Thorpe Park marketing and operations management analysis - Report Example

Thorpe Park marketing and operations management analysis (Word count 2260) Executive summary The essay focuseson challenges that Thorpe Park faces, focus would be on two department; marketing and invest in new products and analyse their impact on the overall performance per given period. The two departments are related but marketing deals with the external components of any good and services while Operations management deals with the internal forces and at the same time focuses on the general firm’s position. The two departments work in differently but one the same organizational goals to give desired outputs. These outputs are based on the customer demands and profit maximization objectives. There is need to draw a conclusion based on the performance and involvement of the managers (Babin, & Attaway, 2000). The manager needs to communicate and interact freely with all departments so as to identify risks and opportunities in a work place. The work place and employee’s welfare should be paramount while creating procedures. MARKETING Pricing While delivering these products a pricing strategy was designed to cater for the needs of the customers. The pricing strategy involves an online platform which offers special prices on their product. The strategy is aimed at customers from different given geographical location and providing the customers with the much needed convenient services while using the products. The other pricing strategies involve promotional prices which in this case are offering a given package at discounted prices. The promotions run for a specified period of time. The time frame given by the firm would allow attraction of more customers. An increase client base will indicate improvement in sales and upon satisfaction the company will retain some customers (Wong, 2014 a). The company will use ‘the retained customers’ model to attract more customers. Customer recommendations are more important the most advantageous means to promote a given product. The pricing is base on the market segmentation which the company employs. It singles out the nature of the customers, ranging from family visits to individual visits. A home package is included in the pricing. According to Moore (2014) there is a sense of mixed trends in the marketing strategies. The year between 2010- 2012 saw the park registering a reduced third party online purchase hence the discount offered are aimed at increasing these figure to a desired target(see graph 1, appendix). The years also indicated an improved nature in the promotional prices. There is the tendency of the company spending more on promotion and in the end affecting the company’s returns. Place There is need to monitor and identify factors that ensures consumer satisfaction. Bigne et al (2003: 834) identify and related traditional customer satisfaction to cognitive assumption. Thorpe Park has designed new products which include angry birds and accommodation services. The department involved has identified the family setup as their target market. The target market has to be satisfied (Crags, 2009). The park has had to invest in products that are ideal to all family members. The marketers at the park have chosen to target the parents as a way of creating a loyal customer base the concepts is enhanced by assuring security to their children. The children are being sold ideas and good based on one theme of the angry bird. The company has segmented their market into four. The first group involves the parents who by any means need to be assured of security and value for their money. The other target group is the young and older kids. The marketing strategy deployed by the park is aimed at gaining trust and loyalty from the kids. The age lacks the ability to make informed decisions and targeting the groups means the company should focus on improving the environment, which includes the parents and products being offered. The last two groups are the teenagers and the young adults. The age is triggered by emerging trends and the themes and products being introduced by the park ought to focus on these aspects (Ehmke et al, 2011). The company’s decision to focus on diversity is aimed at increasing the market share and at the same time increases their sales. Promotion The final aspect of the analysis is the promotional bit of the park’s services. The target market has been deployed as a means of designing the company’s advertisement strategy. The idea by the management to use the world cup qualifier as a means of selling their ides is a calculated move (Wong, 2014 b). The high number of youths watching and getting involved in sports makes the event a proper promotional tool to the target market. The media partners also creates a key tool in which the firms sales their ideas. The partners offer low cost as compared to other channels hence help the company in reducing the advertisement costs. The other avenue in which the company aims at selling its products is the Jonathan Ross show. The show gives representation by the family members. Recommendation It is recommended that park has to identify their priorities with focus and efforts being laid on the dangers and threats that the immediate environment. The external environment includes the customer and the rival company (Kozak, 2001). The company has segment its management structure with each being given the opportunity to solve issues form the factors affecting the company. The result is the controlled the satisfaction nature brought about by the firm. Improvement on the park would be based will base their policy and organization structure. The marketers at the pack need to aim at products that are general in nature. This will aid in the park’s efforts of creating a trade mark product. The Park uses only three of the marketing mix to present their product they fail to identify the aspect place aspect in their market mix. The idea will only be appreciated the loyal customers. Potential customers and new customers would fail to relate the concepts to their previous satisfaction which will prompt them to choose alternatives. Adjustment to the marketing strategies is recommended, improvements at the park would be enhanced by the nature in which the park maximises revenue. The marketing mix will attract customers who will contribute to the revenue. Customers may fail to identify the products location which in any marketing structure it recommended to first to identify location before embarking in promotional strategies. In reality it is clear on how the firm is determined to increase their market share and efforts are being enhanced internally with little investment on external factors being deployed. Thus additional information and detailed guidelines should be handed to the customer as a means of preparing the customer through the services. The other aspects depend on the market segmentation. The management is focused on geographical segmentation in that each region is given specific attention depending on their cultures and preferences of the customers (Greasley, 1999). The utilization of diverse means of marketing should be used as a tool in advertisement as each need of the customer should be highlighted before designing a framework to be used by the marketing team. Failure to identify these factors may lead the customers either ignoring the products or shift their loyalty to rival businesses. The firm needs to intensify their online department by creating a platform in which the clients can interact freely and inquire for services. Discounts in most cases are related to low quality hence the management ought to establish a pricing strategy that both satisfy the customer and at the same time realise there profitability objectives. While offering discounts a seasonal concept should be adopted (Greasley, 1999). Customers tend to associate discounts to low quality; hence the notion may affect the manner in which customers consume the service offered by the firm. The pricing should not only