Question – Write a case study analysis on Marketing Planning?
Introduction.
Task 1 (M1)
P1 Reviewing the changing perspective in marketing planning.
P2 Evaluating the organization’s capability to plan for its future marketing activity.
P3 Examining the techniques for auditing an organization and analyzing the external factors that affects the marketing planning.
P4 Carrying out the organizational auditing and analysis of external factors that affects the marketing planning
Task 2 (M2)
P5 Accessing the main barriers of marketing planning for Nelson Professional Clothing.
P6 Explaining how to overcome the barriers to marketing planning.
Task 3 (M3)
P7 Marketing plan for a product or services.
P8 Importance of marketing planning for the organization in the strategic planning process
P9 Techniques for new product development
P10 Recommendations for pricing policy, distribution and communication mix.
P11 Factors affecting the effective implementation of the marketing plan.
Task 4.
P12 Ethical issues influencing marketing planning.
P13 Response of Nelson Professional Clothing to ethical issues.
P14 Examples of consumer ethics and their effect on marketing planning.
Conclusion.
Reference List
Marketing planning can be referred to as the blueprint that helps in outlining the overall marketing efforts of an organization. The market planning generally results in a marketing strategy that helps in enhancing the sales and profit from the business (Glaser and Traynor, 2014). This assignment deals with compiling a marketing audit for Nelson professional clothing, suitable techniques for exploring and assessing the main barriers of the organization along with chalking out an effective marketing plan. In addition to this, the assignment also focuses its light on the ethical issues that the organization has to respond and the ways that ethical issues influence the marketing planning.
Now days when marketing planning is made, it is essential to keep in mind the reason behind its change. The different reasons for which the market planning is changed are due to the change in requirements and needs of the customers and their buying behavior. In addition to this, in order to keep a competitive pace with the changing competitors, change in market planning is required. According to Chang and Cheng (2014) the market planning is changing due to introduction of new technologies where the usage of the modern technology is an important part of the any retailing company. In this tech savvy modern world, more the organizations will be inclined towards technology, the sales and profit will increase. In addition to this, the other reason of making a change in market planning is the underperforming performance of Nelson Professional Clothing where the company faced a huge loss due to global recession in 2008-2009. This resulted in failure in meeting the operational activities as well as lead to downsizing of employees as well as selling off the assets (Gunder, 2011).
After facing a huge loss due to recession, Nelson Professional Clothing had to struggle a lot for meeting their operational activities by both downsizing the employees and selling of the assets of the company. So, the company hired Gantts Hill Research and Consultancy Group (GRCG) in order to chalk out an effective marketing plan for the future. The organization is capable enough to face the change since it has already faced a lot of hurdles during the phase of recession (McKay, 2014). The capability approach is one of the approaches that use the value proposition of the customer’s in order to establish the performance goals that are based on contribution of values. The GRCG group understands the assets of the organization and also evaluates the capacity that the organization has to face a major change in market planning that may affect the staffing systems and the already set marketing strategies (Towers, 2012). Moreover, the company is eager to analyze the marketing strategies that includes analyze of the strengths, weakness, opportunity and threats of the company.
The technique that the marketing head of GRCG had adopted for analyzing the external factors affecting the market planning is the SWOT analysis. The strength of Nelson Professional Clothing is the low price strategy where it provides good quality products at a considerable low price. In addition to this, the introduction of current and updated technologies like self checking out machines, ECR, electronic shelf labeling etc. will help the company in reduction of extra employee cost (Anderson, 2012). Moreover, this strength will give the company an added competitive advantage over other companies. In addition to this, the weakness of the company is that it had to sell off some of the assets due to recession. The opportunity of the company can be introduction of diversified products into the market at reasonable prices (Mooradian et al. 2012). Since the customers know about the good quality of products of this company, they will be eager to have the products again from the company. But on the other hand according to Karakaya and Parayitam (2013) the threat of the company is the rising global competition and global economic crisis.
The analysis of external factors that affect the market planning of Nelson Professional Clothing is discussed hereby. The organization has to analyze the external environment for chalking out or formulating an effective marketing planning for the welfare of the company and to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors. The political factor includes the political stability, tax rates, tariffs rate and legislation of UK (Castleberry, 2014). In addition to this, economic factors include the economic condition of UK due to an adverse effect of recession, the demand of its products and prices of the product. Moreover, the social factors include the beliefs and sentiments along with the culture and living standard of the people. The social factors also include the analysis of the customers on the basis of their age, sex, income, educational background and job (Bazini and Ramaj, 2013).
The technological factors include the implication of modern technology into the business that helps in reducing the labor costs and production cost and increases the profits and quality of product and services (Schultz, 2012). The legal factors include the rules and regulation the organization follows during the production of the goods. It also includes the working hours, the employees and labor laws conditions of employment and pay scales. The environmental factors include the processing of the waste materials before disposal and methods to reduce the carbon footprint. Analysis of these factors helps in making a successful marketing plan (Perret and Holmlund, 2013).
