Unit 2 Marketing Essentials Assignment Sample Copy - EE Limited

Programme	Diploma in Business
Unit Number and Title	Unit 2 Marketing Essentials
QFC Level	Level 4

Introduction

Marketing Essentials Assignment mainly describes the marketing essentials for the EE limited, which is one of largest mobile phone operator in the UK. Every market consists of huge number of customers that are involved into share their needs with different business organization so they can satisfy their needs with effectiveness. Therefore, satisfying the needs of the customers, it is important for the organisation to understand their needs. After the identification of the needs, it must be satisfied by influencing the buying behaviour of the customers. In case of any free market, demands in the market are generally determined by the customers so their needs must be considered during masking the marketing planning. Effective mix of the marketing can satisfy the market so in order to make their services more acceptable to the customers, it is important for the EE limited to select their marketing mix more carefully.

Task 1

Introduction

Marketing can be defined as the moving of the consumer goods and products to the idea to the customers. Therefore, in order to make their service more acceptable, EE limited should implement effective marketing strategy.

Introduce the concept of marketing with current and future trends:

The current marketing trend is involving the digital media in the marketing.

Future trend of the marketing is:

• Involve user generated content to attract new customers
• Maintaining transparency to create effective relationship with customers
• Involve mobile marketing strategy in the marketing

In the recent times, customer buying behaviors is getting more complex and different innovative marketing strategy like SEO, mobile marketing are getting more accepted by the customers. It is expected that the future generation will more like those trends (Natarajan, 2012). Therefore, in order to attract customers, EE limited must develop a blog for their customers and they should develop their mobile marketing strategy.

Overview of the marketing process:

• Identification of the mission
• Analysis of the situation
• Objective development
• Marketing strategy development
• Evaluation and planning

For attracting customers with effectiveness, it is important for EE limited to develop an effective mission statement by analyzing both the internal and external business environment (Hulbertet al. 2011). EE limited must develop their marketing strategy and the objective only by considering those environments.

Key roles and responsibility of marketing manager:

• Development of the marketing plan and strategy
• Forecasting budget
• Identifying and managing the marketing mix
• Ensuring a timely delivery

Developing different policy and practices regarding the marketing

Marketing managers are generally associated with the identification and implementation of the marketing strategy so they can help their organization to achieve the competitive advantage. Therefore, in order to make this happen, the marketing manager must develop an effective marketing mix.

Roles and responsibility of the marketing influence and its connection with the other functional departments:

Marketing department of the EE limited is associated with the following roles and responsibilities:

• Development of the marketing plan
• Achievement of the effective outcome
• Development an effective strategy to attract the customers
• Identification of the proper market segments

All this roles and responsibilities help the EE limited to create awareness in the mind of customers regarding their products. Marketing departments influence the operation of other departments, it is seen that if a wrong marketing plan is formed by the marketing departments then other department will not be able to serve their customers because wrong marketing plan always creates confusion among the other departments (Changchien and Lin, 2013).

Values and importance of the marketing role:

Importance and values of the EE limited is:

• Development of the effective services according to the need of the customers
• Development of the distribution channel
• Creation of the competitive environment
• Propose different technique by which they can convey an effective message to their customers to change their social behavior
• Values and importance of the marketing department of the EE limited is satisfaction of the need of the customers and enhance the lifestyle of the customers by connecting them with the other part of the world (Zimmereret al. 2011).

Significance of the maintaining effective interrelationship among different functional departments of EE limited:

Increases respect and trust among different department that helps them to understand customers with more effectiveness
Increases effectiveness in customer services
God interrelationship between different departments creates a collaborative and cooperative work environment that helps them to share the exact requirement of the customers so they can serve the customers with more effectiveness (Goldgehn, 2012).

Conclusion

The above section concluded the fact that for achieving effectiveness in providing services to the customers, it is important for the organization to assess their needs, which organization can perform by conducting an audit.