favour the online customers but should include the loyal customers as a means of retaining these customers. The customers’ needs services that assure value for their money hence prices being charged to any product should reflect the customers’ needs. They should not be exploitative but should be inclusive and considerate. OPERATIONS MANAGER The major challenge facing Thorpe Park is the changing patterns of the visitors. The patterns affect the nature in which the company organizes its patterns. They are time where the park experiences low levels of visitors these are November 10, may 19 and March 24 (see graph 2, appendix). The off peak from the graph shows the less number of activities being undertaken in these months. The number of staff and resources then are underutilized. The operations managers are then left to deal with the problem of ideal capacity. The managers then are tasked with managing the situation while at the same time balancing the cost to be incurred in the operations. The period would call for immediate action in which the managers will ensuring smooth operations on the off peak dates while at the same time avoiding bottlenecks that would result from the underutilization of resources. New products The other challenge faced by the operations manager at the pack is the introduction of new products and proposed design. The manager is then challenged to evaluate the performance of the new product in relation to the existing operations. There needs to be a balance between the overall production output and the amount of labour employed. The manager focuses on the performance of the new products and operations design while at the same time maintain the overall output of previous designs. The balance from the two production lines would need more than just the management aspect but the leadership skills. The threat of the new operation designs posses to the employee and the production staffs is reduced motivation (Schonberger & Knod, 2003). The low outputs results to poor customer relation. Diversity The diversity of products in the firm has seen many designs and products being offered to consumers. There is a high rate of adults that use the parks accommodation service. The challenges that the managers at this stage faces are the change of operations to cater for the new breed of customers. The unexpected trends will see all the department focus on satisfying the customers (Brown et al, 2013). The operations manager is tasked with balancing inventory and design new plans that would not affect the park’s final output and revenue. This may pose danger to the general operation due to the unexpected event. The high investment cost on the new products and the anticipated benefit from the overall operations of the new service and the existing employee structure (Pickton & Amanda, 2005). The challenge on the operational manger is on how to formulate measures and values that will improve various operational components and improve the overall performance (Slack, 2010). These measures involves would integrate the services of both groups of employees to produce quality services to the customers. Technology The operations manager needs to identify when to introduce new products. The manager need to design models to be used while operating the new assets. While working with the marketing team there is need to analyse the market and create internal mechanisms that would aid in the full implementation of the new concepts. Feedbacks from customers are used as a concept while measuring performance of the new product. The technological application in the Park’s operation has been the reason behind its expansion and success. The ancient concepts are being replaced by technological advancement; operations at the firm are motivated by changing trends hence the manager needs to identify how to merge the technology with existing model. Recommendation The first recommendation to the managers is for them to formulate a worker’s schedule that bridges gaps between the new the desired output and the actual quality of workers.. The integration of the two would ensure that the output is improved in both time and quality. The quality and the output can be improved upon by the manager and their production plan (Hayes, 2000) There needs to be clearly stated role in which each employee has to follow. The manager should also ensure that the service delivery process in park reflects the amount of resources deployed in the business. The business operates under a specified and constraint budget and the manager needs to work within the specific limits. The peak periods should be ideal for the manager and should use the period in advocating for utilization of the available resources. The manager needs to include measure that will cut on cost used in service delivery. The first method involves preferring to of use outsourced services in order to reduce wastage in cost through idle capacity (Bayraktar, 2000). Utilization of idle capacity would ensure the park realise its operational capacity. Motivation is the main aspect in any smooth operation failure in which the company is threatened to experience minimal and limited outputs. The employees should be assigned duties that are specified and should work for shorter periods and handed breaks. The structural composition of the workers should allow interchanged of employees. This will improve the quality of production. The operations manager has to ensure the customer are delivered with good on time while at the same time focus on the services being offered and the providers at this case are the customers who need motivation and improved environment to produce to the maximum. The manager has to eliminate the barriers that results to bottleneck in service delivery. The most important thing is the way the manager interact each other and make informed decision based on matters concerning the firm. The final aspect of the Park and concerns is those by the disabled and how they can assess the services at the park. The challenge to the manager is to design products that are readily available and accessible to all. Limited access to these services should be dealt with the disabled population given a fair treatment. The hiring of new staff to supplement the existing ones would either improve performance or the affect the motivational nature of the old employees. Hence it is recommended that new staff should be used as a means of improving the quality of product and improving the services to customers. Internal formulations need to combine the customers’ expectation and the organisational objectives. It is the duty of the operations manager to ensure these customers achieve their satisfaction. Satisfaction should be more than quantity but should include quality with each operational unit being mandated to ensure these services are provided. The number o staff should be in line with the size of the customers. Reference Babin, B. J., & Attaway, J. S. 2000. 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Boston: Harvard business school Kozak, M. 2001. A critical review of approaches to measure satisfaction with destinations. In J. A. Mazanec, G. I. Crouch, J. R. B. Ritchie, & A. G. Woodside (Eds.). Consumer psychology of tourism hospitality and leisure, (pp. 303–320). CABI: Oxon Moore, N. 2014. Brands partnership manager: welcome to Thorpe resort. London: Thorpe Philip, K. & Keller, Lane, K .2009.Marketing Management. London: Pearson Education International, Pickton, D., & Amanda, B .2005. Integrated marketing communications, 2nd .edition, pp.371- 398, London: Pearson education Schonberger, R. & Knod E. 2003. Operations Management: Customer Focused Principles, 14th edition. London: McGraw Hill/Irwin Slack, N., chambers, S., & Johnston, R.2010. Operations management ,4th edition. London: Pearson education. Wong, E. 2014b, Marketing of attractions. PowerPoint presentation, VAM Wong,E. 2014a.Development of attractions. PowerPoint presentation, VAM. Appendix Graph 1 (adopted: Moore, 2014) Graph 2 (adopted: Moore, 2014) Read More