The effectiveness of different leadership styles of different organizations is discussed in this context. In autocratic leadership style, the managers and the higher officials are the core decision makers. The employees had to work according to the rules and regulations of the company irrespective of any problems they face. Such leadership can be a barrier to the market planning because fresh ideas are not allowed to flow within the organization (Tyssen et al. 2013). This increases the reduction of employee retention and also the employees do not find satisfaction in their job. For the participative leadership style, the leaders discusses with the employees before taking any kind of decisions. But this style faces challenges at the time of emergency an also during the time of taking decisions within a short period of time. In addition to this, the transactional leadership style focuses on giving rewards or punishments that is based on the results of the performance (Arnold and Loughlin, 2013). This makes the employees move towards a common goal and makes the wok monotony and innovation in this leadership style is absent. This is because failure of the idea can lead to punishment of the employees so the employees preferably don’t take any risk in giving out ideas. These different leadership styles are the main barriers in effective marketing planning.
Nelson Professional Clothing can rid of barriers and make an effective marketing planning by the following ways. The organization can gather more information of the market trend by doing a vivid and authentic market research. This is because; collection of wrong data can lead to an incorrect market planning that will be having an adverse effect to the business of the organization (Bazini and Ramaj, 2013). In addition to this, market research regarding the market growth, net value and decision making processes can be done to avoid and overcome the barriers. The better understanding of the customers, the needs and requirements of the potential customers can also be the way of overcoming barriers. Usage of modern technology like data management system, process automation, collaboration and multi channel campaign management helps in overcoming the barriers to prepare an effective marketing planning (Towers, 2012). In addition to this, the removal of existing legal barriers can help in overcoming the barriers in marketing planning. Moreover, a two way communication within the organization and outside the organization along with fixing a reliable budget of the organization helps in overcoming the barriers.
The marketing plan for Nelson Professional Clothing can be done through the following-
For efficiently making marketing plan, the marketing head has initially segmented the customers, targeted the old and new customers and then positioned the products accordingly (Glaser and Traynor, 2014). This helps in understanding the needs and wants of the customers and help in making homogeneous segments of the customers which the company will find easy to target for positioning the products according to their requirements.
The organization can introduce the new and fashionable products in the market. This will help in attracting the old customers since they are already accustomed with the products of the company and the new potential customers will also be attracted seeing the trendy clothing store (Chang and Cheng, 2014).
In order to give a refresh look to the products of the organization, the strategy of making the packaging attractive is a part of the marketing plan (Gunder, 2011). An attractive packaging will attract the customers to a great extent and it will help in increasing the customer database.
The low pricing strategy of the organization is also an effective part of the marketing plan that helps in attracting the customers. Generally the customers opt for good quality products but at comparatively less price or at reasonable prices (McKay, 2014).
An effective marketing planning helps in identifying the sources that will give the company a competitive advantage over others. In addition to this, the organization will also be provided with authentic market reports that will help in making effective strategies for the company (Tyssen et al. 2013). In return to this, organizations such as Nelson Professional Clothing will start gaining back its original position in the market that it had lost at the time of recession. A good market planning will help in satisfaction of the employees that in return improves the employee retention. A good marketing plan will enhance in setting up realistic goals and objectives of the company. In addition to this, an effective market planning helps in the adaptation of modern technologies that will improve the quality of products and services can also be adopted (Castleberry, 2014).
Nelson Professional Clothing can adopt differentiation strategy of Porter’s Generic Strategies in order to develop new product into the market. This is because; this helps the company in seeking a way to stay unique in the competitive market. In addition to this, product differentiation helps in attracting a huge customer database as it operates in a broader aspect (Glaser and Traynor, 2014). The company tries to select the Unique Selling Point (USP) of the new products for attracting the customers through it. The company can even engage 3 phases that will help in development of new products. The fuzzy front end is a phase where a set of activities is done before the development of new products. The second phase is the product design where the new products are developed and comes to an end at pre commercialization stage. The fuzzy back end phase contains the action steps required for production and launching of the product (Castleberry, 2014).
Since the company has faced a huge loss regarding recession and has already sold some of the assets; the company needs to get back the customers as well as the assets back (Anderson, 2012). So, the company can go for low price strategy where it will attract a huge number of customers that will result in huge sales and profit.
The communication mix consists of advertisement, promotion, packaging and public relations. The advertisements need to be presentable and well communicable for attracting the customers. Moreover, the packaging needs to be attractive and well understandable to the customers since it adds a significant value to the company (Bazini and Ramaj, 2013). The promotion of the products must be in such as way that the customers will be convinced with the need and requirements of it in their daily life. In addition to this, Nelson Professional Clothing can improve the public relations with the customers either by celebrity endorsements or through press releases in order to reach the target audiences.
The distribution channel needs to be effective enough so that products reach the customers very easily. If the customers find the products easily accessible, then the customers tend to lean towards the company because they have trust on the company products and its availability (Castleberry, 2014).
