Discuss the various stages of marketing and management through various models.
Every organisation aims to deliver quality products and services to customer to gain acceptance in the market. Various organisation have different approaches towards the same. In this competitive business market, it has become a necessity for every organisation to market their products to attract consumers (Christopher, Payne, & Ballantyne 2013). Marketing is the only known process that helps an organisation to welcome new consumers and retain the old ones. A variety of strategic approaches helps an organisation to accomplish their objectives. The report revolves around Telstra, an Australian based telecom company that aims to achieve global acceptance in market. The report describes the challenges of the company, their goals and objectives along with their marketing strategy to attain and retain consumers. The organisation offers a variety of opportunities to separate itself from other companies by focusing on consumer needs, pricing and services. However, Telstra faces certain challenges such as market competition and ineffective marketing strategy that is affecting the business operations to a huge extent.
Every organisation aims to gain a competitive advantage in the market by serving quality products and services. However, to achieve this long-term objective goal, it is important for the company adopt a proper strategic approach that can help the company to achieve their target (Aremu & Saka, 2014). Marketing mix helps the company in preparing a strategy that helps them to market their product prominently in the market place. It is essential for the company to understand that marketing mix and target market selection helps in devising a proper marketing strategy that provides the needed boost to the company. The use of this marketing tool has helped many companies to improve their business process accordingly. Marketing mix helps and organisation to determine the future for their products and services which in turn helps them to understand the market trends and help them to strategize accordingly. In this competitive business world, organisations are competing with each other to gain the market control.
Product: in order to dominate the market with full force it is essential for the company to provide services and products to consumers. Telstra provides fixed line services, mobile services, internet services, television services to name a few. As the business market is growing and new competitors are entering the market, it is useful for the organisation to bring a variation in their products and services to retain consumers as well as attain new consumers (Beckmann, Hielscher, & Pies, 2014). Telstra provides so many services to the consumers that the company has built a good trust level amongst it buyers. Mainly the company focuses on mobile services as it currently the most trending thing. With the advent of technology, mobile can operate on various areas be it shopping, banking, researching. Therefore, by understanding the trend, the company believes that it is in the best interest of Telstra to provide and improve the mobile services in terms of both consumer satisfaction and support.
Figure1 – Product Life Cycle
Every product has a decline stage at some point of time. For many companies, the decline stage comes quickly, for others it takes time. The difference in the statement is many organisation promises excellent services but are not able to keep their commitment. Whereas, there are organisation for whom consumer satisfaction is top priority because it brings them business. Every organisation launches a product in the product that aims to fulfil the objectives of the company. These particular products have a life cycle that sees growth, maturity and decline. A good product dominates a market for a long time that increases the maturity stage of the product that increases the sales of the company and eventually profit (Giacalone & Rosenfeld, 2013).
Figure2– Telstra Products dominance
For this, the organisation has to introduce the product to market to spread awareness about the merchandise. This involves different marketing strategies, branding, promotion of products and others to name a few. Introduction is the stage where the company invests heavy amount to spread the product in the market for initiating sales. Apart from that, advertisement is equally essential as it helps the consumers to understand the product and their need of acquiring the same. Growth is the stage where the consumers starts to learn about the product and purchases the same. This in turn helps other consumers to buy the product due to word of mouth publicity. Maturity is the stage where the product has gained acceptance in the market and consumers trusts the product and purchases it. The duration of maturity depends on the quality of the product and brand (Hutt & Speh, 2012).
For example, a new organisation introduces a new health drink the market but is not able to increase the sales. It depends on various factors such as product description, quality, quantity and expectations. Since there are many organisation to deliver health drinks to consumers, there is a less chance for the new companies to target the audience as the other product is in its maturity stage (Kim & Mauborgne, 2014). Similarly, if the new organisation is able to provide quality products to consumers at a reasonable price, there are high chances that company is most likely to receive boost in sales. In this instance, the branded product sees a decline stage, as the new product of the new organisation has taken over the market.
In case of Telstra, the organisation has new products and services for their consumers. The organisation specifically deals in prepaid, post-paid mobile services that has excellent value for money features. This is one of the primary reasons for the company to receive such a huge consumer base. With the advent of technology and development, organisation are assembling new services and plans that can help them to retain the consumers. Since the organisation has a good popularity in Australia, the consumers are more inclined to the company as they deliver excellent services to their valued consumers. Since the company has already many products in the maturity stage, the aim of Telstra is to ensure minimising decline stage.
