Suggest and justify ways in which Waitrose can continue to maintain and develop the strong brand image it has established for their new range of Regional Recipe Indian Meals.
The value chain is a concept that was first proposed by Porter. Discuss how you feel this notion can be applied in the context of this particular case study.
What marketing research activities do you feel are most appropriate for Waitrose to commissionin order to test consumer opinion towards this new range of mealstodetermine the most likelyconsumercore target groups.
Assuming that this new range of regional recipe Indian meals is successful, suggest ways in which Waitrose can plan to diversify its product range into other regional recipe meals.
Waitrose is working in partnership with Noon Products for providing various types of Indian dishes to the customers of the UK. The trend of testing different types of regional foods is increasing day by day. The company is trying to grow their business with the help of this psychology of their target customers. There are many Indians who are living in the UK and prefer the Indian regional foods which are not easily available in the UK market (Hoyer and Stokburger 2012). The company is targeting those customers with a high level of priority. Besides these customers people of UK who have a good income structure are interested in tasting different types of foreign foods. The growing sophistication is the key philosophy behind the increasing demand of the Indian foods in the UK market. The objective of the company is to deliver the fresh quality of foods to their customers. Four sections of India have been selected for the preparations of the regional foods (Durante and Griskevicius 2016). The four regions are Madras, Goa, Punjab and Hyderabad. Noon Products is an established company which is able to deliver the required raw materials for the preparation of the regional Indian foods in the UK market. The agreement between the two companies is associated with the detailed specifications of the products and the technical equipments required for preparing the Indian foods (Pons et al. 2013).
In order to get the desired level of success, the company needs to conduct a good market research to understand the opportunity of the business and or develop effective marketing strategy for developing the good brand image and get the desired level of profits from the new business idea of the company (Solomon 2014). This company has to develop a good brand image to attract the customers towards the products of the company. In this report the marketing research of the company will be conducted and some strategies will be suggested to develop the brand image, increasing the effectiveness of the value chain and diversify the products of the company (Walker et al. 2014).
This concept is nothing but the perceptions of the customers about the products and services of a company (Aaker 2013). The level of brand image is depends on the association of the customers with the company. It is about the present emotional value and the social attachment of the customers to the company. Brand image is a characteristic of a company which should be positive to attract the customers. It helps the business organizations to differentiate themselves from the potential customers. The company has the aim of developing a positive and instant brand image which will be able to help them to get the desired level of customers and thus the high amount of revenues (Dall’Olmo et al. 2014).
Brand image develops and moves on the item’s characteristics in a one of a kind way unique in relation to its rival’s image (Aghekyan et al. 2012). The brand image is the combination of different relationship in buyers’ perception, advantages and characteristics of the brand’s products. Brand qualities are the practical and mental attachments with the brand of the products that the clients are using. Advantages of the products are the basic fact for making the buying choice by the customers (VaitkeviÄÂius et al. 2015). Brand properties are purchasers’ general evaluation of a brand.
According to Michel and Rieunier (2012), brand image cannot be created, it is a general perception of the customers which is automatically developed in their minds through the different types of operations of the company. The brand image is associated with items’ appeal, convenience, utility, popularity, and general quality. At the time of shopping, the customers are automatically buying the image of the products. Brand image is the mental criticism of the buyers when they buy an item from the company. Positive brand image is developed when the products are able to meet all the requirements of the consumers. Positive brand image can increase the reputation and brand opinion of the products of an organization.
The effective way of using different strategies for improving the brand image of the company, have been discussed in the section given below.
Packaging:
Packaging helps to attract the customers and improving the brand image of the company. The company will use unique designs for the packaging of their food products. The packaging should be done by the experienced people in the area of design and development (Jones 2015). The packaging of the products is the first thing which appears in the mind of the customers. Therefore, the packages of the products should reflect the quality and attractiveness of the food products of the company (Freling and Forbes 2013). They will use exclusive designs and a special logo of their company in the packaging of the products. Besides the attractive design, the details about the quality assurances of the products will be written on the packages of the products (Williams 2014). The health and hygienic facts of the foods and the materials used for the preparation of the foods will be written on the packages of the foods.
