Unit 2 Marketing Essentials Solution Assignment

Introduction

Marketing is the essential need of the business organisation as it helps in promoting their products and services within their respective targeted market. There are effective marketing strategy is prepared in order to target the market. With this there are different factors that get considered in order to promote the product such as marketing mix which include Product, Price, Place and Promotion but it get extended and as per extended marketing mix 4P's get extended to 7P's in which new three P's are People, Process and Physical Evidence. All these factors get effectively evaluated in the below report.

Task 1

Presentation

Marketing Management- In Today’s time Marketing Management is an important concept. Marketing management basically consists of preparation of various Market plan and various marketing strategies required for the survival and growth of an Organization. It is basically goal-oriented concept. Marketing is very much important for building brand image and for creation of customer relationship management.

Marketing management refers to the set of activities generally associated with the buying and selling of the products/ services. It consists of various tools and techniques which are implemented to achieve the overall organizational goals and objectives. It basically involves identifying the market; make an analysis of current needs and requirements of potential customers and to further strategise and then ultimately to create a market plan for achieving the Organization’s Goals and objectives. It also inherits to make an analysis of not only current but future prospective too.

Marketing Processes refers to the set of systematic activities required in creation of a market plan. It starts with the making of a situational analysis, in which we make a thorough analysis of the entire internal and external factor required in completing our objective.

Than we prepare our strategy according to the market analysis and linking it with the Organization’s objectives and goals.

Finally we implement our strategy and keep a constant check and control over it and do the needful changes required with the passage of time throughout the implementation.

Marketing manager is the main person responsible for the success of the Marketing plan and marketing strategies. Marketing manager major role is to integrate the marketing plan with the Organization’s goals and objectives. He is the one who along with his team works for conducting situational analysis, prepares marketing plan and then further is responsible for its successful implementation and to keep constant check for requirements for any changes during implementation. Marketing manager is mainly responsible for choosing appropriate strategy for fulfilling its objectives.

Nearly Every Organization consists of various departments for instance Sales, Purchase, Research & Development, Finance, Logistics, and Human Resource etc. And also every department set their goals in accordance with the overall goal of the Organization. Marketing is also a part of it but one of the most important aspect for the success of any Organization.

EE limited is basically a network service provider organization with lot of competitors in the market environment therefore fulfilments of objectives mainly depend on the Marketing sector of the Organization.

As discussed above, marketing is a crucial aspect in the Mobile Network Services provider as this sector has lot of competitor in it and to gain competitive advantage over each other marketing tools and techniques plays an important role in it. Through Marketing tools and techniques, current market analysis and customer requirements can be identified and appropriate strategies can be implemented to fulfil customer’s requirements. New innovations and ideas are developed with the help of various marketing tools and techniques.

EE limited works with different organizational departments. These department set their own goals and objectives and together they strive for fulfilment of overall Organizational goals and objectives. These entire departments together strive for fulfilments of overall Marketing Plan and strategies.

With the complete detailed study of the Marketing management and it concepts, it can be concluded that in today’s competitive environment marketing plays a very important role in the accomplishments of Organizational goals and objectives. Through various marketing techniques we make a detailed situational analysis of the market and then we prepare our strategy according to the needs of the market and thereby ultimately accomplish Organization’s goals and also set goals for the future trend for the Organization.

Task 2a

Marketing Planning for Achieving Business Objectives

Introduction

In today’s immense competitive environment, survival of an organization is highly depended upon the implementation of various marketing strategies in an organization. Marketing is the backbone of any organization. Nearly every organization in the world uses different marketing tools and techniques to create a market for its products and services. And mere creation of market is not enough, other promotional tools and techniques also needs to be implemented for increasing the market share and for constant growth in the sales of the products and services of an organization and thus, ultimately achieving its business objectives. Every organization establishes its objectives to be achieved within certain time limits. Business objectives can be anything for instance increasing sales by certain margin, to increase goodwill, to introduce new line of product/ service etc., to increase the net profits of the company etc. In order to achieve its objectives, organizations implements various marketing tools and techniques to achieve its objectives and goals. Marketing plan is basically a plan where we involve various marketing strategies in order to achieve the business goals and objectives. In a marketing plan we discuss normally all the marketing strategies which can be helpful and useful to achieve the business goals and objectives. With the help of the marketing mix techniques and involving them in our marketing plan, we will try to accomplish our business objectives and goals.

