Marketing Mix for a Service Company Marketing

Marketing Mix for a Service Company

Marketing Mix Analysis for a Service Company -- Gartner Inc.

Gartner Group (NYSE:IT) is a $1.3B provider of IT consulting and industry analysis services for the enterprise software, technology and outsourcing industries globally. The company operates in over 20 countries globally, with offices and teams of analysts and project management professionals available for implementing business process re-engineering, enterprise software and wide-scale IT deployments. The four most dominant countries include China, India, the United Kingdom and the U.S. Each of these countries is at varying levels of maturity in their IT requirements and needs, and as a result the marketing mix Gartner uses within each varies significantly. The intent of this paper is to analyze the marketing mix Gartner relies on across these four geographies.

Assessing Gartner's Product and Services Strategies

Gartner's expertise in the areas IT consulting, vendor evaluations of enterprise software vendors and the ability to manage large, very complex evaluations of enterprise resource planning systems are well-known and respected in the industry. Their global reach with published research which is one of their primary products, is also exceptional. There are however significant differences between China, India the United Kingdom and the U.S. In the area of products and services strategies. In China the focus is on how to get the first enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems up and running, including how best to integrate supply chain management modules and planning systems together. Gartner's reputation in the U.S. And throughout Europe acts as a catalyst of credibility in these emerging markets. The reliance on brand equity as an essential part of the marketing mix, specifically in the area of product functionality, is essential for any enterprise to scale across multiple geographies (Baumgarth, Binckebanck, 2011). As a result, the products and services sold in China are focused on new and emerging businesses that are starting to work with their first ERP system. Conversely this aspect of the marketing mix in the U.S. And UK will be on consolidating the number of enterprise systems a company has, trimming back costs while also increasing responsiveness to different parts of the organization. In India, this component of the marketing mix is concentrating on how to build services businesses more profitably, including how to best learn the skills to implement enterprise systems. The cultural differences between the U.S. And India are particularly acute which further forces Gartner to rely on electronic forms of communication and interaction in this dimension of their market mix (Hofstede, McCrae, 2004).

Assessing Gartner's Pricing Strategies

The pricing strategies vary most significantly between China, India, the United Kingdom and the U.S. due both to currency fluctuations and the major variations in how the Gartner is perceived in each of these geographies. The value-based pricing strategies Gartner uses in the UK and the U.S. are significantly higher than the pricing in China and India. The competition in India is significantly lower-priced than Gartner and as a result, there is more of a focus on actual customer success stories and a focus on value over just deliverables or analyst thought leadership. Gartner quotes pricing in both Chinese currencies on their proposals to show expertise in the nation and also communicate with senior management teams more effectively. In the U.K. And the U.S., the focus is entirely on value delivered and showing Return on Investment (ROI) for developing specific strategies for clients. The UK and U.S. are the only regions of the world that strive to equate pricing to ROI in the Gartner marketing mix.

Assessing Gartner's Promotion Strategies

The promotional strategies concentrate on the success stories of clients in each geography. In China, the success stories are oriented towards the installation and use of first-time enterprise systems, while in India the focus is on creating extensions of existing enterprise systems in other regions of the world. These approaches compliment and support the corporations who need IT guidance to better run their companies. Communications strategies in China and India are more oriented towards the hands-on expertise of staff and support teams there, showing a very pragmatic view of the company. Contrary to these communications strategies in China and India, those in the UK and the U.S. are more focused on how to create an overarching IT strategy and framework to achieve complex, long-term business objectives. The communications strategies in the UK and the U.S. are therefore more aligned to the needs of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and less to the individual IT directors and managers who implement systems which is the case in China and India. The differentiation within the marketing mix that Gartner relies on is designed to support the company's role as a trusted advisor in the markets it has chosen to compete in (Kim, Hyun, 2011).

Gartner's Selection of Place or Distribution Strategies