Nowadays companies are improving their products at the growth stage where the company improves the quality of products and services, feature new plans and services to the consumers, enters new market, increase their distribution area, and revises their pricing policies on their products to retain the consumers (Mahoney & Weyl, 2014). Consumers expect better after sales services and expect a simple process. In case of Telstra, the organisation believes in the objective of easy to do business with, which states the demands of products that has higher points are intangible that leads to processes that are more appropriate. The organisation believes in providing the consumers a proper after sales service that helps them to retain the consumers. For this, Telstra has upgraded their business processes that reflects on their customer services. The organisation must provide full support to their consumers (Weatherill, 2014).
Place: based on the psychology of consumers, the company believes that consumers are more likely to prefer brands that are located in central places of the country. For example, in shopping malls, important cities, showrooms etc. in case of Telstra, the company is available in almost every prime locations of the country that helps them to draw more consumers. However, based on the scenario, the company does not have a proper distribution channels to less important cities. Therefore, it is essential for the company to establish new networks in places that can draw new consumers (Day, 2011). Place is an important aspect in business which shows the power of the company. For any organisation, place of business is an extremely important place as it helps them to sell their products accordingly. It is important to determine the effectiveness of the place to ensure that the investment is recovered and the company does not suffer losses. In case of Telstra, despite having stores in shopping malls, exclusive stores, the company also believes in providing the consumers the ease of choosing their products while sitting at their home.
Figure3 – Telstra Promotions
The participation of e-commerce has definitely helped the company in achieving more consumers in recent years that it took them a decade to build. Apart from that, the company believes in installing stalls to prominent places to attract new consumers. This ensures the company to increase its consumer base. The competitive advantage of Telstra is that it has more effective signal quality all over Australia, than any other competitors. The organisation believes in providing the consumers pleasant visits to the stores thereby making the shopping experience innovative. Apart from that, the stores are located in some of the prime locations that attracts consumers of all potentials. The organisation follows the trends and technology and adjust as per the new trends (Vargo, 2011) However, Telstra must take a more comprehensive approach to their product prices and should interact with their consumers more to understand their expectations and grievances.
Intensive Distribution: intensive distribution involves the use of all available markets to distribute their products. In this distribution style, the consumers gets to select from a variety of products (Sethuraman, Tellis, & Briesch, 2011). These outlets tend to have all variety of products of different brands and consumers can select any product as per their requirement. The advantages of intensive distribution includes the idea to incorporate products that are necessary in everyday lives. This affects the money, product awareness, impulse buying which in turn benefits the retailers and consumers and the manufacturers. On the other hand there are certain disadvantages in intensive distribution such as low price and margin, control of the retailer and money. It is essential for the company to determine the proper channel to distribute the products to enhance the business operation of the company in the selected market.
Selective Distribution: Using limited number of outlets are a part of this distribution in this distribution strategy, the consumers look for the best performing products and tend to explore various markets looking for them (Sheth, 2011). This is also increases the needs amongst the consumers. Big brands often have control on the distribution of their products as they only provide products and services to a limited number of stores that shares the vision and aims of the company. It is important to understand the demand and necessity of the consumers and provide appropriate stocks to the retailers to enhance sales and have con trol on the priceing and profits.
Exclusive Distribution: exclusive distribution is mainly seen in those circumstances, where the availability of the product is scarce. Many consumers tend to look for this specific product, as they desire to acquire it. In business market, exclusive distribution involves the use of only one distributor of a specific geographic location (Srinivasan & Hanssens, 2009). Telstra uses the Selective distribution strategy, as the product pricing is high and not available to everyone as of now. Therefore, the company believes to market their products selectively thereby maintaining the leadership position in the business market. A positive consumer is more likely to bring new consumers for the business whereas a negative consumer can hamper the reputation of the company. In case of Telstra, the company believes in providing excellent service quality to the consumers that help them to retain the consumers. However, in respect to productivity, the company lacks to meet the deadline due to no training of employees. As technology improves from time to time, therefore the necessity of providing training to the employees is equally important to meet deadlines (Filistrucchi et al. 2014)
Figure4 – Telstra Distribution worldwide
Promotion: In order to maximise sales, promotion of a product is necessary to bring visibility of the product to the consumers. It is important for the company to promote products due to market competitions. Many organisation uses print media as their primary source of promotions as newspaper and magazines are a part of human life (Chen, Fay & Wang, 2011). It is an essential tool for the companies. In case of Telstra, the company advertises in various media such as radio, television, hoardings, and brochures. However, with advancement of technology and the power of internet, the company now advertises on their websites and use social media such as face book, twitter, Instagram, and YouTube as their source of advertisement. In order to increase the sales of the company, promotion of a product is very important. The company is using transit advertising, print advertising, and other forms of electronic advertisement to promote their newly developed products and initiate sales. It is crucial for the company to understand the necessity of promoting products in areas of low visibility to increase and capture the available markets. Productivity and quality are perhaps the most essential elements in business to ensure success. Providing quality services to the consumers is very important as it helps the company to receive new consumers through word of mouth publicity (Engelen & Brettel, 2011). For example, the company has been installing Telstra telephone booth in new areas to gain visibility in the market.