Implementation

Marketing Planning refers to a comprehensive document containing all the marketing strategies and marketing tools for achieving Organization’s set goals and objectives. It includes the current marketing position of an organization as well as the future marketing position for an organization. It basically includes all the marketing objectives, marketing processes, tactics, budgets, control mechanism etc (Davchev, 2014).

As far as EE limited is concerned, the main objectives to be achieved by us in the coming period are as follows-

1. To improve the customer satisfaction level by stressing on customer retention management with the network services provided.
2. To increase the 4G network services throughout the city in order to increase the market share.
3. To cut down the cost level without affecting the revenue and net profit of the organization.
4. To increase the Net profits of the Organization with the increase in the market share (Davchev, 2014).

With the help of marketing plan and marketing mix technique organization’s goals can be achieved as planned. Marketing mix is a concept which evolves in it around 7P’s namely, product, price, place, promotion, process, people, and physical environment. These 7 P’s are very crucial marketing tools to be used in the marketing plan to fulfil organization’s goals and objectives (Hurst, 2014).

The 7P’s of the marketing mix is as discussed below-

Product- P denotes “Product” the main product/ service which is to be offered by any organization. Our organization main purpose is to strengthen the 4G network services provided by us. To improve the quality of the services provided and to capture the maximum market. We can achieve this objective by improving the network services and installing more network poles even at distant places to increase the connectivity and to increase the sales. Talking about competitor, Giffgaff , an another mobile service provider in UK has also implemented various marketing strategy to build its product/ service value and they have considerably made research on the specification and needs of the masses and entered the 4G services with the focus on best quality (Hurst, 2014).

Price – This P relates with the pricing policy of an organization, it basically involves list price, discounts and payment period etc. Our main aim would be to reduce the price of the services in order to make it cheap and to make it easily available to all the current customers and prospective customers. We need to revise our pricing policy as most of segment of customer do not prefer our services because of the high prices thereby we need to work out plan where we can reduce prices of our certain services and making it available to that segment of the customers. As far as our competitor is concerned they have already cut down their prices in order to become an easy approach for the masses especially young lot whose purchasing power are limited (Zagorna & Stasiuk, 2012).

Place- This P relates with the placing policies of the organization and involves criteria such as customer access of product and convenience of the customer to get the product. Our main aim in this policy would be to reach at those locations where still our services are not available. Distant places where network services are not yet available or quality is not that good.  With this aim we need to be faster in reaching across all the parts of the country. Our competitors are even working to expand their network services throughout the city by launching their products in almost all the part of the city (Zagorna & Stasiuk, 2012).

Promotion- This P involves various promotional strategies required for the advertising of the Products/ services. With the new technology of 4G network services, our main aim is to be implementing various promotional strategies for the network services throughout the city. Our promotional strategies would include connecting with customers by creating big events, and by associating with a branded cellular device and increasing television advertising campaign (Reshetnikova, 2012).

Our competitor’s promotional strategies are quite interesting and unique; they launched their 4G LTE services with unlimited internet access popularly known as “goody bags” which gained large number of population. Its other promotional activities include numerous interesting Televisions advertising campaign, which became quite popular (Reshetnikova, 2012).

Process- the Process policy denotes the procedures and mechanism which an organization follows in providing and delivering its services. A certain blueprint will be designed to make certain procedure which will be followed to achieve the targets of the organization. It also includes procedures for monitoring and analyzing of the Marketing plans and strategies. As far as our competitors are concerned they also follow their process system and manage their workings (Liao-Troth, et. al., 2015).

People- People are basically the human resources associated with the organization. In this employees and customers are the two important people in our case. We should set objectives for our employees to achieve the set target of sales and would also target our customers. We will target our customer on the basis of education and will focus on them accordingly. As of now our main target group of individual would be mainly youth and professional persons who require the fast and reliable network connection the most.  Our competitors marketing strategies of “goody bags” has largely influenced the masses and major sector of usage of internet section became associated with them. They have targeted the masses on the basis of classes with their cheap internet data packages and made them accessible for everyone (Liao-Troth, et. al., 2015).

Task 2b

Executive- This is a marketing plan in which we are going to explain the marketing plan and marketing strategies prepared for fulfilment of business objective. Various marketing strategies and tools and other techniques which we will be using in accomplishing our organization’s objectives and goals.