Task 2

Task 2a: Comparison between the extended marketing mix of the EE limited and O2

As opined by Gronroos (2014), marketing mix can be defined as the controllable and the tactical tool regarding the marketing that can help any organization to produce effective responses that are expecting from the target markets. This section mainly describes a comparative study between the EE limited and O2. Marketing mix mainly consists of four elements but extended marketing mix consists of the 7 marketing mix elements.

Product: As stated byYooet al. (2010), these marketing mix elements generally involve the effective and appropriate product development so it can help the organization to achieve the competitive advantage. Through this marketing mix elements, EE limited mainly offer their physical goods and services. EE limited is one of the largest mobile network provider and broadband provider to their customers. Along with that, they also provide services related to the IPTV. They provide effective services to their customers by utilizing different class ranges from 2G to 4G or 4G⁺and radio frequency that is ranged from, the 1800 to 2600 MHzthey also provide HD calling facilities to their customers (hoovers.com, 2016). On the other hand, O2 provides fixed line facilities, mobile telephony and the broadband facilities to their customers. Their radio frequency signals are ranged from, the 900 to 1800 MHzO2 have launched the 4G connection with the perak download rate of the 150Mbps. O2 provide effective services to their customers by utilizing class from 2G to 4G.
Place: As stated by Borden (2011), place is the marketing mix element that are concerned with the making all of the decision to provide the right product to the right customers. In order to provide products to the customer, utilization of effective sales channel is very much important. For selling their products to the customers, EE limited has established different stores. Currently they have more than 600 stores in different high street of the UK. Along with that, they also establish some trail stores from where they sell different products, services and the accessories. On the O2 do not have such kind of stores, they sells their product by making a joint venture with other organization.
Price: In order to make any product compatible to the end user, only the development of the product and implement effective distribution channel is not effective. In order to make any customers attractive to a product effective pricing strategy need to be followed by the organization. In order to make them widely accepted,   EE limited follow a very low pricing strategy, they provide their handset plan in just £19 per month. On the other hand, in order to sell their services, O2 follow a slightly higher pricing strategy. They provide their services to the customers in just £32 per month.
Promotion: For selling any product or services with effectives, promotional strategy of any organization is very much effective because it creates awareness in the mind of the customers (Van Waterschoot and Van den Bulte, 2011). Promotional strategy of any organization follows mass selling, different sales promotion strategy and the personal selling strategy. For promoting their services to the customers,EE limited mainly utilizes the celebrity endorsement strategy. For this reason, they involve Kevin Bacon in their sales promotion strategy. Along with that, they also arrange some sponsorship for different sports and movie awards so they can promote their products to the customers. On the other hand, O2 follows both the online and offline media for their promotion. In offline mode, they arrange the some sponsorships programs like the rugby sports for the England team.
People: For achieving the competitive advantage, employees are the center of any business because they directly communicate the customers and based on their capacity, any organization maintains their operations. As opined by (), for achieving the competitive advantage, EE limited has hired 15000 employees in all of their branch but this small amount of human resource creates huge work pressure on their organization. On the other hand, in order to make their organization running, O2 has hired 21850 numbers of employees so they can maintain all of their organizational work with effectiveness.
Packaging: It is very much important for any organization to maintain effective visualization for the product because visualization of the product and services creates the first impression in the mind of the customers. For selling their telecom services, EE limited maintains an effective look and feel of their store so they can attract their customers. On the other hand, O2 mobile do not have these kind of retail stores so effective visualization is not applicable to them.
Positioning: For achieving effective amount of success from the target markets, its important to position the product and services effectively so it can attract the customers to buy their product by changing the buying behavior of the customers (Gronroos, 2014). For attracting the customers, EE limited should follow the price sensitive positioning strategy to attract their price sensitive customers. On the other hand, O2 follow the functional positioning strategy to attract their customers. For this positioning strategy, their pricing strategy is high.