Figure5: Telstra Booth
Price: price is another factor that plays an important role in the business. In perspective of the company, it is essential to recover the costs, however in case of consumers; they expect appropriate pricing based on product and services (Chen & Shaffer, 2014). In case of Telstra, the organisation has always maintained a leadership position in the market for which the price of their products and services are high. Nevertheless, the consumers appreciate the services of the company and therefore believes it to be appropriate based on the services. However, in order to grow the consumer base, it is essential for Telstra to revise their pricing strategies in relation to their products or develop new products and services that can target all types of consumers (Webb et al. 2011). The company uses premium pricing strategy as the organisation believes that the services they provide to the consumers are quality and has no flaws. The responsibility if the company is to enhance and revise the pricing policies to ensure that the companies are able to gain market control in the new market areas by changing their strategies towards pricing.
Partnership: for any business, consumers are an integral part. Without consumers, the flow of business does not occur. For Telstra, consumers or people are tangible elements to business that help the company to achieve their desired goals. However, it is equally important for the company to understand their employees as well. The company provides the employees appropriate training after recruitment. Apart from that, the employees should be able to understand the problems of the consumers and provide them with proper solutions. Problem-solving skills are also important to the company and therefore they hire employees with communication skills and ability to handle clients (Dong, Kouvelis, & Su, 2014). In case of Telstra, the company must provide appropriate services to consumers. Appropriate training to the employees of the organisation can help them to minimise the level of errors. The organisation has tied up with many well-known companies like Diligent for their cloud services, tied up with San Miguel Corporation, Navman Wireless and others to name a few.
Figure6 – Telstra Market performance
Consumers expect better after sales services and expect a simple process. In case of Telstra, the organisation believes in the objective of easy to do business with, which states the demands of products that has higher points are intangible that leads to processes that are more appropriate. The organisation believes in providing the consumers a proper after sales service that helps them to retain the consumers. For this, Telstra has upgraded their business processes that reflects on their customer services. The organisation must provide full support to their consumers (Weatherill, 2014).
Expanding to new market areas can help the company to attract new consumers and gain control over the market. Since the advent of technology, the company has been trying to increase its network to all over Australia to provide the best signal quality and therefore the company must expand to new areas like Asian market, or third world countries to gain global acceptance. Apart from that, expanding to new areas also helps in gaining internationalisation. In addition to that, the company must consider revising their pricing strategies as it does not attract consumers of all types. In order to gain dominance in the market, the company must provide appropriate opportunities to the consumer. In addition to this, the consumer should also see a variation in their products and therefore should launch new products that suits all types of ages. These strategies are beneficial in providing the consumers and the retailers’ appropriate market. The company should revise their products and pricing to ensure appropriate consumer services and sales. In doing this the company can access new markets through their publicity and promotion respectively. Telstra provides the benefit of consumer service and should therefore extend its business operation to different areas of market. It is essential for the company to understand that new consumers can increase the market competition for the company in relation to their competitors. The pricing strategies of the company are high which leads to limited consumers. Changing the pricing of the products helps in developing new consumer relations. Since the company expanded it business into different areas, appropriate marketing provides the window of involving new consumers and retaining the old ones. A positive consumer spreads the publicity for the company when they are satisfied with the products. Hence it is crucial for the company to maintain their products and service offering appropriately.
Conclusion
The report discussed the various stages of marketing and management through various models. The report explored the various problems of the company in relation to marketing mix and provided necessary solutions that can help the company to make proper business decision based on the market demand. The learner has discussed the issues of the problem critically thereby making the information productive. In addition to that, the report also discussed the possible solutions to the problems in order to maximise consumer retention and attraction.
Reference List
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