage will be hosted by the university. Stages In Development Process From the inception of a product till the end, a thorough analysis of the market is done and demand conditions are determined. The young students that WorkRight is targeting have a sophisticated demand for jobs (as they are educated and well-informed) and they keep themselves abreast with the changing employer requirements. I conducted surveys and handed out questionnaires to students at TAMU-C in order to see whether they liked the idea of a website that can help them in getting employed. The primary focus of WorkRight will be the students who do not have a family business and are seriously seeking full time or part time jobs. It is very difficult for an infant brand to compete with brands that are already established (for example monster.com), as they are huge and their quality is par excellence. They are not intimidated by new entrants because they are old brands and their product positioning and placement has been so successful that they have gained immense clout with target audience. There are online resources in the USA to create employment opportunities for war veterans like Military.com, MyNextMove.org and Indeed.com. These sites enable veterans to enter their skills and run a job search. This way jobs that match their skills are shortlisted (Glazer, Resources to Help Veterans Land a Civilian Job, 2011). Initiatives have also been taken by the Obama Administration to help Americans who are looking for federal jobs. There is website which started under this federal job program and it is called USAJobs.gov. When the Obama Office of Personal Management resolved to control USAJobs.gov and operate it in-house, it faced many difficulties such as crashing down of system because of the influx of job requests (The Wall Street Journal, 2011). A lot of companies find it difficult to manage so many job applications per day. Their daily operations are disturbed by emails, calls, mailed CVs etc. Companies have come up with a solution for this problem which is virtual career fair. Virtual Career Fairs are forums where employers and job seekers can virtually meet, irrespective of geographical boundaries. This saves time and efforts on the part of companies and applicants both. There are virtual booths where applications can find companies and vacant positions and apply accordingly. These virtual career fairs are promoted through the social media such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Information about these fairs is available at the websites of companies and interested candidate can learn about these forums from there. The P&G also conducted its European Virtual Fair and it received a good response as 900 people logged in. They belonged to countries like Russia and Turkey (Glazer, Virtual Fairs Offer Real Jobs, 2011). The above mentioned businesses inspired us to start WorkRight. Before starting any business venture it is important to ascertain the need for the product and whether demand for the product exists. At TAMU-C, a lot of students graduate each year and seek jobs and there are also those who want to work part time during the course of their education. So demand for a website like WorkRight is already there. The following stages will be followed in the development of WorkRight: 1. Idea Generation: Brainstorming is a very helpful activity and it generates numerous valuable ideas. A lot of successful firms encourage it before starting a new product (Berman, 2004). When we sat together and brainstormed, we came up with different ideas but the majority voted for the idea of a website that can generate employment for university students. When the topic was finalized, we narrowed our target market to students of TAMU-C only. 2. Product Screening: When firms have conjectured different ideas about different products, they do short listing after that in order to filter relevant, practical and useful ideas. In order to do product screening, we followed the standard procedure of a checklist. Our business plan was evaluated in the checklist on the basis of profit potential, existing competition, potential competition and size of market. For a website that works as an intermediary between employers and students in a USA university, there is great profit potential because sophisticated domestic demand exists and consumers are aware of good employers, average salaries of graduate students and the requirements of employers. Since there are well established and renowned pioneer websites like Monster.com, WorkRight will experience tough competition. Clients tend to trust renowned websites that have acquired significant brand equity over the years. 