Advertising:
Advertising is required for promoting the attractiveness of the food products of the company. The company will give advertisements in three popular media. They are TV, news papers and social media for developing the awareness of their products and services (Balasubramanian 2015). It is the way of informing the target customers about what they are trying to deliver to them and what will be the potential advantages of the products to the customers (Grohs and Reisinger 2014). Waitrose will give the advertisements in the TV channels and news papers about the descriptions different kinds of Indian regional food products with some pictures of the foods (Paul and Rana 2012). These activities in the packaging of the products will help to improve the brand image of the company.
Quality assurance of the products:
The company should assure that they are providing the richest quality of the food products. The customers will remember that they will be able to get the finest food products in this company. The quality of the food products will be dependent on the factors like the taste, healthiness and hygienic factors of the food products (Malik 2013). The social media will be used to develop the brand image of the company with the help of a good customer relationship management. The company will develop a social media page in Facebook and the representative of the company will interact with the customers through this platform (Ajzen 2015). They will gather the feedbacks of the customers about their food products and services (Maheshwari and Kumar 2013). The issues or complaints raised by the customers in the social media pages should be resolved by the company for improving their brand image.
Price:
At the beginning level of the business, the company should deliver the products at a low price compared to other food supplier companies. The ability of providing best quality foods in an affordable pricing range will help the company to develop a positive impression on the minds of the customers (Raj and Roy 2015).
Customer Service:
One of the most important facts of the brand image development is the customer services provided by the company. The brand image of the company can be improved to a higher positive level by providing effective level of customer services by the company (Zdravkovic and Till 2012). The employees will deliver a polite behavior to the customers at the time of delivering the foods to them. They should also resolve the quires of the customers in the social media pages of the company.
A value chain is a collection of practices that a company uses for making estimation to deliver proper product or services to the consumers. Porter developed a broadly useful value chain model that can be used by the organizations to look at all of their strategies and will be able to understand the impact of the strategies. The way in which the value chain practices of the organizations are performed is responsible for deciding the expenses and influences benefits, so this instrument is able to offer the company some useful help for the important activities of the supply chain model and other operations (Domingo 2015).
This model concentrates on frameworks, and the way of changing the inputs into the outputs as the products bought by the customers (Krylov 2014). Using this concept, Porter developed a chain of basic activities for all organizations, and he separated them into necessary and bolster activities, as demonstrated in the section below.
(Source: Dutta and Jackson 2013)
These are the activities which are involved with the physical development of the production, marketing and sales operations of the company. Different types of primary activities are described in the section below.
Inbound logistics: These activities are the processes associated with the receiving, storing and distributing the raw materials and other equipments which are treated as the inputs of the business process of the company (Merat and Bo 2013). In this area, the company needs to develop good relationship with the suppliers. The relationship with the supplier company Noon products is very good which will provide effective level of help in managing the inbound logistic operations.
Operations: These are the activities which are changing the inputs and outputs of the company’s business (Lahrichi 2013). The operations for different types of Indian regional food products will be different as these will require different types of raw materials and transportation facilities. The operations regarding the preparation of foods should be designed by ensuring the efficiency of preparing all the products.
Outbound logistics: These are the activities which are used to deliver the products to the customers (Rothaermel 2015). The company needs different types of outbound logistics facilities to ensure the effective level of delivery of the products to the individual customers. As an example, some of the products need cooling facilities where some of the products require the warming facilities for being delivered to the customers.
Marketing and sales: The activities are associated with the delivery of the products and collecting the money from the customers (Yeung and Zhao 2015). The people of the sales and marketing department of the company are the responsible persons for the proper delivery of the products and collecting money against the products of the company, in this are the employees f the company needs to provide a high level of customers services for developing a god brand image. They will resolve the queries of the customers and provide the required facilities against the money paid by the customers against the products and services of the company.
Service: The service activities are performed to maintain the good customer relationship by providing the effective level of supports to the customers (Domingo 2015). If something delivered to the customers found in bad condition should be immediately replaced by the employees of the company.
These activities are able to bolster the company’s primary activities as described in the above section. In the given diagram, the spotted lines are used for demonstrating the fact that every backing, or optional, movement can be assumed as important parts in each of the primary activities. These activities are different for different types of organizations depending on the type of business they are conducting.
Procurement or purchasing: This is the activity, which the organizations perform to get the assets they need to work (Moore and Owner 2014). This exercise is associated with discovering merchants and arranging best costs. In this area, the company needs to follow the cost leadership strategy. This will help the company to provide the best quality food products in the best reasonable prices.