Company Overview- EE (formerly known as Everything Everywhere) is one of the biggest British mobile network and internet service provider in UK. It has largest network of 4G services throughout the city with maximum population coverage. But somewhere it is still struggling with the brand image and quality services. Its other main problems include lack of proper quality. It is still working for creating a big market share for the 4G services throughout the city. And another issue is to compete with its numerous competitors and to increase its market share and goodwill and to build customer retention (Blythe, 2012).

Current Marketing Situation Analysis – Situation analysis refers to analyzing of the internal as well as external situations of an organization to understand its business environment. It basically brings out a summary of problems/issues among customers and other ample of opportunities for fulfilling their requirements by introducing new products and services as per the current needs and preferences of the customer. Internal analysis refers to the understanding of the various internal factors and external analysis refers to understanding of the external factors (Clow & James, 2014).

Internal analysis- Internal analysis refers to understanding of the various internal factors which gets affected due to the market plan of the organization. Such as core-competency of an organization, capabilities of an organization, its employees, its management, its internal strength etc. in this we make an analysis to understand the impact over the internal factor because of the new marketing strategies (Hollensen, 2012).

External analysis- It refers to the understanding of external factors that affects the marketing plan and organization’s objectives. Few examples of external factors are competitors, customers, collaborators etc.  In this analysis we make an analysis to ascertain the impact on the external factors of the company’s new ventures/ objectives (Hollensen, 2012).

SWOT analysis – It is one of the most popular and common method to make analysis before implementing any business plan. SWOT analysis refers to the analysis of the Strengths Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of an organization. This kind of study helps the Organization to make a proper detailed study of the do’s and don’ts before initiating any marketing strategy or marketing plan (Korhan, 2013).

• S (Strengths) -It refers to analyses of Strengths of an organization. Strengths are those attributes of an organization which differ it from the other organizations. Analysis of these factors increases the positivity and helps in creating a positive internal environment. It also helps in creating Customer relationship management and increase goodwill for the organization. Our organization’s major Strengths are - brand value, goodwill etc (Korhan, 2013).
• W (Weaknesses)- It refers to analyses of the weaknesses of the organization. Such as lack of proper communication channels, lack of marketing orientation etc. Organizations mostly come to know about their weaknesses from their past experiences and thereby these weaknesses help Organization to improve its current performance especially in those areas where it lack as compare to others. Our major Weaknesses are lack of proper communication channel (Fischinger, et. al., 2015).
• O (Opportunities)- It refers to the analyzes and findings up of upcoming opportunities in the particular industry. In the competitive world, every organization keeps an eye open to create and grab all the opportunities that come in their way. All the organization puts immense efforts in grabbing these opportunities and in making full utilization of these opportunities. In the telecom sector there are ample of opportunities as this is one of the fastest growing and promising sector (Fischinger, et. al., 2015).
• T (Threats)- It refers to the possible current and future threats and disadvantages for the particular industry in a particular Marketing strategy. Before initiating any marketing plan, it is very much important to know the possible threats or disadvantages for a particular plan or strategy. This basically alerts the organization and let it make a backup plan to be used in future. Main threats in telecom sector are increasing competition and reduction of overall prices of the services which is posing challenge in earning appropriate net profit (Spillan, 2010).

For an organization to achieve its set objectives, it needs to make a SWOT analysis of its business organization.

Objective- Objectives are the set of goals and activities which are to be accomplished within a given time limit. Objectives are main aspect, according to which all the activities, to be performed by the organization, are created and executed. These are mostly positive in nature and established in a way to encourage/motivate employees of an Organization. These are formed with a purpose and their accomplishment decides the fortune of the organization (Spillan, 2010).

Following the set of objectives for our marketing plan-

• Our main is to increase the market share of the mobile network services by increasing our network poles, opening up of new retail stores of our brand, and by applying various marketing strategies for example free internet access for certain time period,by lowering mobile data prices for certain period etc.
• Firstly we will be implementing all the services at less cost for a short term period and then once we will gain the market, than we will increase the cost by certain amount (Mootee, 2013).
• To enhance the quality of the network services provided by implementing new stations/ mobile tower and to cover almost all the places of the country.
• To develop and strengthen Customer relationship Management.
• To build goodwill and improve the image of our brand (Mootee, 2013).