Task 2b: Marketing plan  

EE limited is one of the largest mobile network operators which were established in the year of 2010. In the recent time, they are the biggest operator in the Europe that regarding the 4G facilities. The service range of the marteing essentials EE limited includes fixed line, mobile telephony and broadband services. They ownand operated 2G, 3G and 4G mobile phone network in the United Kingdom. Their main offices are situated in London, Paddington, Hatfield, Bristol and Darlington with more than 15000 staff. They became successful to reach their 4G network in more than 98% population in the UK (g2mi.com, 2016). A they marketed their organization with the tagline everything everywhere. Currently utilizing protocol by the EE limited is the LTE/LTE advanced for the class of 4G or 4G+.

Current marketing situation analysis

Internal analysis:

Internal analysis of the EE limited can be done by applying the Mckinsey 7S model. This model can help the organization to monitor as well as assess different changes in the internal environment of the organization

Strategy	For achieving the competitive advantage, the main strategy that are followed by the EE limited is providing quality services to the customers with low pricing strategy (Cohen, 2013).
Structure	Due to complex framework of the organization,  EE limited follows the matrix organizational structure and the functional organizational structure
Systems	Main system of the EE limited is installation and maintenance of the BTS and they mainly assign the network engineer in these contexts (Bayne, 2012). On the other hand, they assign their administrative staff in different official tasks
Shared values	Shared values of the EE limited is their technical abilities that helped them to achieve one of the best position in the UK telecommunication industry
Style	In order to motivate employees and to achieve effective productivity, EE limited follow the democratic leadership style
Skills	EE limited have expertise in different types of skills. They have expertise in the install, operate and maintain BTS, BSC and MSC. Along with that, they also have some effective administration and marketing related skills.
Staff	Currently they have 15000 numbers of staff.

External analysis:
External factors create a huge impact on the operability of the EE limited. External factors can be assessed by conducting PESTLE analysis and porter’s five forces model.

PESTLE analysis:

Political factors	Recently, UK has left the EU for some political reason that creates a huge instability in different market of the UK. Due to this decision of the UK, the telecommunication industry of the UK is highly is highly affected because of the involvement of the higher corporate tax (Piercyand Morgan, 2013). However, UK government has invested more money to develop the communication in the rural area of the UK, which can be one effective opportunity for the EE limited.
Economic factors	An inflation situation is created in the UK market because after leavingthe EU, UK should pay £1.7 billion (g2mi.com, 2016). This creates a negative impact on the operability of the organization because due to this reason people of the UK have less amount of disposal income. Therefore, it is obvious that they will spend less for the communication purposes so it can incur some loss in profitability for the organization.
Socio-cultural factors	Every customer follow different method for communication but most of the customer want to get an effective coverage in fewer prices (Winston, 2014). This affects the operation of EE limited for which they are liable to charge less from their customers. Moreover, teenagers are more likely to utilize different instant messaging or calling app that negatively affect the organization.
Technological factors	Different technological advancements affect the operation of different telecommunication organization. In order to achievetechnologicaladvancements and to attract customers, EE limited has started using LTE advanced 4G+ networks so they can achieve competitive advantage.
Legal factors	Not having license for the sites or buying spectrum in lower price than its actual price can create legal issues. Therefore, in this case the entire network related work should be transparent for EE limited to avoid legal issue.
Environmental factors	Emission of the electromagnetic wave from the sites may harm living being so it is important for EE limited to implement some protective measure to reduce this harmful impact (Davids and Newcomb, 2015).