Managing the human resource: According to Jin et al. (2014), human resource is the most valuable asset of an organization. This is the way well an organization initiates, contracts, trains, persuades, remunerates, and holds its specialists. The organizations can make a realistic point of concern with great human resource management. The company needs to motivate their employees by providing the required facilities and rewards to them. These will help them to get the best level of efforts form the employees which will increase the productivity and profitability of company.
Technological development: These are the activities which are used for identifying with administrating and preparing data, and by ensuring an organization’s learning base. Minimizing the costs of data innovation, staying with the updated mechanical advances for improving the quality. The operations management of the company can be efficiently done with the help of the Information Technology (Thomas et al. 2014). The tools like the data base management will help the company to summarize the relevant data in the different sections of the business and the feedbacks of the customers. This will help the company to develop a customer focused business strategy for attracting more customers and improving the brand image of the company.
Infrastructure: The activities of the infrastructure development are associated with the different types of managerial activities that permit efficient business operations of the company. Accounting, lawful, managerial, and general administrations are the samples of necessary base that the company can use for further improvement of their future growth. In this area, the company will develop a modern, neat and clean infrastructure for the business.
Organizations use these necessary and bolster practices as “building pieces” for making an important component for the strategy or administration.
Identifying the sub-activities for the primary and supportive activates of the company using Porter’s value chain analysis model:
Direct activities are the activities which are involved with the direct operations of the business strategy (Yeung and Zhao 2015). These can be special discounts to the customers for increasing the sale over a short time period. The can use also use the online platform for increasing the sale of the Indian regional foods to the customers.
Indirect activities are those which help a company to run other operations smoothly. Effective management of the employees through some special motivational activities can be considered as the indirect activities.
Quality assurance is very vital activity for the development of the brand image of the company. In this area, the employees of the company should taste the food products before delivering those to the customers.
The management of the company should recognize the links between the different types of business operations of the company. In this area the Sales force motivation is highly related to the productivity and the sales volume of the business.
Marketing research refers to the method or set of methods, which can connect the makers, consumers, and end users to the management of the company through relevant data. It is the ordered method of collecting, recording, and examining the subjective and quantitative information about strategies of marketing and administrations. The main aim of marketing research is to identify and evaluate how the important components of the marketing strategy are changing the perceptions of the customers of the company.
The company can also gather the descriptive data by conducting the qualitative market research in the area of the target customers for the regional Indian foods in the UK market. The qualitative data can be gathered through interviewing the customers of the company (Jones and Penaluna 2013). In this process, the customers will be asked about the product and services of the company of the specific Indian regional food products.
In this case, the quantitative market research is the most effective one as it will help to collect more data in shorter time period. The analysis of the data collected through the quantitative market research will be easier through the statistical analysis. The market research will be conducted through the use of some survey questionnaires (Funk 2013). The survey questionnaires will be developed by using some close ended questions. The motive of the survey will be the collection of the customer feedbacks regarding the quality, affordability and other factors of the Indian regional food products and the customers. Data about the customers’ perception about the customer services provided by the company will also be gathered through the survey.
Each of the questions will have some specific options. The respondents just have to choose the options as per their choices. The respondents will be aware about the purpose of the market research before taking part in the market research of the company (Moore and Owner 2014). After taking the responses from the respondents, the company will gather the data in tabular format and the statistical analysis will be done for understanding the efficiency level of the products and services of the company.
Result of the market research will help the company to identify the strategies which are the main strengths of the business. This will be able to understand the weaknesses also. Which of the product or services are positively affecting the customers and which are affecting negatively can be determined after analyzing the results of the market research (Jandaghi and Hosseini 2015). The management of the company will be able to improve the business strategy by focusing on the strengths and minimizing the weaknesses of their business strategy. In this way they will be able to improve their brand image to a higher level.
Conducting the survey by meeting the individual person will not be a feasible method. Some of the customers can be surveyed at the time of purchasing the products in the counters of the company (Jin et al. 2014). But, most of the surveys will be conducted through the social media over the internet. The Survey questionnaires will be distributed among the customers through the seu fo social media and then the feedbacks of the customers will be gathered as the soft copy. The analysis of the data will be conducted using the tools of the information technology.