Strategy

The main strategies followed by the organization were as follows-

• The Creation of mission and vision for the organization. The Mission refers to the short term goal to be achieved with normally to be achieved in the span of 5 years. Vision normally means to look into the long term view of the organization’s objectives.
• Identifying the target market for the services to be provided and to implement various promotional tools for their achievement.
• Various pricing strategy to minimize the prices of the network services and overall to increase the sales of the organization (Mootee, 2013).
• Various sales promotional tools can be implemented to increase the sales of the organization such as store launching, big events, through media conferences, digital marketing, etc.
• Product mix refers to selling of products on the same lone or of different lines of products strategy can also be implemented in which we can focus on both the 3G as well as 4G network services provided by us (Mootee, 2013).
• Extended Marketing Mix technique will be utilized which basically involves 7P’s in it namely product, price, promotion, place, process, physical environment, and people. Through these 7 P’s all the objectives of the marketing are categorised accordingly.
• We will be using various marketing mix technique, STP i.e. Segmentation, Targeting and positioning technique etc. STP has become quite popular nowadays, its systematic procedure and ways had made it quite popular in today’s time (Worsham, 2010).

Segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP)

Segmentation refers to creation of different segments of customers on the basis of common characteristics and requirements. Here in our case, we can prepare segments of customers on the basis of education and their requirements for Mobile network services. It basically means to examine the potential and prospective customers for the particular product/ services of an organization. Our main segments can be collage students, professional etc (Worsham, 2010).

Targeting- With the Targeting aspect, we make analysis on the size, money, accessible, and benefits of each benefits and should distinguish market plan according to the target segmentation (Worsham, 2010).

Positioning- Positioning basically refer to the customization of organization’s products/ services according to the needs and preferences of the customers/ targets. And it include communicating the features of the products/ services with the target/ masses.

Tactics & Action

Tactics/ Actions refer those sub- goals which ultimately aim to achieve the overall goals of the organization. These are short term goals for specified short term duration, they ultimately results in the completion of the main mission or fulfilment of overall objective of the organization (Worsham, 2010).

With the help of tactics we basically sub divides our main goal into shorter goals with allocation of defined resources. Our main objectives i.e. to increase the market share of the 4G network which is also discussed as above, will be divided  into shorter goals with due durations. And all the efforts are put in completion of these objectives and ultimately fulfilment of the main goal or objective of the Organization.

Budget

Budgets refer to pre-determination of and formation of numeric chart of expenditure and income of an organization. An organization makes a pre- analysis of possible expenditure and income regarding the Marketing plan and strategies for a given period of time by making a budget (Worsham, 2010).

Marketing management obviously requires investment of huge amount in order to fulfil various Organization goals and objectives. Therefore these investments have to be considered before actual expenditure in order to ascertain the worth of the prospective investment. Proper investigation/ vigilance of money spent on the marketing strategies must take place so that excessive or wastage of money/investment can be avoided (Worsham, 2010).

Control

Control refers to the proper analysis and monitoring of the Marketing plans and strategies during implementation and execution. It also refers to setting of certain standards and comparison of the standards with the actual progress. It also includes implementing changes as and when required during execution of Marketing plan and strategies. Since evaluation or prediction of future is quite difficult therefore in spite of considering all the factors for making Marketing plan, there might be requirement of certain changes in the pre-determined Marketing plan. Control factor not only protect the organization from deviation from the current plan but it also helps in making necessary changes as and when required. Through this we are benefitted in number of ways (Worsham, 2010).

Conclusion

With the thorough study and investigation of the meaning and advantages of the Marketing Management, it is concluded that Marketing plays a crucial role in the business world. Almost all the big brands firms and organization today make immense use of the Marketing tools and techniques for enhancing their product/ service value and enlarging their market share. Through marketing tools companies identifies and analyze the current customer needs and requirements and strategize and customize their product as per the needs and preferences of the customer. Marketing has become an important part in an Organization working, with immense competition marketing strategies helps in distinguishing one’s product from the other. In the vast market and immense customer potential, marketing is a very necessary and useful tool for survival and growth of an organization.

References

Clow, K.E. & James, K.E. 2014, Essentials of marketing research: putting research into practice, SAGE, Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Davchev, K. 2014, "MARKETING CONCEPT - DEFINITION AND DEVELOPMENT", Novo Znanie, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 4-8.

Fischinger, I., Seiler, T.G., Schmidinger, G. & Seiler, T. 2015, "Pupil centroid shift: Marketing tool or essential clinical parameter?", Der Ophthalmologe : Zeitschrift der Deutschen Ophthalmologischen Gesellschaft, vol. 112, no. 8, pp. 661.

Hurst, S. 2014, "Dictionary of Advertising and Marketing Concepts", Reference & User Services Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 63.