Porter’s five forces model:

Threat of new entrants	This factor of the porter’sfive forces model is relatively low because ofthe requirements of the huge initial costs. Costing of the BTS, ODU, IDU, BSC, MSC is very high so it is difficult to enter into this market with less investments (Zimmereret al. 2011). Moreover, good technical skills are required to enter into this market. Along with that, telecommunication market of the UK is very much saturated so it is difficult for them to get license and huge amount of profit at the initial stage.
Suppliers bargaining power	In case of the telecommunication industry, the bargaining power of the supplier is low because of the presence of several suppliers that swells BTS, microwave antenna, BSC, ODU, MSC, IDU. Therefore, in order to be competitive all of the suppliers offer low pricing strategy. This makes the bargaining power of the supplier low.
Customer bargaining power	In case of the telecommunication industry, the bargaining power of the customer is extremely high because of different established market player and different foreign market player (Goldgehn, 2012). Another reason behind the high bargaining power is involvement of the very low switching costs. Therefore, in order toretain their customers, EE limited offer their quality services in low price so they can achieve competitive advantage.
Competitive rivalry	Competitive rivalry in UK telecommunication market is very high because of the presence of O2, Sky UK, Vodafone Electra. Moreover, there are different foreign market player in the market as well.
Threat of substitute	In case of the telecommunication market, the threat of substitute product is extremely high. It is seen that a big part of the current generation are more habituated to call or message through different free messaging or calling app (Changchien andLin, 2013). Recently, different types of instant messaging app are coming into the market and attract more people. The populations are utilizing those apps because they are free and it only requires internet balance. Therefore, it is possess as a threat to the EE limited so they must develop their broadband services to maintain their sustainability.

SWOT analysis:

Strength They are currently one of the largest mobile phone network providerswith the 28 million customers They have more than 600 retail stores in the high-street to make their product reachable to the customers They are unable to access the 98% population with the\ir 2G, 3G and 4G networks They are able to arrange the sponsorship of different movie awards and different sports so they can make their customers aware regarding their services (hoovers.com, 2016). Their main strength is to provide effective coverage to their customers with following the low pricing strategy.

Weaknesses They have very bad brand recalling strategy due to some ineffective marketing strategy EE limited mainly target different business organization as their target customers so they are losing their focus from the individual customers.

Opportunities Increasing number of mobile phone users in the UK and other part of the Europe may be an effective opportunities for them They can expand their business in different emerging market with their low pricing strategy EE limited are providing 4G services to the customers so they can launch different 4G enabled devices to provide more effective services to their customers (hoovers.com, 2016). UK market is expanding with the growing number of companies so it can be an effective opportunities for the EE limited.

Threats Introducing different types of messaging app and calling app can reduce the profitability of the EE limited. Different foreign telecommunication organization can attract the loyal customers of the EE limited with their more low pricing strategy In the recent times, smartphone users are facing attack from the hackers, which discourages to utilize internet on their phone.

Objective: The main objective of the EE limited is to achieve a profit of 17%, the SMART format of this objective is as follows:

Specific	This objective is specific because for achieving this objective gaining loyalty from the customers is very much important.
Measurable	The objective involves a statistic so it can be measured. Based on the statistics, EE limited review that the objective is met by the organization or not.
Achievable	Among the 17% of profit, the achievable percentage is 14%
Realistic	This objective can be realistic if EE limited can provide quality coverage to their customers by following a low pricing strategy
Time bound	In order to achieve this objective 11 months’ time is required