The customer service of the company will be improved to a very high level by following the recommendations based on the results of the marketing research (Berkowitz 2013). With the help of the improved level of customer service and the brand image the company will be able to get the desired level of success in generating greater revenues from the business of the regional Indian foods.
The Waitrose Company should be focusing on the planning of the addition of the new business activities to for thinking of further diversification. The implementation of further diversification can be a complex process which does not guarantee the boost of the food business but can be also be rewarding like the Indian cuisine from the other regions of the country including Madras, Goa, Punjab and Hyderabad . Now, the company wants to explore on its business expansion and diversify its business processes by involving the regional food from another Indian cuisine belonging to Kolkata i.e., the Bengali Cuisine (Yeung and Zhao 2015). The company also wants to expand its variety of food cuisine by involving the Chinese Cuisines as well (Viorica 2013). Now, for the diversification process, the company needs to outline the various possibilities for the diversifying of its business. Thus, the company needs to plan, prepare, and develop new strategies for implementing the diversification process in the future.
This process includes the identifying the professional advisor if the diversification would work for the company (Jones and Penaluna 2013). In order to be aware of the diversification, the company should be evaluating the taste preferences of the customers who are residing in the UK.
The Bengali cuisine generally comprises of seafood product with the emphasis on fishes along with the rice, vegetables, lentils etc. Bengali cuisine is also popular for its subtle flavors and its spread of confectionaries and desserts. The variety of foods will be able to attract more customers towards the company (Navarro 2015). Though, the people in the UK like eating fish, the local shops shows 28 percent fall in the availability of fresh fish (Thomas 2014). With the 51% of the UK adults, consuming fish, which is continuing to be increased in the near future, this inclusion of Bengali cuisine, would enable the customers in the country to make seafood available to them with the twist in the flavors.
The Chinese cuisine includes the use of a lot of garlic, shallots, spices that prefer seafood to fowl and meat. The staple food of the cuisine includes the rice, noodles, soybeans, and vegetables. From the above diagram, it can be evident that the average purchase of the Chinese food items per person in UK is 12 grams outside home, which is going to be increased in the future. Thus, this could be taken as an opportunity for the Waitrose Company to exploit in the UK market.
This is the second step, which involves the estimation of the project plan for the implementation of the diversification plan related to the food business of the Waitrose Company in the UK. As the supplier, Noon Products for the company is applying the raw materials from the Indian market to the company; there would be no difficulty in acquiring the raw material for another city of India. Now, for getting the raw materials in respective of Chinese Cuisines, the company would require negotiating with the Noon Products or any other appropriate supplier for supplying the raw materials required for the Chinese Cuisine. The planning process also includes the recruitment of chefs, kitchen managers, and staff that specializes in making the Indian and Chinese Cuisine.
This is the third step, which involves the implementation and execution of the project plan after a detailed assessment of the planning process. By analyzing the financial statements and feasibility of the project, the project managers are required to approve the diversification plan before initiating the project. This initiation of the project is followed by the analyzing the cost and benefit ratios and conducting the feasibility analysis on the project plan for diversification.
After completing the report about the business strategy of the company, it can be concluded that the business of the company has very good opportunity in the present market of the UK. The company has to develop a positive brand image through the use of the effective customer services and providing the richest quality products to the customers in an affordable price range. The brand image of the company can be developed by providing the effective advertisements in the popular media such as TV, news papers and the social media. The brand image if the company will help the, to attract more customers towards their products. The company is trying the use the trend of tasting different types of foreign foods by the common people of the UK. The social media platform will help the company to develop a good relationship with the customers. They will be able to understand the requirements of the customers by using the social media platform. After analyzing Porter’s value chain analysis, it has been found that the company has to develop proper strategy for the HRM and other operations management. Marketing research is required for understanding the consumer behavior and the perception of the customers about the products. The market research will be quantitative in nature. The quantitative research will be conducted by using the survey questionnaires. Most of the surveys will be conducted through social media platform. The soft copy of the feedbacks of the customers will be analyzed by gathering the data in the computers and then analyze those with the help of the statistical tools of the information technology. After getting success with the regional Indian food products, the company will try to diversify their business by introducing new types of foods from different regions of the whole world. Thos will help the company to grow their business and develop their brand image to a higher level.
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