Describe about the analysis of sales and marketing, analysis of operations and analysis of finance of the Iconic?
The current report will be focusing on analyzing the condition of The Iconic which is based by it. The assignment will be concentrating on evaluating the present and future strategies in context to sales and marketing, HR, operations, IT and Finance. Therefore, different concepts will be applied that will help in solving the issues of the company.
The Iconic has successfully adopted the online marketing strategy by making an easy navigable website. The homepage of the Iconic shows two major tabs – Shop Women and Shop Men giving clear purchasing directions to the visitors. The predictive eye tracking attention map shows that the marketing strategy of Iconic focuses largely on women (Pandey, 2012).
The online retailer also provides access to gender specific homepage that the online customers can access on selection of the preferable gender. The specific target oriented selling strategy has helped Iconic to secure rapid sales growth. Moreover, the adoption of direct marketing strategies like creation of mobile responsive website has contributed in making The Iconic the second most successful e commerce site of Australia (Hanafizadeh and Behboudi, 2012).
The online retailer increases the sales by featuring the most popular products on the category homepage. For instance on the Shop men section, the retailer features the shoes because they are the commonly demanded products by men. This has helped Iconic to incur sales as much as 70% in each category. The use of the shopping filter within the category links have made it easier for the online customers to find the desired product easily (Ginty, Vaccarello and Leake, 2012).
Although the online website marketing strategy of The Iconic is successful enough to attract high sales, however the online retailer must consider other marketing strategies as well. It is advisable for Iconic to improve the SEO marketing and improve the content visualization of its website further. The highlighting of the “Add to bag button” may increase the sales more (Krstic and Becic, 2011).
Moreover, media marketing and PR strategies are also necessary for Iconic in order to make the customers aware of the presence of the online retailer. The competition from the traditional retailers like Woolworths, Wesfarmers and traditional clothing companies like Billabong can affect the growth rate of Iconic. Hence, the company to retain its position should include more international fashion brands like Nike, Adidas, Gucci, Zara, Paul Smith, CK etc.
The company should make investments in Social marketing through celebrity promotions in order to attract word o mouth marketing. The winter campaign of The Iconic on the social sites like twitter and Face book was able to generate high customer visits on the online website and in the winter collection category.
The company employs human resource manager and customer retention manager separately in order to build separate and innovative marketing strategies (Li, 2013). The number of website visits shows the loyalty rate of the customers and the human resource managers makes use of the rate to devise the strategies effectively. The HR management of the company focuses on high customer interaction and delivery of optimized customer services (Fox, 2012). The HR and the employees within the online retail shop are engaged in daily up gradation of the website content and making changes in the visualization of the products and discount offers. This has helped the constant market growth of the online company.
The company’s major focus is on development of content marketing since the major activity of the company is online based. Hence, the employees working to improve the website visualization and making strategies to develop customer satisfaction are not able to interact with the real market strategies. Hence, the company should focus more on the performance appraisal systems and non-monetary employee benefits like discount cards for online shopping from The Iconic. The company should also arrange for recreational activities for the employees in order to increase their engagement and motivate their thinking skills.
The Iconic is a well known business which is engaged in supplying fashion accessories and footwear. The company holds top brands such as Academy Brand, Adidas, Converse, Guess, Ben Sherman and many other brands to provide quality and latest goods to the customers (Theiconic.com.au, 2015). On the other hand, it has been understood that there has been decline in their sales which significantly affected the image of the company. Apart from that, the company does not have enough local warehouses and due to that company is not able to increase their service. However, the retail operation of The Iconic is effectively engaged in managing day to day activities in order to increase the profits. Apart from it, there is inventory management complexity which makes tough for the company to acclimatize their business sculpt to e-commerce (Mishra and Ansari, 2013).
In order to improve the operation, the company will have to establish local warehouse so that large amount of service can be delivered to customers and on time. Moreover, it will help in arranging the fashion products and footwear if there is high demand for it. On the other hand, Just In Time approach will be helpful in arranging the inventory to meet the current demand of customers. Therefore, the customers do not have to wait for the product and it will be effective to increase their sales and profit margin (Corwin and Pope, 2013). Moreover, the cost of inventory management will be minimized and that cost can be used for investing in business growth. Apart from that Lean Six Sigma will be effective in reducing the process cycle times and return on investment will be improved.