Nelson Professional Clothing prioritizes the necessity of the company previously before implementation of the marketing plan. This is done to see which of the factors needs to be prioritized before hand and need to be resolved (Tyssen et al. 2013). This helps in understanding the importance of the factors that have to be completed by the time and the factors which can wait for a time being.
The resources are another important factor that affects the implementation of an effective marketing plan. The company needs to understand the resources it has for successful implementation of the marketing plan (Anderson, 2012). The resources include the finances, vendor relationships, finances, access to materials, human resource and raw material availability.
A concrete market research has to be done in order to forecast the future for implementation of marketing plan. The marketing plan has to be done in order to forecast the sales, revenues, personal costs and other overhead costs (McKay, 2014). It will be tough for the company to say whether there are chances of successor not by accurate forecasting of the plan.
The ethical issues influence the market planning to a huge extent. This helps in building up a healthy relationship between the customers and the company. This increases the trust of the customers on the organization which gives a positive impact on the sales and profit of the company (Schultz, 2012). In addition to this, the organization maintaining ethics also have a good reputation and brand image in the market. The employees are also content with the ethics and thereby the employees, workers and customers all feel safe to do business with the organization.
Nelson Professional Clothing though has faced hug loses during the time of recession still it uses ethical ways of market planning and marketing. This is because, the company is very much conscious about is brand image. The company has opted for a low price strategy but it keeps a balance with the market prices through a good market research (Castleberry, 2014). Moreover, it gives advertisements of the products with the actual price and never opts for deceiving the customers. This is because they believe that through their quality and good marketing policies, they can regain their position.
The pricing ethics need to be ethical enough since it influences the market planning. Bid rigging and predatory pricing needs to be stopped since they are the unethical practices. Bid rigging means a commercial contract that is promised to one party but other parties are also present (Glaser and Traynor, 2014). Predatory pricing is selling products and services at a considerable low price with an intention for driving out the competitors as well as new competitors from the market. This helps in increasing the trust and belief of the customers on the company.
This practice involves bait and switch form of fraud where the customers are baited through low price products by advertisements. But the actual fact is that the prices of the products and services are switched to higher costs (Schultz, 2012). This affects the band image of the company and is an unethical way of market planning. This strengthens the relationship between the company and the customers.
Conclusion
This assignment has focused on the marketing plan of Nelson Professional Clothing evaluating the capacity of the organization to face the change along with the analysis of external factors that affects the market planning. In addition to this the ethics related to fair trading is also discussed along with the barriers of market planning and ways to overcome it. Moreover, market planning along with the requirements of it and techniques for the development of new products are also discussed.
Reference List
Anderson, D. (2012) Strategic marketing planning for the small to medium-sized business, New York: Business Expert Press
Glaser, R. and Traynor, R. (2014) Strategic practice management, San Diego: Plural Pub
Mooradian, T., Matzler, K. and Ring, L. (2012) Strategic marketing, Boston, MA: Pearson Prentice Hall
Towers, N. (2012) The marketing planning process, London: BPP Learning Media Ltd
Arnold, K. and Loughlin, C. (2013) “Integrating transformational and participative versus directive leadership theories”, Leadership & Organizational Development Journal, 34(1), pp.67-84
Bazini, E. and Ramaj, A. (2013) “Database Marketing Application and Barriers Faced by Firms in Service Sector in Albania A Framework For Understand Its Role in Creating Competitive Advantage”, Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, pp. 47-65
Castleberry, S. (2014) “Salesperson Ethics: An Interactive Computer Simulation”, Journal of Marketing Education, 36(2), pp.209-216
Chang, C. and Cheng, Z. (2014) “Tugging on Heartstrings: Shopping Orientation, Mindset, and Consumer Responses to Cause-Related Marketing”, Journal of Business Ethics, pp. 73-84
Gunder, M. (2011) “An introduction: Psychoanalytical thought and planning theory”, Planning Theory, 10(4), pp.299-300
Karakaya, F. and Parayitam, S. (2013) “Barriers to entry and firm performance: a proposed model and curvilinear relationships”, Journal of Strategic Marketing, 21(1), pp.25-47
McKay, S. (2014) “Attitudes and Ethics: Evaluating Knowledge and Regulatory Constructs in Planning Enforcement Practice”, European Planning Studies, pp.1-22
Perret, J. and Holmlund, M. (2013) “Ethics and responsibility in relationship marketing”, Marketing Intelligence & Plan, 31(7), pp.746-763
Schultz, P. (2012) “The market for new issues of municipal bonds: The roles of transparency and limited access to retail investors”, Journal of Financial Economics, 106(3), pp.492-512
Tyssen, A., Wald, A. and Spieth, P. (2013) “Leadership in Temporary Organizations: A Review of Leadership Theories and a Research Agenda”, Project Management Journal, 44(6), pp.52-67
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