Strategy: There are mainly four different types of strategy that any organization can undertake to achieve competitive advantage. Those strategies are market penetration, product development, market development and the diversification strategy. Among those strategies, EE limited must consider the market penetration strategy and the market development strategy. For achieving the first strategy, it is important for the EE limited to offer their existing services to their existing target market with better marketing strategy so the product can be widely acceptable to the customers (Hulbertet al. 2011). They must develop an effective market plan so they can attract those customers with their effective marketing strategy. On the other hand, EE limited can offer their existing services to new types of customer segment. It is seen that they mainly targeted the business segment as their customers so they can offer their services to the individual customers according to this new business strategy. Along with that, they can expand their operation and offer their services to the emerging markets also.
Segmentation, targeting and positioning: There are different types of segmentation criteria by which any organization can segment their customers. Main product segment ofthe EE limited is the fixed line, mobile telephony and the broadband. EE limited can segment their customers based on the behavioral as well as demographic segmentation. Based on the behavioralsegmentationthey subdivide their customer in regular, active user, positive and cost conscious (Natarajan, 2012). On the other hand, EE limited sub-divide their customers based on the occupation, social status, size of the family, income and education. There are different types of targeting strategy, among them; EE limited utilizes the multi segment targeting strategy. With the use of this targeting strategy they targeted different customer segment such as business organization and individual customer and approach them with effective services so they can be motivated to buy the services from the EE limited. In order to position their services with the customers, EE limited mainly utilizes the price sensitive positioning strategy.
Tactics and action: Profitability of any organization can be increased by the application of the effective marketing tactics, especially the effective marketing mix. It is seen that the current telecommunication industry is highly saturated and there is no scope of any organization to enter in this market. Therefore, in order to maintain the sustainability and the competitive advantage in the market, it is very much important for any organization to implement effective marketing mix. As stated by Bayne (2012), effective marketing mix can be formed by the careful observation on the customer behaviour. Therefore, EE limited must conduct a market audit, interview to understand the customer buying behaviour of the customers. After the identification of the customer buying behaviour, an effective marketing strategy should be developed according to it in order to achieve the optimum success. Moreover, they should invest more money to develop an effective and unique marketing strategy that can attract more customers to the organisation (g2mi.com, 2016).

Budget:
Based on the marketing plan the budget would be as follows:

Elements	2016 (in £)	2017 (in £)
Maintenance of the e-commerce	8000	8100
Cost to maintain the human resource	41200	42153
Promotional strategy	412563	542153
Cost required for market audit	4120	3323
Promotional strategy	124523	214633
Cost regarding sponsorships	2142336	5234333
Grand total	2732742	6044695

Control: In order to achieve optimum success from any market plan, it is important to monitor the plan regularly so any kind of challenges can be identified at the initial stage. EE limited should regularly monitor their market plan in order to achieve the effectiveness from the plan. Effective controlling strategy helps any organization to identify loopholes at the initial stage and helps organization to develop some effective solutions so it can be resolved effectively.

Conclusion

It can be concluded form the above discussion that in order to achieve the optimum success, careful selection of the marketing mix is important and after that it is important to develop the marketing plan to achieve the competitive advantage. Therefore, EE limited should audit the market so they can understand the customer buying behavior. After understanding the customer buying behavior, they must develop a plan accordingly to influence the customer buying behavior.

Reference list

Bayne, K. M. (2012). The Internet Marketing Plan: The Complete Guide to Instant Web Presence with Cdrom. John Wiley and Sons, Inc..
Borden, N. H. (2011). The concept of the marketing mix.Journal of advertising research, 4(2), pp. 2-7.
Changchien, S. W., and Lin, M. C. (2013).Design and implementation of a case-based reasoning system for marketing plans.Expert systems with applications, 28(1), pp. 43-53.
Cohen, W. A. (2013). The marketing plan.John Wiley and Sons.
Davids, M., and Newcomb, K. (2015). Planning for Marketing Success: Turning the Wheel by Creating a Task-Oriented, Executable Marketing Plan. Debt3, 21, pp. 22.
g2mi.com, (2016), Available from: http://www.g2mi.com/company_description.php?id=3012, [Accessed on: 21^th Nov, 2016]
Goldgehn, L. A. (2012). Are US colleges and universities applying marketing techniques properly and within the context of an overall marketing plan?.Journal of Marketing for HIGHER EDUCATION, 3(2), pp. 39-62.
Grönroos, C. (2014). From marketing mix to relationship marketing: towards a paradigm shift in marketing. Management decision, 32(2), pp. 4-20.
hoovers.com, (2016), Available from: http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/company-profile.ee_limited.b896ade4448d9389.html, [Accessed on: 21^th Nov, 2016]