3. Business analysis: comes after product screening and is more thorough and focused comparatively. Business analysis is done on the basis of the following factors: a. Demand projections: are when the relationship between price and sales is ascertained and also the short run and long run sales potential, speed of sales growth and rate of repurchases are determined (Berman, 2004). Like any service that has a responsive price elasticity of demand, high charges will result in lower sales. So WorkRight will have to be discreet about the commission and profit that it will charge per job and the registration fee will also have to be affordable. b. Cost projections: In this the overall cost structure is defined for a product. For instance total and per unit costs, costs of overheads, sunk costs (like copyrighting costs), raw material costs and economies of scale and breakeven point are determined. Since the web page of WorkRight will be hosted by the university, costs of web hosting will be very less. It will not be realistic to assume that breakeven point will be reached immediately. It will definitely take some time, depending on the initial response of the target audience (Berman, 2004). c. Competition: can come from existing companies and new entrants like us will have to measure the level and intensity of competition. It is essential to know the market share of different competitors, theirs strengths and weaknesses and competitive strategies. The level of competition in this category is not huge as not many web sites target students of TAMU-C specifically. There are many different sites that help people who are seeking jobs but competition in the immediate internal environment is not there: there are no other websites like WorkRight run by TAMU-C students. However students from TAMU-C can surf sites like monster.com but these sites are not focused on TAMU-C students only (Berman, 2004). d. Required Investment: includes product planning (for example engineering, patent search, product development and testing), promotion, production and distribution. WorkRight will be patented as per the legal requirements. We will have to invest in research because we will assign Market Research companies like AC Nielson or Deloitte to do market research for us: for instance they will tell us about available jobs in different sectors of the economy and the rate of absorption of skilled labor in those sectors (Berman, 2004). e. Profitability: The initial pricing will be done in a manner so as to break even only because the major cause of concern for a new entrant is market penetration. If WorkRight gains popularity and experiences significant sales in the first four or five months, then prices will be increased gradually. But this price increase will not be huge as pricing will be done by keeping in mind the purchasing power and average household income of the target audience. Ratios such as Return on Investment will be calculated with the help of financial experts (Berman, 2004). Effective business analysis is an important stepping stone for product development which is an expensive process. Product Development This involves the manufacturing processes that transform raw materials into finished goods. An effective marketing strategy is also decided under product development. It is based on product construction, packaging, branding, product positioning and product testing. Product construction involves deciding on the type and quality of raw materials, method of production, costs and production time requirements per unit, plant capacity and the time lag between development and commercialization (Berman, 2004). The competitive environment There are many recruiting websites, but "WorkRight" is focusing on TAMU-C students only. What makes our website different from others is that it restricted to one university only. A recruiting website should consider several points besides offering vacancies such as offering training courses online for students who are seeking jobs. These courses can help them develop their skills in certain areas like communications. We will also follow up on people who found jobs through our website so that we can find out whether they are satisfied with their jobs or not. We can also conduct career fairs so that graduating students know about different companies, the salaries that they offer and about any growth opportunities than can exist in a company for them. But global giants like monster.com can give tough competition to us because of their size, reliability and brand equity. Environment Scan Demand forecast: TAMU-C has a good reputation and its education standard is quite high. TAMU-C graduate students have excellent skills and are very talented. Companies mostly want to recruit graduates from renowned institutions and TAMU-C is one such university which breeds leaders for tomorrow. The graduates who leave TAMU-C after rigorous education programs are very professional and do not procrastinate. They have a knack to solve complex problems and have leadership qualities in them. Market selection: Initially, WorkRight will upload job postings by companies and then forward students résumés. We will also provide proper counseling to students regarding career choice. This will empower students to make a sound career choice and they will know exactly what kind of work environment they can expect, the salary they will be paid and also the fringe benefits. Analyzing the Macro-environment Needs: There is definitely a need for a website like WorkRight in TAMU-C. WorkRight will post jobs advertisements and give students the opportunity to submit their résumés. Trend: We will primarily focus on students who do not have a family business and are seeking jobs. Also we will check the ratings of companies in terms of recruitment and salary packages and share this information with students who apply. This way there will be transparency and the students can make a better career choice. After the submission of resumes, companies will also have access to the student’s records from the university’s database. Social – Culture Environment The culture of the American society is such that parents