Management principles and organizational practices

Management

The product that I am proposing is a golf ball and smartphone app combination. The golf ball will be a standard ball, but equipped with a tiny tracking device embedded in the ball. The ball will give off a signal that can be read by a smartphone device, over wireless phone waves. The application will be loaded onto the device, and allow the user to track all balls in the area with that frequency. The result of this is that golfers will be able to track their lost balls, even in the woods or other off-course areas. Both the ball and the app will be known by a singular brand name -- Tracker. This makes for a simpler message for the consumer: Tracker Ball + Tracker App = No Lost Balls.

The target market for this product will be golfers, typically those who play the game for fun and make extensive use of gadgets. These golfers are typically male, between the ages of 28-48, and they are generally fairly affluent. They are likely to have a college education and be employed in a professional discipline. They golf frequently, but are not seriously golfers and typically play the game for fun rather than sport. These consumers spend between $1,000 - $10,000 per year on their golf hobby. They may or may not be a member of a private club, but they are likely to have taken a golf vacation in the past. Most have been golfing for a number of years, and view it as a social outlet as well as an outdoor pastime.

The area has demographics favorable to this venture. The demographics of the area skew towards a median age of 35.6 and a GDP per capita of $45,670. The workforce has a relatively high proportion of professionals, a function of the local industry clusters. There are 27 golf courses in the greater area, and this provides an opportunity to build distribution locally. The overall economy is growing slowly, and those within our target market have not experienced the steep decline in employment that other demographics have suffered. Income levels in our target demographic have changed little as the result of the recession, so there is little cause for concern about the economic macroenvironment when launching this product. Golf continues to be a popular sport, despite flatlining interest in the United States (Nohcud, 2008). There is strong growth in golf overseas, in Asia in particular, and this provides encouragement for the long-term growth prospects of the Tracker.

One marketing issue that needs to be researched is with respect to the culture of golf, in particular the target market of the Tracker. This is important because the tone of the advertising message will be in part dictated by the culture of our golfing target market -- it could be jocular or it could be informative for example. This research will also help us to refine our target market definition, which at this point is merely an estimate. The better we understand our psychographics in particular, the more easily Tracker will be able to reach the target consumer.