The use of information technology is advantage for any business to grow and reach out to large customer circles. Therefore, The Iconic is also making use of online service to market their product. Having being said, the company is facing stiff competition in the online market from other retail houses and due to that the company might lose their market share in online market. Therefore, this would certainly decrease the revenue and earnings (Hossain and El-shafie, 2013). On the other hand, it is known that e-commerce is only able to provide 7% to 8% of total retail majorly from fashion. Thus, it can be understood that company is not able to generate high margin from e-commerce. Apart from that, the company today is not highly banking on the local online retail industry.
It has been analysed from the IT that The Iconic is doing well in terms of information technology. The Point of Sale System will be helpful in capturing the information at the time and placing sale by utilizing the personal computers which can be connected to bar code readers, optical scanners, cash registers. Apart from that Radio Frequency Identification can be valuable to hold information of individual customer and products can be tracked till its delivery to the customers (Chu, 2013). Moreover, the use of social network will be effective such as Facebook, Twitter, My Space, and Google +, etc. This would help in remaining connected with the large customer base and making them aware about the latest accessories and footwear products.
It can be analysed from the published report of The Iconic that the company is making less investment in the local online retail industry which may turn against the company to provide quick service to local customers. On the other hand, there has not been done much in context to local warehouse and less investment has been made in this field. Apart from that, it has also be known that company in January 2013, has invested about $25 million in venture capital funds and furthermore $28 million in July 2013. Therefore, it can be accounted that company is making investment in bigger projects but concentrating less on the local market that could help the company in increasing their market share (Smith, 2015).
In order to become market leader in retail industry sector, the company may need to invest in profitable sections such as local warehouse and local online retail industry. This will be useful in arranging the required branded product by the customers and connecting with the all the local suppliers and customers. Thus, the brand value will increase both in the domestic market as well as in international market. On the other hand, the finance has to be invested on the human capital so that best people can be placed in the stores. Apart from that, financial experts should be hired to help the company in planning the strategy for future and gaining large benefit from the market. Further, the investment can be made in the supply chain so that product can be delivered to customers on right time.
Conclusion
The report shows that Iconic, which was initially a profitable online retailer, is losing its market share due to the lack of improvements in the marketing strategies, HR developments and IT and finance developments. The recommendations in accordance to the adoption and introduction of various strategies and programs and development of the website content will ensure future success and drive the sales of Iconic.
References
Chu, Y. (2013). Control Measures for High-Rise Building Operation Safety Management. AMM, 340, pp.329-332.
Corwin, J. and Pope, M. (2013). Operation Degree Completion: Two Steps to the Cap and Gown. Strategic Enrollment Mgmt Quarterly, 1(2), pp.108-112.
Fox, V. (2012). Marketing in the age of Google. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Ginty, M., Vaccarello, L. and Leake, W. (2012). Complete B2B online marketing. Hoboken, N.J.: J. Wiley & Sons.
Hanafizadeh, P. and Behboudi, M. (2012). Online advertising and promotion. Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference.
Hossain, M. and El-shafie, A. (2013). Intelligent Systems in Optimizing Reservoir Operation Policy: A Review. Water Resources Management, 27(9), pp.3387-3407.
Krstic, I. and Becic, S. (2011). Implementation of marketing strategy: Factor of competitive advantage. Marketing, 42(2), pp.118-126.
Li, Z. (2013). E-Retailer’s Technology Strategy for Implementing Online Marketing. AMM, 427-429, pp.2716-2719.
Mei Ling, S. (2013). Increasing productivity of distributive trade through retail innovations: evidence from Malaysia. The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 23(3), pp.324-352.
Miller, M. (2009). YouTube for business. Indianapolis, Ind.: Que.
Mishra, A. and Ansari, J. (2013). A conceptual model for retail productivity. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 41(5), pp.348-379.
Pandey, A. (2012). Optimising online marketing resources: SEO strategy. International Journal of Technology Marketing, 7(3), p.267.
Smith, P. (2015). No IPO in sight as The Iconic rides $3b wave in online retail shopping. [online] Financial Review. Available at: https://www.afr.com/p/technology/online_ipo_retail_sight_shopping_vnaTaJkJbEOK8Gk9R1wCvI [Accessed 26 Feb. 2015].
Theiconic.com.au, (2015). Clothes Online | Shoes Online | THE ICONIC. [online] Available at: https://www.theiconic.com.au/ [Accessed 26 Feb. 2015].
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