encourage their children to earn a living after they attain the age of majority. Some students also do part time jobs to pay their tuition fee. So WorkRight is the most apt website for students in TAMU-C. Branding This starts from a catchy and appropriate brand name that can be easily recalled by the consumer. Branding is intended to show the product in a particular light for the purpose of exclusivity and brand image (Berman, 2004). The brand name WorkRight implies that it is a forum where students can find the right kind of work, the one they are looking for and the one that matches their skills. Packaging It is done to protect the product from physical damage and color and design play an important role in packaging (Berman, 2004). A web page is not a tangible good so it will not have physical packaging. But the color scheme can somewhat match the description of packaging. Sober colors like navy blue and white will be used to suit the gravity of the website’s purpose. Two web pages can be created and website split-testing can also be done to find out which one attracts the most customer traffic. Professionals will be outsourced the task of developing the web page for us but we will ensure that the cost is kept under control Product Positioning It is done to select a particular market segment for the product. It is to project the product in front of the other competing brands. Through product positioning, a company is better able to establish a brand image in the consumer’s mind (Berman, 2004). WorkRight will be positioned as a brand that is trustworthy, professional and student-oriented. It is intended to help university students with jobs. Attitude and Usage Testing This depends on the consumer entirely. It reflects how the consumer perceives the product and the level of utility that he derives from consuming the product (Berman, 2004). The way the consumer perceives a product can be influenced by marketing tactics and advertising. Attitude and usage testing also determines the future sales, whether they will be insignificant or significant. For instance we can influence how the students want to make use of the website: whether they will use if for full time jobs mostly or part time jobs. Test Marketing In order to incorporate practicality into the market research, test marketing is done, whereby a product is kept in a few shops so as to determine the success of the tentative marketing plan. It is a precautionary measure before entering a particular market. Test marketing is an effective way to predict future consumer behavior without having face to face interaction. An additional advantage of test marketing is that it brings forward the likely reaction of competitors. Test marketing is synonymous to the trial and error method and a firm can make changes to the product after it or abandon the product altogether (Berman, 2004). Test marketing will be done for WorkRight at TAMU-C’s computer labs where the majority of university students are found. Test marketing will be done for a period of two or three months for better results and anticipation. Commercialization Test Marketing is followed by commercialization (which is also an initial stage in the product’s life cycle), when the firm is ready to launch the product in the target market. Commercialization includes putting the marketing plan into action and commencing production. Under commercialization, it is essential to take into consideration: 1. The speed of acceptance by consumers: If a product is readily accepted by consumers then it entails that the product will be favorable for the company. For instance if WorkRight is appreciated and welcomed enthusiastically by consumers then it will give us motivation as entrepreneurs to carry on and start off with our business (Berman, 2004). 2. The intensity of distribution (number of outlets): The more the number of outlets, the more popularity a product gains. However it also results in higher operating costs. For our website, there will no outlets. We will form one office near our university campus from where we can work (Berman, 2004). 3. Production Capabilities: are the levels of output that can be produced by a firm. Production capabilities depend on the number of workers, machines and production methods. WorkRight will comprise of a team of students, who will bring in their own corporate contacts. If increases in demand for our service take place, then more students can be hired and more workers employed (Berman, 2004). 4. Promotional Mix: comprises of advertising, publicity, personal selling and sales promotions. There is a budget for promotion and each element of the promotional mix is allocated a slice of the budget. Advertising by definition is any paid form of non-personal communication, through the mass media about a product, service or idea by an identified sponsor (the market). The basic purpose of advertising is to inform the consumer about the product or coax him into buying it. There are various forms of advertising such as one-way communication, communication with groups of consumers, low-cost mass communication, selective communication, persuasive communication and commercial communication. WorkRight will use selective communication to educate consumers about its services and coax them into registering. Personal selling includes face to face interaction between a sales representative and customer. It is more effective as the customers gets a chance to ask questions directly and receives a prompt reply. He is better educated about the product this way. We will personally talk to our fellow students in order to promote our service (Johan Botha, 1998). Sales promotions consist of incentive tools that speed up the purchases of particular products or services. They are short term in nature. It is different from advertising because it provides consumers an incentive to buy. Examples of sales promotions will be coupons, cash refund offers and warranties. To attract students from our university, we can offer discounts to the first 50 participants, this will make WorkRight popular among university students (Kotler, 2009). 5. Prices: It is advisable that a new entrant charges reasonable price to the customer otherwise he will not be able to win over the customers from competitors. In order to penetrate a market, prices should be neither too high nor too low. WorkRight will set its initial prices in a manner so that they are sufficient enough to break even. With the passage of time, it can manage to increase commission slightly not greatly as it will cater students who pertain to the middle class and are seriously seeking jobs (Berman, 2004). 6. Competition: Measuring the level of competition and the market share of competitors is essential to know the strength of competition. The reach of WorkRight is only limited to TAMU-C and it does not have competition in university (Berman, 2004). 7. Time lag before profitability occurs: In order to have a realistic picture of the future market response, a significant time lag should be anticipated before a company can make profits. With the aid of market research companies and financial consultants, WorkRight can find out the time lag that has to pass before it can make profits (Berman, 2004). 8. Commercialization costs: Knowing the complete cost structure is helpful as it helps a firm in anticipating profits, breakeven point and the margin of safety. New entrants should bear in mind that their commercialization costs are not excessive otherwise they can incur huge losses in the beginning, which might deter them from continuing production. WorkRight will try its utmost to keep commercialization costs at a moderate level by allocating a set budget to it. Companies will also find WorkRight very useful in their recruitment process. It will save their time and will not have to entertain applications of those whose skills do not match the companies’ requirements. So the whole recruitment process will speed up and companies will get a chance to hire talented students from a renowned university like TAMU-C. On the other hand students will get a chance to apply for their dream jobs. SWOT Analysis The greatest strength of WorkRight is that it is backed by TAMU-C so the students will find it reliable because they know the university cannot risk its reputation with something which is substandard. Students who graduate from TAMU-C will not have to search elsewhere for jobs because they are available right at a web page hosted by their university. Since it is a site to find jobs for TAMU-C’s students, the university will make a conscious effort to promote its alumni because these students will also improve the brand equity of the university. Another strength of this website will be its low start up cost as it is hosted by the university. WorkRight will provide additional services such as write effective resumes for students. Weakness of WorkRight can be that it is not a service new to the industry or new to the world. The idea is not unique and there are already pioneers like Monster Inc. These pioneers attract most of the job seekers and they have established excellent brand equity. Channels The buyer and seller both are part of channels. WorkRight will be using a zero level or a direct marketing channel. It will market its product through the internet and also through social networking sites such as Facebook and twitter .There will not be any intermediaries. Since WorkRight is only restricted to one university, it can easily use a direct marketing channel. It can distribute brochures in the campus and paste posters on soft-boards (Kotler, 2009). Public Relations Before the end of every semester, we will organize events where the university students will get a chance to interact directly with companies. This way both the companies and students will become aware of each other’s requirements. Conclusion WorkRight is a brand that will work to create employment for students while they are studying and also after they graduate. However we will give more importance to full time jobs and coordinate with companies who are seeking employees for permanent job basis. We are confident that our website will gain popularity with students of TAMU-C. In the long term, if we have established ourselves in TAMU-C permanently, we can expand and target students from other universities as well. References Berman, J.R. (2004). “Marketing in the 21st Century”, Atomic Dog Publishing. Glazer, E.(2011a). “Resources to Help Veterans Land a Civilian Job”, the Wall Street Journal Glazer, E.(2011b). “Virtual Fairs Offer Real Jobs”, the Wall Street Journal Johan Botha, J.S. (1998). “Introduction to Marketing”, Cape Town: Paarl Print. Kotler, P. (2009). “Marketing-Management”, Pearson/Prentice Hall. The Wall Street Journal. (2011). “USAjobs.gov”, The Wall Street Journal, pp.12 Read More